Young SWRD Bandaranaike and Sirima Ratwatte
SWRD in Gandhian mode – cover of Charkaya and Goyam Keta Continue reading
Category Archives: sri lankan society
Jews who left their footprint in Island Lanka
Tissa Devendra, in The Island, 29 November 2016
The only footprint, if any, left behind by the Jews of ancient times, is in the 11th century chronicle of the Arab geographer Idris. He writes that the king [probably Kasyapa IV] was advised by a Council of sixteen including four Jews – the rest being Buddhists, Muslims and Brahmins. A fascinating story from a compatriot of Sinbad the Sailor – but with no supporting evidence at all in our own chronicles.
Plesner & Bawa
The Portuguese: Assorted Jews came to Ceylon in the wake of the Portuguese invaders of the Maritime Provinces. In that era of the Spanish Inquisition, Jews from Spain and Portugal camouflaged their ethnic origins by adopting pseudo-Portuguese names such as Silva, Perera, Mendis [to name but a few] The plentiful harvest of such names, yet flaunted by Sinhalese families in our Maritime Provinces , establishes the depth of the footprint left behind by Portuguese “Jews”.** Continue reading
Afro-Asian Hybridity across the Indian Ocean
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
“Lost Narratives and Hybrid Identities in the Indian Ocean: Afro-Asians” has appeared in r print in Indi@logs Vol 4 2017, pp. 11-26, ISSN: 2339-8523
ABSTRACT of Article: The voluntary movement of Africans was concurrent with their involuntary uprooting, driven by the slave trade. Trade, colonisation and slavery have been drivers of migration, interconnecting people of diverse ethnicity globally. Afro-Asian communities are both historic and contemporary and, whilst Afro-diasporic communities in the Atlantic World are well recognised, the diasporas in Asia have only become visible in the last decade. Assimilation to the diversity of the Indian Ocean has contributed to this invisibility. With the loss of patronage due to changing political scenarios, African migrants have become disenfranchised. The dynamics of their identity, shaped by strong cultural memories bring out their African roots. This paper argues that diasporic consciousness of AfroAsians is expressed through their strong cultural memories. As people with dual belongings, identifying with both the homeland and the hostland, Afro-Asians are able to reconcile their hybrid identities. With the movement of Afro-Asians from the peripheries their subaltern voices are beginning to be heard. Their eclipsed histories and lost narratives are challenging the Atlantic model of African migration. Continue reading
Remembering Professor Neil Dias Karunaratne
Aloysians ALL
Born: 28 April 1937; Matara, Sri Lanka….Died: 19 December 2016; Brisbane, Australia
Neil was born in Matara, Sri Lanka, the second child to Peter and Emelda Karunaratne. Neil grew up in Matara, a beachside city on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, in a large family with three brothers and three sisters. Neil was enrolled at SAC on 17 January 1950 and was admitted as a hosteller. It was during his time at St Aloysius that he developed a lifelong drive for academic achievement and excellence. He obtained a 1st division in the Junior exam in 1952 and a 1st division in the Senior exam in 1954. He was a bronze medalist of the Royal Life Saving Society and a Queens Scout and Troup Leader for a short spell. He passed his Voucher exam in the St John’s Ambulance brigade and was a member of the Under 16 athletics team. Neil was the holder of the Abeyesundere Memorial Scholarship. Continue reading
Christopher Hitchens in Perceptive Reading of the LTTE Defeat in May 2009
Christopher Hitchens,in Slate, 25 May 2009, where the title is “The End of the Tamil Tigers” … and where the chief by-line says “Insurgencies don’t always have history on their side” … See my brief NOTE at the end re the late Christopher Hitchens and note that the highlights are my imposition
In the late fall of 1978, I was approached by a Sri Lankan Tamil rights group, which visited the office of the socialist weekly in London where I was then working and entreated me to pay a visit to their country. I say “their” country, though they actually referred to it as “Ceylon”: the British colonial name that continued to be the country’s name after independence in 1948. It was only changed in 1972. The word Lanka is simply the name for island in Sanskrit, and the prefix Sri has a connotation of holiness, and the alteration generally reflected the aspirations and preferences of the Sinhalese-speaking and Buddhist majority. So the difference in emphasis there was pretty large to begin with.
