Category Archives: self-reflexivity

Hilda Muriel Kularatne, Theosophist & Educationist in Ceylon

Rehan Kularatne, presenting an original essay which has received its title and had highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

My grandmother Hilda Muriel Westbrook was born in Dulwich on 28 November 1895. She was the daughter of Walter Francis Westbrook, later Chief Registrar of the Colonial Office, and Jessie Duncan, a Scottish poet and scholar, the sister of noted (and absolutely dreadful) Celtic Revival painter John Duncan RSA. Jessie Duncan Westbrook was to publish a number of verse renditions of Persian, Sufi and Hindu poetry in the 1910s. She and my great-grandfather, being Theosophists, were both extremely interested in ‘Eastern’ religions.

Hilda was educated at the progressive James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) in Dulwich. Having excelled in modern languages (French and German) as well as in team sports like hockey (in addition to having Gustav Holst as her music master), she went on to Newnham in Cambridge to do a degree in Modern Languages in 1914, just after WWI broke out. (Though she completed the degree in 1917, she had to wait 30 years to be actually awarded her MA, as Cambridge was the last university in England to accept female graduates.)

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Israel’s FINAL SOLUTION in Palestine?

Graham E. Fuller, … in an essay entitled “Israeli Geopolitical goals in Palestine–Final Ethnic Cleansing?” …. 4 December 2023  …. presented here with highlighting added by the Editor, Thuppahi

Winston Churchill reportedly once commented, ”Never let a good crisis go to waste.” This remark takes on unsettling relevance in viewing the present crisis and slaughter in Gaza.

05/09/1934. Adolf Hitler…

 

 

 

 

 

Alastair Crooke, the former British diplomat and longtime deeply insightful observer of Middle East geopolitics wrote in a recent commentary that Israel’s strategy under Netanyahu’s ultra-right-wing religious and nationalist cabinet is to maintain whelming public support for the twin goals of the destruction of the “Hamas regime and its capabilities” and the release of all Israeli captives in Gaza. [https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/netanyahu-and-his-cabinet-are-taking–israel–to-biblical-ar]

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“Success” ….. The Buddhist Path

“SUCCESS” derives from the PROCESS not the results of Endeavour

An Erudite Buddhist Priest clarifies what the Path of Success is.

  • “The goal of life is trying your best” = among the sayings on Karma Yoga in the Bhagavat Gita  …………. An impressive address in concise speech from a Sri Lankan monk

NB : this item was circulated to friends on 7 December 2023 by Lorenz Pereira  of Royal College, the city of Colombo and that of Melbourne; and I can confidently state that Professor EOE Pereira, an epitome of wisdom, will be mighty pleased by this act of wise dissemination.

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An Evisceration War in GAZA …. by Germs …. Bombs & Gunfire

An Item in Anadolu Agency, 20 November 2023 ….

The former head of Israel’s National Security Council said the spread of epidemics and humanitarian disasters in the Gaza Strip  would help Israel reach victory faster. “The way to win the war faster and at a lower cost for us requires a system collapse on the other side and not the mere killing of more Hamas fighters,” Major General Giora Eiland wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

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Debating the Value of Tangential Historical Forays

Michael Roberts

 A FEW DAYS BACK, on 28th November 2023, I circulated this item among Lankan aficianado…. [ Let me add, here, that I was prompted to do this by the burgeoning world debate on the Palestinian-Israeli War that has been raging since August]. ………………………………………………………………….. https://thuppahis.com/2014/11/18/cartographic-photographic and -illustrations-in-support-of-the-memorandum-analysing-the-war-in-sri-lanka-and-propaganda

ROHANTHA GUNARATNA in Canada responded in critical fashion. …. So I circulated his Memo to some personnel  with this NOTE: “I encourage responses [to his Memo] from interested personnel – here, quite deliberately, reaching out beyond Lankans to Indians and Brits familiar with the Lankan scene in that period past.”

 

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Kumar Sangakkara Adorns the Field of Thuppahi

Assembled by Michael Roberts, who had the pleasure of befriending Kshema & Kumari Sangakkara at a chance meeting at the Premadasa Stadium (i.e Khettarama) when their son, Kumar, was playing for Sri Lanka’s B Team … and thus secured the pleasure of visiting their villa known as  “Engeltine Cottage” – a famous residence associated with the Hannadige Pieris family (about whom a guy named  Roberts had crafted a book in 1976 ….. https://thuppahis.com/2020/10/07/jeronis-pieris-letters-in-coffee-table-book-insights-into-19th-century-ceylon/).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Engeltine Cottage in Kandy: The Intertwining of Three Families ……. https://thuppahis.com › 2012/04/04 › engeltine-cottage-in-kandy-the-intertwining-of-three-families-pieris-sangakkara-and-krishnapillai/

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The Indian Tamils in British Ceylon & Sri Lanka: Pursuing Their Equality TODAY

International Conference focusing on  the topic MOVING TOWARDS EQUALITY AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH.”….  200 years of People of Indian Origin Tamils (IOT) in Sri Lanka” …. BCIS Auditorium (The Olympus), BMICH, Colombo,  11th December 2023

Welcome & Opening Address: Dr. Mario Gomez
Executive Director
International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo …

 Inaugural Address:  Dr. Yasodara Kathirgamathamby
Conference Chair, Department of Legal Studies
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
The Open University of Sri Lanka

Special Address: Prof. Gamini Keerawella, 
Executive Director, Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, Colombo

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The Palestine-Israel Conflict: Its Political and Legal Underpinnings

Rohini Hensman:  “The Political and Legal Underpinnings of the Palestine-Israel Conflict,” in New Politics, 2023 …. ……………………… https://www.academia.edu/110094670/The_Political_and_Legal_Underpinnings_of_the_Palestine_Israel_Conflict?email_work_card=view-paper

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive attack on Israeli territory, killing 1405 people including over 300 soldiers according to the Israeli state, although a month later the death toll miraculously came down to 1200. The Israeli state has responded by bombing the Gaza Strip, in which Hamas has its headquarters and over 2.3 million civilians have their homes, starving inhabitants of food, water, medicines and fuel. But why did this happen? And what can be done about it? On these questions, there is no agreement whatsoever.

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High-Profile Burghers & Other Exotic Personnel in Olde Ceylon

Rodney Vandergert, whose title reads thus: “Random Musings of A Senile Mind,”. an article which appeared on web on 4th March 2006 at https://kermeey.blogspot.com/2006/03/random-musings-of-senile-mind.html …… reproduced with selective highlights in this version … & brought to my attention by Charles Schokman of Australia

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven” Wordsworth: Preludes

In the Nineteen Forties and early Fifties, Bambalawatte was the centre of the universe. It was where all the meaningful action took place and where the principal actors were mainly Burghers and a group of expatriates drawn from half a dozen nationalities.

This was brought most forcibly to my mind after reading the recent obituaries which appeared in the local press – one to Zoe Jayatilleke by Tita Nathanielsz; the other to David Gladwin Loos , C.C.S.. by Bradman Weerakoon.                                                             

Rodney Jonklaas, Mike wilson  & Arthur c. Clarke at seaside in Ceylon 1950s

 

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DIG Jingle Dissanayake’s Report on the JVP in Lanka, 4th November 1974

A NOTE from Michael Roberts, 27 November 2023

This file is among the documentary material under my name in the Special Collections, Barr Smith Library, Adelaide University and Samantha Farnsworth, its chief, sent me a pdf copy  I cannot recall how the original Mss came into my hands. Its pdf format has been converted to Word File by my friend KKS Perera in Lanka. The spacing is erratic and difficult to change. I have resisted the temptation to highlight important details because I do not have adequate background knowledge of the situation in 1972 to 1974 (even though I conducted one or two lectures to JVPers held in the prison camp at Katugastota …… including Gamini Keerawella …… one of my previous History Honours students).

The photographs are my insertions …. and perhaps hit ‘n miss in character .

Wijeweera in rousing flow on platform … & on way to court with his lawyer

 

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