Anonymous Author: The English in Ceylon” … in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. XXVIII, No. CLV, 1851 May, pp. 409-12.
Category Archives: self-reflexivity
Hey Presto! How to Produce A Book — Visit Eventbite Webinar
Mayflower –Seachange, “Anyone can do it! How to write and publish your book (even in a pandemic!)”
Join authors Tasmina Perry, Juliet Coombe & Holly Kellam to discover how to get that book written, published and made into a movie!
The Sri Lankan Kaffrinha as Embodiment of African-Asian Hybridity
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, providing an Abstract of her article “Africa in South Asia: Hybridity in Sri Lankan Kaffrinha”
As public spaces become arenas to display cultural memories, Afro-descendants in South Asia become more visible. Emerging local histories further complement the trajectories of Africans and facilitate recognition of Afro-descendants. In my paper “Africa in South Asia: hybridity in Sri Lankan Kaffrinha” published in South Asian History and Culture (2020). I explore connections between Africa and Asia through a genre of music and dance called kaffrinha which enriched the colonial Sri Lankan culturescape and, continues in the postcolonial. In the absence of historical records of kaffrinha for centuries, I have explored alternative narratives – song texts, music scores, dance movements, paintings and frescoes in order to map the dynamics of kaffrinha.
Filed under Afro-Asians, arab regimes, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Remembering Indian Ocean Slavery through Film: Afro-Sri Lankan Memories
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
Whilst the transatlantic slave trade has overwhelmed the historiography of Africa, the forced easterly movement of Africans is only receiving scholarly attention in the twenty first century. Movement of Africans from the Continent is not characterised by the slave trade alone. Not surprisingly, free Africans moved eastwards as missionaries, soldiers, sailors and traders. Forced migration was concurrent with free migration.
Filed under accountability, Afro-Asians, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, immigration, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, photography, population, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Addressing Diversity. Six Sri Lankan Scholars in ICES Webinair Lecture Series
A WEBINAR SERIES, 18 November to 9 December 2020
These six webinars explored the challenges that we face in learning about and engagingwith the past in multi-religious, multi-ethnic contexts. This webinar series was presented in collaboration with the Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung…….
…. Herstory-History-Ourstory ….. Click here to watch all the webinars, or on each topic to watch the individual webinars.
Filed under ancient civilisations, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, religiosity, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, teaching profession, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
The Covid: Pervasive, Familiar but Elusive
Matt Ridley, in The Spectator, 9 May 2020 … where the title runs ” We know everything – and nothing – about Covid
We know everything about Sars-CoV-2 and nothing about it. We can read every one of the (on average) 29,903 letters in its genome and know exactly how its 15 genes are transcribed into instructions to make which proteins. But we cannot figure out how it is spreading in enough detail to tell which parts of the lockdown of society are necessary and which are futile. Several months into the crisis we are still groping through a fog of ignorance and making mistakes. There is no such thing as ‘the science’.
The Far Eastern Bureau and Its News Reels during World War II
Tony Donaldson
I enjoyed reading Michael Roberts’s short essay titled “Michael’s Testimony for VE Day in Britain, 8th May 1945,” published at Thuppahi on 10 May 2020. But I felt the story ended too quickly, leaving me to ponder where the story goes next. It would be good if Michael could continue this story. In the meantime, the following short note was triggered by Michael’s comment about the “insidious impact of Movietone News or Pathe News.”
After 3 September 1939, when Britain went to war with Germany, the British Ministry of Information (MOI) began arranging with numerous companies the release and distribution of their newsreels. One example was The Battle of Tobruk which was sent by plane to Colombo in March 1941. It was cleared through customs and distributed to cinemas in Colombo in time for screening at the evening shows on the same day the film arrived in Ceylon.
Filed under British colonialism, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, military expenditure, military strategy, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
The Making of Wahhabi Zealots in Sri Lanka, 1980s-2019
Michael Roberts
All those addressing the fervour that promoted the killing work of the Zahran Hashim jihadist network in Sri Lanka in April 2019 must come to grips with the modern currents of Wahhabi political thinking that go back to the outpourings of the Egyptian intellectuals Sayyid Qutb[1] and Al-Zawahiri[2] in the latter half of the 20th century. This step will then take investigators to the Al-Qaida movement[3] and thence to the more recent brand of Wahhabism embodied within ISIS.
Sayyid Qutb 
al-Zawahiri
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, arab regimes, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, disparagement, Eelam, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, Middle Eastern Politics, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, racist thinking, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry
Remembrance: Marking 21/4 Jihadist Zealotry in Sri Lanka
Pictures by Raymond Aponsu and Sulochana Gamage
Churches observed Black Sunday yesterday in protest over the terror attacks on 2019 Easter Sunday, calling on the government to deliver justice by prosecuting those responsible for the attacks. Protestors led by the two Colombo Auxiliary Bishops Rt.Rev. Anthony Jayakody and Rt.Rev.Maxwell Silva held placards pleading for justice in Negombo in front of the Katuwapitiya Church which was bombed on April 20, 2019 while others led by Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith gathered in front of the Kochchikade St. Anthony’s Church yesterday.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, cultural transmission, discrimination, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, trauma, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry
Lord Naseby targets Adele Balasingham …. and Lord Tariq Ahmad
Lord Michael Naseby, in Island, 5 March 2021, where the title is “Lord Naseby asks why Adele not prosecuted in UK for child recruitment”
Lord Naseby President of the UK all party British-Sri Lanka Parliamentary group, has questioned the failure on the part of the UK to prosecute senior LTTE leader Adela Balasingham, wife of the outfit’s late theoretician Anton Balasingham. Lord Naseby said that Adele, who had been involved with the LTTE for several decades, was responsible for recruitment and deployment of child soldiers.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, discrimination, Eelam, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, prabhakaran, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, war crimes, women in ethnic conflcits
