Category Archives: religious nationalism

Pyrrhic Defeat: Seven Days which shattered the Great Game of Smashing Afghanistan

Jolly Somasundaram

            “Truth is like the Sun, one can shut it off for sometime, but it will not go away.” …. Elvis Presley                  

Afghanistan has done it again! A country, where her geography was her destiny, made her push towards repeated trysts with history- Alexander’s Greeks, Mongols, Mughals, the Brits, Russians, Americans. She, redoubtable to foreign invaders, specialised in making her country, micro- Kanattestans for these invading hordes. These done-in foreign forces now out-done, were not small fry but superpowers.

Troops from Britain- the Rotweiller in her time slot of Empire building- were decimated three times, bleaching this arid landscape. Undaunted, Sysyphean Britain ventured on the fourth, though now a metamorphosed American poodle: same wipe-out. Russia, in her own time slot of imperial hope, was similarly sent scurrying home. Smaller European countries- Australia, Germany, France Italy, Canada, wishing to taste Petite Gloire but lacking oomph, hitch hiked on the NATO bandwagon: the same degrading exit.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, conspiracies, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, power politics, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry

Taliban Ban? No More Music in Afghanistan?

ONE = A Celebrated Afghan School Fears the Taliban Will Stop the Music

“The Afghanistan National Institute of Music became …”

Item in NY Times [whihc demands payment for access !]

Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under Afghanistan, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, Fascism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, Taliban, world events & processes, zealotry

The Skeins of Class bearing on the Threads of Sinhala Cultural Revival under the British

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 24 July 2021, where the title reads “Colonial Bourgeoisie and Sinhala Cultural Revival”

The colonial bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka did not form a monolithic class. They were divided horizontally as well as vertically: horizontally on the basis of income and inheritance, and vertically on the basis of primordial attachments, such as caste ideology. Various factors, mainly economic, conspired as much to unify the bourgeoisie as they did to divide them, distinguishing them by their homogeneity as much as by their heterogeneity.

Panadura Vaadaya

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, historical interpretation, island economy, Kandyan kingdom, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, nationalism, paintings, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people

Facing Religious Zealots: Easter Sunday 21/4 Placed in a Global Conetxt

  Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, in .. where the ttile runs thus “Geopolitics Of The Easter Attacks: The Weaponization Of Religion Amid Hybrid War”

“We have met the enemy and he is us” — Walt Kelly from Pogo Comics, quoted in “The ISIS is US: the shocking truth behind the Army of Terror”[1]

“Crime is a form of communication that is both complex and fascinating as it is always characterized by a relationship that can be established between elements present and something absent, or yet to be discovered…Investigating a crime and trying to prevent recurrence means evaluating every possible voluntary and involuntary message left by an author..”[2]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/7/sri-lanka-catholics-demand-justice-for-easter-bombing-victims

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under american imperialism, ancient civilisations, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

Ameer Ali’s Academic Works and Career

Recent Essays of Some Significance 

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS as set out in Wikipedia, …. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameer_Ali_(academic)  …. clearly not updated

Ali, A. (2016) From Islamophobia to Westophobia: The long road to radical Islamism. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 3 (1). pp. 1-19.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, australian media, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, devolution, economic processes, education, Eelam, electoral structures, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, island economy, jihad, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, LTTE, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

Charting Anagarika Dharmapala’s Many Pursuits

Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, reviewing  Bhadrajee S. Hewage’s book A NAME FOR EVERY CHAPTER: Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism”

‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates.

Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to be revealed of the man or his work. That is until you read Bhadrajee Hewage’s “Anagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism.”

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, British imperialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disparagement, economic processes, education, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, literary achievements, nationalism, patriotism, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, religiosity, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes

A Refreshing New Study of the Anagarika Dharmapala’s Endeavours

The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates.

Rarely has so much been written both in the West and in the East about the work of a ‘revivalist,’ that one would conclude there is nothing left to be revealed of the man or his work. That is until you read Bhadrajee Hewage’sAnagarika Dharmapala and Ceylonese Buddhist Revivalism.”

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, Buddhism, chauvinism, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disparagement, education, education policy, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, literary achievements, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes, zealotry

Enthusiasm for War: Australians in the 1910s and Jihadists in the 2010s

Michael Roberts

Introduction:  Remembrance Day ceremonies in Australia and Europe led to the recuperation of items on the “Will to War” which I had presented way back in time[1] and Dr Richard Koenigsberg[2] in New York has chipped in by sending me copies of some of my articles in the Library of Social Science (his outfit). At a time in 2020 when sporadic jihadist assassinations in France and Australia in 2020 have reminded us forcefully of the recurring phenomenon of the force of Allahu Akbar in the Middle East as well as such outposts as Sri Lanka (witness the 21/4 strikes in 2019)[3] as well as Australia (see below).

Continue reading

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes

Kamikaze, Mujahid, Tamil Tiger: Sacrificial Devotion in Comparative Lens

Michael Roberts, reprinting an essay drafted in 2007 and since presented in Fire & Storm in 2010 (chapter 19: 131-38)

  • Gandhi tried for years to reduce himself to zero” (Dennis Hudson 2002: 132).
  • Hitler: “You are nothing, your nation is everything” (quoted in Koenigsberg 2009: 13).
  • LTTE: “the martyr sacrifices himself for the whole by destroying the I…” (Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam’s interpretation of a Tamil Tiger supporter’s poem; 2005: 134).
  • Spokesman for Al Qaida after the Madrid bombing: “You love life and we love death”
  • Col. Karuna, ex-LTTE: “Death means nothing to me….”
  • The Hagakure is “a living philosophy that holds that life and death [are] the two sides of the same shield” (Yoshio Mishima in his The Way of the Samurai, quoted in Moeren 1986: 109-10).
  • Bushido means to die” (Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 117).
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpbl0azdFM …. Kamikaze strike

Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, European history, female empowerment, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, immolation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, meditations, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power sharing, propaganda, psychological urges, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan scoiety, suicide bombing, Taliban, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, violence of language, war reportage, world events & processes, Zen at war

Allahu Akbar! Missing Dimensions in Contemporary Reportage

Michael Roberts

I recently watched a good part of Stephen Sackur’s dialogue with a French lady politician [whose name I have forgotten]. Sackur pursued his usual hard-line aggressive and bullying mode of questioning – posing vigorous criticisms of the French government’s position on secularism and its hostility to the carving out of sacred domains by French Muslim peoples.  The implicit suggestion[1] was that the British system’s tolerance of religious sensibilities was a better line of policy.[2]

Muslim protests … and the selfie proudly posted by the Islamic terrorist who was responsible for the killings in Nice in October 2020

Continue reading

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, ethnicity, European history, fundamentalism, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, suicide bombing, Taliban, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes