Category Archives: religious nationalism

October 17, 2023 · 12:49 pm

Palestine Events: Appalling Media Bias in Western World

Fair Dinkum

Maloof strongly believes Mossad and Netanyahu knew Hamas would attack Israel, but allowed this to take place so it would give Israel the excuse to ethnically cleanse Gaza, level the entire city to the ground, including apartment blocks, hospitals, schools, universities, UN buildings, aid trucks, as well as convoys of civilians leaving their homes in compliance with Israeli demands. All this so that Israel can annex Gaza and begin to build up new Israeli settlements in Gaza which were the same policies adopted by Hitler in WW2. 

 Michael Maloof, Former Pentagon Senior Security Policy Analyst and a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense of the US Government.

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October 15, 2023 · 12:00 pm

Vengeance Unrestrained in Palestine: Pictorials Awesome, Atrocious, Awful

This graphic video-item was sent to me by a venerable Burgher-Lankan friend in Melbourne. It is NOT for viewing by the fainthearted ……  because it is a deliberate circulation of a graphic example of HAMAS ‘justice’. 

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October 9, 2023 · 11:41 pm

Buddhist Shrines as Weapons of Political Intrusion in the Today

Editorial in Daily FT, 8 June 2023, which is entitled “Archaeology Department must act impartially in N & E” … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The past few months have seen several protests held in the North and East over the acquisition of land to construct new Buddhist shrines. It has been alleged that Buddhist monks aided by army personnel have been engaged in these questionable activities with the tacit approval of the Archaeology Department which have led to tensions among the local population and the military.

At a recent meeting with Archaeology Department officials, President Ranil Wickremesinghe weighed in on the issue and chided Department officials for taking money from Buddhist monks to carry out their work and reminded them that they do not work for a private firm but a Government institution that has to act according to the law.

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October 5, 2023 · 8:05 pm

Tooth Relic Of The Buddha: A Relic In Sri Lankan Politics c. 300-2000

Dr. Dharmaratna Herath

A detailed book on the history of the Tooth Relic. This is the extended version of the PhD thesis of the author submitted to School of Oriented and African Studies(SOAS), University of London in 1974.

This was first priced for Rs14,000. But it is now available for Rs 8,500 (extra 10% off if purchased from Vijitha Yapa or Visidunu at CIBF).

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September 20, 2023 · 1:42 pm

Jehan Perera on Channel Four’s Slant on the Easter Sunday Attacks of 2019

Jehan Perera in The Island, 19 September 2019

The Channel 4 documentary that claims to give the story behind the Easter bombing has restarted the debate, within the country, about who was behind the foul deed, and why. The answer is not proving to be simple. It has become the subject of anger, threat and controversy. The identities of the suicide bombers and their victims are known. Eight suicide bombers died. 269 innocent people also died. All of the bombers were Muslim. Some of them were highly educated and came from prosperous families. They would not have wished to sacrifice their lives except for a cause they believed in as being of the utmost importance.

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September 11, 2023 · 8:54 pm

Articles on the Easter Sunday Attacks in Sri Lanka, 2019: THOSE in April 2019

VARIED…. IMMEDIATE – APRIL 2019

Nirupama Subramaniam 2019 “Nirupama’s Incisive Appraisal identifies Islamic Jihadist Patterns in Easter Sunday Terror,” 22 April 2019, ….. https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/nirupamas-incisive-appraisal-identifies-islamic-jihadist-patterns-in-palm-sunday-terror/

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June 4, 2023 · 12:17 pm

Deciphering Buddhism: The Correct Pathway

Ananda Abeysekara’s Academic Article: “On Rewriting Buddhism: Or, How Not to Write a History,” Religion and Society, vol. 13. 1(2022): 39-80. 

ABSTRACT: Through a detailed reading of a recent study of medieval Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka in conjunction with a number of other works, this article explores the troubling legacy of translating the historical questions of subjectivity into the modern language of ‘agency’, ‘autonomy’, ‘innovation’, and ‘creativity’. This legacy cannot easily be separated from the politics of white privilege in post-colonial studies of Buddhism and South Asian religion. The problem with trying to expose creativity, so pervasive in the studies of South Asian religion, is not merely a matter of anachronistic conceptualization of divergent historical forms of religious practice and subjectivity. It is that the very possibility of translating subjectivity into easily digestible aestheticized modes of being (e.g., creativity) is predicated on an uninterrogated assumption about the self-evidence of such concepts independent of temporal forms of power encountered in forms of life. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2022 · 11:14 am

Nationalist Excess as Spark for Warfare

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 9 December 2022, where the title runs thus:  “Some reflections on nationalism, extremism, and warfare”

“Ethnonationalism was not a chance detour in European history: it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit that are heightened by the process of modern state creation. It is a crucial source of both solidarity and enmity, and in one form or another, it will remain for many generations to come. One can only profit from facing it directly.” …. Jerry Muller, “Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism”, Foreign Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations), March 2008 The first Human Security Report, published by the Human Security Centre, released in 2005, and subtitled “War and Peace in the 21st century”, strikes a dissonant chord in a world still reeling from the horrors of the September 11 attacks. Noting a decline in armed warfare since the end of the Cold War, its authors dismiss worries of increasing conflict in a section tellingly titled “Myths and misunderstandings.”

 

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November 30, 2022 · 12:56 pm

Potential for Terrror Attacks within Australia Now Lower

Clive Williams, in The Australian, 30 November 2022, where the title reads thus:  “Threat ‘lower’ but face of domestic terror is changing” ….

The announcement by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess that the terrorism threat level in Australia has been lowered from “probable” to “possible” reflects the view of the National Threat Assessment Centre that a terrorist incident here is now less likely.

An older woman praying and giving offerings at the ground zero site of the 2002 Bali bombings in the tourtist district of Kuta, Bali.

 

 

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September 15, 2022 · 12:22 am

In Appreciation of Professor Riaz Hassan: Two Accolades as Vale

 

 

 

 

 

 

ONE …. Joanne Barker: A Memory about RIAZ HASSAN

From 1992-2006 I worked at Flinders University in various positions, finally leaving in 2006 as the faculty general manager of one of the four faculties. In around 1993-4 when I was still in my early 30s and quite new at the university, I came to know Riaz Hassan as one of the professors. He probably didn’t know my name, but he was always kind and smiled and said hello if we passed on campus.

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