Category Archives: sri lankan society

November 14, 2018 · 10:39 am

Goodness Gracious! NGOs in Sri Lanka

Lionel Wijesiri, in Daily News, 12 November 2018, where the title reads   “Are NGOs a force for good?”

Jeevan Thiagarajah’s story titled “Why Indonesia is right to limit NGOs” (Daily News – November 5) has induced me to add few of my own thoughts on the same subject. NGOs are nothing new to us since they have been functioning in Sri Lanka for more than six decades. They are highly complex organisations that a simple man-in-the-street will find it difficult to comprehend. In fact, even the term NGO itself has various interpretations.

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November 14, 2018 · 10:03 am

Cliffhanging Situation Still? …. After Strong Supreme Court Intervention

Sam Samarasinghe, aka SWR de A Samarasinghe,  courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 14 November 2018,  where the title reads “Pulling Back From The Brink: The Supreme Court Verdict & Its Implications”

Yesterday, November 13 evening, the third branch of government, the Judiciary in the form of the Supreme Court, dealt a blow for Sri Lanka’s fragile democracy when it issued a stay order on dissolving parliament effective until December 07. The Election Commission will suspend all action to hold parliamentary elections on January 5. In doing so the Supreme Court put the country first, as it should. In effect this allows the Speaker to recall parliament. 

“Me First” In sharp contrast, the president, who is the head of the executive branch, has been acting in the last two weeks with impunity, largely in his own self-interest. The legislative branch (parliament) has become an auction house where bribery reigns, cabinet office is available as a bribe for partisan behavior and self comes before country for very many MPs.

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November 14, 2018 · 2:26 am

About King Frog in One Little Frog-Hole: Lanka’s Decline

Introducing Richard Simon

While composing a history of S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia, Richard Simon has crafted an essay that praises Canon De Saram for his vision in keeping the school out of the clutches of the standardized educational platform devised by CWW Kannangara in the 1940s – despite the cost, namely, considerable privation in the trappings of the school borne for several decades. Deploying the metaphor of knowledge focused solely on the height of one’s own Piduratalagala with blanket inattention to that of Mount Everest, Simon presents a slashing criticism of the overkill in indigenization ushered in by the political processes of the 1940s to 1970s – here echoing one of Canon RS de Saram’s prize-day speeches where the latter asked: “What do they know of Ceylon who only Ceylon know?”

 CWW Kannangara 

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November 13, 2018 · 2:47 pm

Interpretative Argie-Bargie I: Samarasinghe vs Rajapakse

The political wrestling match in Sri Lanka beginning in late October has led to a host of articles arguing for and against the Sirisena-Rajapaksa intervention and the attempted deposition of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe (an issue that is still in limbo).  The list of essays in the public realm from legal experts as well as membe s of the intelligentsia is as tall as any coconut tree …. and both parties claim to be Mount Everest. Some of these essays have already been featured in Thuppahi and there are simply too many essaysin print and internet for anyone to read all. So, my samples are chance hits. HERE I have Sam Samarasinghe in one corner and Ruwan Rajapakse in another –not addressing each other as such, but serving as samples of the intellectual fisticuffs here-there-everywhere.

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November 12, 2018 · 11:41 pm

An Up-Country Village with an Ethnic Mix in Harmony

Priyan de Silva, in Daily News, 5 November 2018, where the title is “Little Valley: where ethnic harmony reigns”

“I was entrusted with this grocery business by my father in 1991. I was 24 years old at the time,” said S.R.A. Bandula, weighing the few 100 grams of groceries that Valliamma had asked for. At the same time, 23-year-old Mohamed Rifad was leaning against the counter and munching on a few parippu wades while listening to our conversation. I was in the Little Valley colony situated in the Suduwella Grama Niladhari division of the Deltota Divisional Secretariat in the Central Province. The little grocery store run by Bandula and his wife Anoma Kumari is the first building on the narrow street that runs through the colony. “My father started the business when people could only afford to buy one beedi or half a cake of washing soap at a time,” recalled Bandula.

The street that runs through the colony was lined with small cottages which are in fact renovated line rooms and home to people from all three ethnic communities in Suduwella.

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November 11, 2018 · 2:27 pm

Our Murali: An Ecumenical Man for All Peoples and Ethnicities

Pushpendra Albe, in Cricket Age, 10 November 2018 where the title is “Murali Helps All Communities Alike, So Who Can Complain?”

As a cricketer, Muttiah Muralitharan has been regarded as the greatest spinnerof all time. As a cricketer, his journey to become the living legend of the game by overcoming all the hurdles and controversies, was nothing sort of a spectacular fairy tale.

