Category Archives: refugees

October 30, 2023 · 2:00 am

Bertrand Russell’s Message to the World on Zionism in January 1970

“Bertrand Russell’s Last Message“…. January 1970 — presented at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egfCTz-ZuZU .… & now sent to me by “A Sri Lankan in Brisbane” who reiterates the stance he took a few days back with An APPRAISAL that I present for readers to appraise after listening to the You Tube presentation marked above and is attached Blogging Theology MEMO below.

Portrait of British philosopher and social activist Bertrand Russell smoking his pipe as he looks out to sea, circa 1960….. Photo by Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

 


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September 4, 2023 · 7:40 pm

The Lord of Cricketing Gods in India: MS Dhoni

Karthik Krishnaswamy in The Cricket Monthly, 24 July 2023 , where the title reads “MS Dhoni joined the pantheon of mythical Tamil heroes”

Superstars in Chennai emerge from cinema or politics or both. Then came along a cricketer from Ranchi

Chennai: Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni during the IPL 2023 cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Lucknow Super Giants, at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, in Chennai, Monday, April 3, 2023. (PTI Photo/R Senthil Kumar)(PTI04_03_2023_000319B)

It begins when he steps over the boundary. A rasping chant. A name.

“Baashha!” A drumroll. “Baashha!” Another drumroll.

There are urgent bars of instrumental orchestration, and as they swell to a crescendo, a voice pierces the air: “Let’s welcome the new batsman, Mahendra Singh… Dhoniiiiiiiiii!”

The timing is just right. The announcer’s voice gives way to the power-packed vocals of SP Balasubrahmanyam.

Hey Baashha paaru Baashha paaru
Pattalathu nadaya paaru
Pagai nadungum padaya paaru
Coatu suitu rendum eduthu
Poattu nadakkum puliya paaru

Behold Baashha
Behold the warrior-like stride
Behold the army that sends
shudders down enemy spines
Behold the tiger in coat and suit

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February 13, 2023 · 3:32 pm

Australia’s Policy towards Sri Lankan Refugee Migrants after the Civil War

Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications”  …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **

Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.

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February 10, 2023 · 11:53 pm

Remembering the Unseen Hands Supporting One of My Books

Michael Roberts in the DEDICATION presented on the first page of the book Tamil Person and State: Essays,  Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2014, … ISBN 978-955- 665-230-7 

The essays that make up this anthology would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous individuals who provided me with information during face-to-face conversations, Skype and telephone chats or through responses by email. This will be only too evident if readers take note of my citations and footnotes. For this reason, it is entirely appropriate that I dedicate this work to all those who have assisted me in my researches over the last few years. Not all of them will agree with my thrusts. Indeed, there are a few of them in Colombo, such as Ananda Chittambalam, who have disputed some of my arguments, while yet encouraging me in my researches and publication programmes.

Ana Chittambalam: ex-Royal College, raconteur, promoter of causes and a staunch ally and dangerous foe

 

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February 2, 2023 · 2:50 pm

The Fate of the Roma Gypsies in Europe: From Nazi Holocaust to Continuous Marginalization

Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”

Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945

 

Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936

“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “

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February 1, 2023 · 6:58 pm

Australia’s Response to the Refugee Problems generated by Sri Lanka’s Civil War in the 2000s and 2010s

Betts & Higgins address the “Migration Policy” pursued by Australia in the context of the refugee problems arising in the context of Sri Lanka’s “Civil War.” [i.e. what most refer to as the “Eelam Wars.”]. The full title is noted below and their “Abstract” is presented.

The infamous Alex Kuhendarajah on the Sumatran(?) coast witha boatlad of Tamil refugees  …. and other pictorial illustrations of refugees and their boats

 

For the benefit of those not familiar with the scenario, the refugees were mostly SL Tamils, but there was a ‘supply chain’ of agents and smuggler boats from Sri Lanka, India and the Indonesian islands that also catered to Sinhala and Muslim personnel seeking “eldorado” in the West via Australia. See some bibliographical items listed at the end which will lead one to even more literature…. Michael Roberts with thanks to Johnny De Silva in Melbourne for converting the file containing the Betts & Higgins article.

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September 8, 2022 · 1:40 am

A Tamil Saivite Temple in Australia: Sustaining Community Amidst Linguistic Diversity

A Notice re a NEW BOOK on the negotiation of language and identity in a Tamil Saivite Temple in Australia by NILRUKSHI PERERA

Diversity is a buzzword of our times and yet the extent of religious diversity in Western societies is generally misconceived. This ground-breaking research draws attention to the journey of one migrant religious institution in an era of religious superdiversity.

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September 7, 2022 · 9:51 pm

Tamil Civilians as Sandbags in 2008/09 & Blinding Ignorance in Geneva

Lucien Rajakarunanayake in An Article on 11th September 2014 entitled “Sandbags of Humans” in strategy to woo the West” …. with the highlighting being the present impositions of The Editor, Thuppahi

“I come across new evidence regularly in the midst of misinformation and dis-information that is a facet of the propaganda war that has been sharpening since the LTTE began to retreat in 2008. Since the volume of data is huge, a thorough investigation calls for assiduous work by a team which includes those who are culturally competent and able to discern manipulation.”

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August 24, 2022 · 1:51 pm

Miracles Amidst the Horrendous Holocaust

Cameron Stewart in The Australian, 24 August 2022, where the title reads “Holocaust Twin Phillip Maisel leaves behind a life of miracles,” .… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Just weeks ago, after he turned 100 with his twin sister Bella, holocaust survivor Phillip Maisel shared his secret of his miraculous life: “Just be positive,’ he said with a grin. “Always be positive.”

 

 

 

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August 22, 2022 · 1:04 am

Irony. Defiance. Salman Rushdie’s Appreciation of the Everyday within the Heat of the Fatwa

Fintan O’Toole, in The Irish Times, 15 August 2022, where the title runs “The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of it was unimaginable”  ………..  reproduced here with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi   &*&

The first time I met Salman Rushdie, the very idea of meeting Salman Rushdie was unimaginable. It was after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against him. Rushdie had disappeared from the face of the earth.

By refusing to subsist in living death they prescribed for him, the author stood up for life itself as the ordinary human birthright.

 

 

I went to a party in County Wicklow. Seeing him standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine was like meeting Lazarus.

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