VALE ONE by Jeremy Ludowyke
My name is Jeremy Ludowyke and I’d like to tell you something of Alistair’s life before he came to Australia in 1969.
Like Alistair, I was born in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, of Dutch heritage and ancestry. The first Roosmale Cocq arrived in Ceylon from the Netherlands in 1763 and many were Magistrates or Judges in the first Dutch then British colony. Perhaps this is where Alistair inherited his magisterial bearing.
Mary Kostakidis, in https://johnmenadue.com/wong-defines-australias-foreign-policy/ …. where the title reads “Wong defines Australia’s foreign policy … all the way with the USA”
It was an extraordinary feel-good speech that nevertheless sent a very clear message to the region: the vehicle through which Australia will ensure we participate in shaping in the region, is AUKUS – an Anglosphere alliance to steer the Asia Pacific.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Penny Wong addresses the National Press Club in Canberra, Monday, April 17, 2023. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING
Regardless of reassurances and pledges regarding respect, inclusiveness and sovereignty, Asian leaders will understand well the essence of her message, in spite of the dulcet tones, the dignity and gravitas.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, Australian culture, australian media, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, economic processes, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, life stories, military strategy, Pacific Ocean politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, truth as casualty of war, Ukraine & Its Ramifications, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
As I walked along the Galle Fort’s ramparts on several occasions in early April this year 2023, not only did pleasant memories flood back: the intriguing present lay before me (literally in some cases) …;
while a regular ‘little tide’ of tourists (perhaps Ukrainian or Russian?) passed me every now and then. The ambience and power of setting and nostalgia enveloped me at every stage. As a youngster the ramparts were not my only passageway. The rocks at the bottom edge of the walls and/or the sea provided adventurous routes this way or that…. familair routes because one knew where the thorny corals and dangerous spots were.
Chandre Dharmawardana, in The Island, 17 April 2023 , ….. whose preferred title is “The relevant and irrelevant fear of Artificial Intelligence”
The oracle-like power of the ‘large-language’ Chatbot named chatGPT has frightened rational techies and mystic mullahs alike. Elon Musk, Steve Wozniac who co-founded Apple Inc., historians like Yuval Harari, and academics like the Turing-prize winner Yoshua Bengio of Montreal University called for a six-month pause for developing AI beyond GPT-4, the latest technology released by OpenAI.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, economic processes, education, energy resources, governance, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, medical puzzles, meditations, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, security, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, trauma
Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 16 April 2023,
Dimuth Karunaratne struck an assured 179, Kusal Mendis amassed 140, and Sri Lanka took firm grip of the Test, as that pair’s 281-run partnership for the second wicket formed the centrepiece of the hosts’ dominant day one. Not only were Karunaratne and Mendis largely untroubled by the Ireland bowlers on a flat Galle deck, they also ensured that their progress was brisk, hitting 33 fours and a six between them.
Christine Middap in The Weekend Australian, 15/16 April 2023, where the title is “Pocock’s Progress”
He tries to start the day with some quiet contemplation.
David Pocock in the Senate.….Pix by Martin Ollman
Pocock with a redneck rock wallaby , …. Pix by Rohan Thomson
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, centre-periphery relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, electoral structures, governance, heritage, legal issues, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world affairs
Shamara Wettimuny in Financial Times, 12 April 2023 … with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi
On a muggy Friday afternoon, the auditorium of the National Library of Sri Lanka slowly filled with an eager audience from Colombo, the Hill Country and beyond. It was the launch of a book by Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Mythri Jegathesan, of Santa Clara University.
Mythri Jegathesan
Her book, a work on and of solidarity with the Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka, ‘Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Post-war Sri Lanka’ was originally published by the University of Washington Press in 2019 to widespread acclaim. It was awarded the 2020 Diane Forsyth Prize for the best book featuring feminist anthropology research and in 2021, it won the Michelle Z. Rosaldo Book Prize for its significant contribution to feminist anthropology.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, island economy, language policies, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes
TULANA is a Sri Lanka Jesuit Province Apostolate mandated by the Superiors and founded in 1974 by its current Director, the Asian Jesuit Theologian, Indologist and Buddhist Scholar, Fr. Aloysius Pieris, s.j.
“The name TULANA has its roots in Sanskrit and means four things taken together: elevation, weighing, comparing and deciding for the weightier things – in short DISCERNMENT.”
Revd Aloysius Peiris, s.j.
Its primary founding motivation was as a response to two challenges – the challenge of the spirituality and philosophy of Sri Lanka’s major religion, Buddhism, and the challenge of the socio-political aspirations of the highly educated but marginalised rural youth.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, charitable outreach, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, language policies, legal issues, life stories, meditations, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, religiosity, self-reflexivity, social justice, Sri Lankan scoiety, teaching profession, tolerance, unusual people, voluntary workers, welfare & philanthophy, world affairs
Michael Roberts
In presenting a Zoom Lecture relating to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka in April 2021 for Dr. Geethika Dharmasinghe’s class at Colgate University in USA a month or so back, I deployed the work that went into one of books: that entitled FIRE & STORM.
I now atempt to shock people around the world with pictorial illustrations of some — note “Some” (with all its partialities) — photographs of the political and Eelam War scenarios in Sri Lanka displayed in Fire & Storm.
Filed under accountability, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, Eelam, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, jihadists, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, meditations, military strategy, modernity & modernization, nationalism, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language, world events & processes
David Jansze, in Email Letter to Michael Roberts, April 2023 **
Dear Michael,
Malcolm and I were the only members of our branch of the Janszé family of our generation (and those previous) left behind in Sri Lanka at the time of his death. My son has yet to beget an heir.
Our grandfather, who had his secondary education at Trinity College, Kandy, was a Lawyer. All five of his sons also attended Trinity College and, in turn, so did the males of the next generation, with the exception of my father’s two sons (my elder brother and I), who had their secondary education at S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia. My dad, too, qualified as a Lawyer at the Colombo Law College and remained in Colombo.
thuppahi