Sri Lankan soldiers with the remains of what’s said to be Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran = pic & caption as in SLATEFiled under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, Eelam, foreign policy, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes
American Power, American Shambles — Lanka 2009
Two Insights from the Sri Lankan scenario in early 2009 during the last stages of Eelam War IV which I re-discovered in going through an essay based on a Skype chat with Gotabaya Rajapaksa and investigation among the US Embassy despatches to Washington open to the world via Wikieaks
A = Ambassador Robert Blake to Gota: “We are Americans. We will teach them a lesson and even bomb them if need be.” –– in response to Gotabaya’s scepticism about the Tiger leadership’s readiness to accept international intervention to save the threatened civilian population in the remnant LTTE stronghold on the coastal shores abutting Nandikadal Lagoon [in the course of an amiable conversation on either the 11th or 15th April 2009]
Filed under Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Caste in Sinhala Society
කුලය – සිංහල සම්ප්රදායික
විකිපීඩියා, නිදහස් විශ්වකෝෂය වෙතින්
සමාජයක් යනු සංකීර්ණ ජන සබඳතා හා ආයතනික රටාවන්ගෙන් ගැවසී ගත් සාර්ව ඒකකයකි. එනම් යම් යම් සමාජ ක්රියාවන් හා ඒවායේ ප්රතිඵල ලෙසින් ගොඩ නැගී පවතින සංස්ථාදියේ සමස්ථ සංකලනයකි. මෙම ක්රියාවන් හා සබඳතා වල එක්තරා පෙළ ගැසීමක් දැකිය හැකි වෙයි. එක පිට එක වැටුණු තට්ටු පරිද්දෙන්, උස් පහත් ස්වරූපයෙන් දැකිය හැකි වූ මෙම ස්ථර ගත බව සමාජය තුළ බොහෝ කාලයක සිට දක්නට තිබූ බවට සාධක ඇත. පුද්ගලයාගේ උස් පහත් බව නැතිනම් පුද්ගලයා සමාජ ස්ථරයේ අයත් මට්ටම තීරණය කරනු ලබන එක් ස්ථරයක් ලෙස කුලය දැක්විය හැකිය.
බත්ගම කුලයේ නිවසක්
The Games that the Almighty Play: Syria Now, Sri Lanka Then
Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka, from The Island, 10 April 2017, where the title is “Watching Syria, seeing Sri Lanka” … highlighting in this presentation being my workas Editor …. and with further Commentary and Bibliographic References at the end
It was not easy to watch the proceedings on Friday April 7 that the UN Security Council’s emergency ‘open session’ on Syria without thinking of Sri Lanka, although the actual circumstances of the UN’s engagement with the two countries are very different. Only one thing seemed alarmingly similar. It seemed like a set up. US Ambassador Nikki Haley’s dramatic gesture of holding up photographs of chemical-gassed children only served to bring to mind the now famous theatrical display of a vial of anthrax by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the same venue to warn the Council of the imminent danger that lay before the world from WMDs in Iraq.
Image #: 24024242 Pigeons lie on the ground after dying from what activists say is the use of chemical weapons by forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad in the Damascus suburbs of Arbeen August 24, 2013. Picture taken August 24, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Dar (SYRIA – Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT ANIMALS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) REUTERS /STRINGER /LANDOV
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, Eelam, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes
Remembering Ravi Jayewardene as Man and Founder of the STF
Item in Sunday Observer, 9 April 2017
Today, Sri Lanka pays her solemn condolences to the late Ravi Jayewardene. He was a pilot, and later went on to make significant contributions in the corporate sector. Perhaps, the greatest legacy he leaves behind is the Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka Police. He was the daring visionary who used his prudent mind to foresee the need for a specialized unit within the Police Department at that time, in order to engage in counter terrorism operations and mitigate threats to national security.
A Moderate Tamil Voice of Reason in London 2013 — Pertinent Today
Rob Pinney from London, United Kingdom. May 18th, 2013…. http://tropicaltopix.tumblr.com/post/50977301878/read-the-entire-post-here-robpinney-london … With sections and highlighting inserted by Editor, Thuppahi
It really bothers me that the protest of ‘Tamils… gathered around photographs of those killed during the Sri Lankan civil war’ is being symbolized by people carrying the LTTE flag. Anyone who protests that massacres of Tamils in 2009 should by no means do so under the Tiger flag. In 2009, the Tigers forced innocent Tamil civilians to remain in the Vanni – under pain of death. When I was working in the Vanni, I began to truly sympathize with the Tamils who stayed behind in Sri Lanka. They lost EVERYTHING under the Tigers and the GoSL.Tamil protesters gather around photographs of those killed during the Sri Lankan civil war.
Thousands of Tamils march through central London to commemorate those killed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war and to call on Prime Minister David Cameron to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, to be held on Colombo in November 2013…..(© Rob Pinney / www.robpinney.com) Continue reading
Filed under accountability, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, Eelam, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, war reportage, world affairs