However, there is another side of Murali, which has turned out equally admirable. As a philanthropist, through his NGO Foundation Of Goodness (FOG), Murali have brought change in the millions of the Sri Lankans, irrespective of their caste, background or religion. Murali’s journey as a philanthropist in last one decade has transformed Sri Lanka’s poor communities and has opened the whole new world for the younger generations. With his manager and founder trustee of FOG Kushil Gunasekera, Murali has become a symbol of peace, harmony and has uplifted millions of lives. Those Tamil leaders, who are questioning Murali’s contribution to the community, must see the ground reality of bowling legend philanthropic achievements, before pointing fingers towards him!

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November 8, 2018 · 1:41 pm

Confronting Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Q & A in 2018 – Swedish Journalist Mikaelsson

Johan Mikaelsson, in Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 5 November 2018, where the title is “Impunity Island: Sri Lanka’s “predator emeritus” on rebound,”

Many local journalists feel discomfort when they hear the name Gotabaya Rajapaksa[1]. He is seen as a ruthless person, who was behind the murder wave that took the lives of their colleagues. They see it as unthinkable to contact him and ask critical questions. The few foreign journalists who tried to put some pressure on him when he held his powerful position 2005–2015 were met with anger. After 2015, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been almost invisible in international media.

 

‘Gota’, the nick-name under which he is usually known, is now often surrounded by a glow, a shimmering luster. Many want to see more of ‘Gota’, they regard him as a wonder maker. Most editors avoid challenging him. A few journalists in the domestic English-language press have asked difficult questions, but ‘Gota’ appears to be ready to move on, possibly as a candidate in the presidential election in 2020.

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November 8, 2018 · 10:27 am

Sri Lanka’s Political Story from 1948-2018 in a Slash-and-Burn Nutshell

Qadri Ismail, in Groundviews, 3 November 2018, where the title is “WHAT, to the minority, is democracy?” ….with emphasis insertedby the Editor, Thuppahi

Maithripala Sirisena violates the constitution, stands to destroy democracy itself. Liberals, overwhelmingly Sinhalese, are aggrieved, appalled, aghast.

As a minority, I laugh. Not the happy laughter of someone enjoying a good joke. But the bitter, mirthless cackle of someone forced to read this script many times before – like every full moon, when the temple speakers blare its bana and you can’t blot out the noise with sleep because the liquor stores are closed.

All postcolonial Sri Lankan heads of government, all of them Sinhalese, have consistently violated the constitution and/or “threatened” democracy – usually by practicing it – and/or oppressed minorities. One could deem it a job requirement.

Just a few months after independence, Don Stephen Senanayake denaturalized, then disenfranchised ‘Indian’ Tamil citizens, already alienated from this country by their naming. Constitutional? Probably not. Democratic? Absolutely – passed by a majority of Parliament. Continue reading →

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November 7, 2018 · 3:23 pm

Sinhalese War Poems and the Portuguese

Rohini Paranavitana … a reprint of an article from Jorge Flores (ed.) Re-exploring the links. History and Constructed History=ies between Portugal and Sri Lanka, Wiesbaden, Harassowitz Verlag , 2007, pp. 49-62.

Sri Lankan classical literature enriched with Buddhist thought did not promote any war or violence up to about the 16th century. Even though war is involved in these writings, the classical writers took the North Indian legendary war as a model. The European model of war was experienced in Sri Lanka only after the arrival of the Portuguese on the island. It was quite a new experience to the Sinhala king and his army to retaliate against Europeans as invaders. The Portuguese engaged in ruthless war with a nation which had a great poetic tradition that made use of this new experience to generate a new area of literary expression within the tradition, referred to as “war poems”.

 

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November 7, 2018 · 1:24 am

The Situation of the Tamils in the Present Saga — Guruparan

Kumaravadivel Guruparan in Scroll, 5 November 2011, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s political crisis explained, and what it means for the island nation’s Tamil community”

In November 2014, Maithripala Sirisena, who was then a cabinet minister and member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, broke ranks with his leader, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and agreed to be the common presidential candidate of the Opposition, led by the United National Party. Sirisena won the election in what was then hailed as a “democratic revolution”.

He undid that “revolution” on October 26 this year when he sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister and appointed Rajapaksa in his place. He did so ignoring the constitutional amendment he had helped pass after coming to power in 2015, which had done away with the president’s power to remove the prime minister. He thus triggered what is being called Sri Lanka’s first unconstitutional transfer of power – a coup.

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