Category Archives: terrorism

February 12, 2024 · 9:05 pm

Tamil Women at War as ‘Birds of Freedom’ in the LTTE Cause

Vindhya Buthpitiya: “How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War,” Trans Asia Photography (2023) 13 (1)  … derived from ………………………………………… https://doi.org/10.1215/21582025-10365016 … with the aid of my Aloysian mate KK De Silva; whilr the highlighting is my imposition.

 Abstract: This article examines the uses of images of women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during and after the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) to explore the contrasting mobilizations of visual representations of Tamil women cadres, focusing on the cultivation and framing of contradictory nationalist imaginaries by competing ethnic and state actors. In northern Sri Lanka, portraits of gun-bearing women fighters were wielded to signal revolutionary possibilities for the future of the Tamil nation-state as well as to inform the political socialization of its hopeful citizens. Meanwhile, images of Tamil women cadres were cast as gendered and ethnicized threats by the Sri Lankan state in what constituted a calculated form of visual ethno-political othering and weaponization. This article reflects on the ways in which such appropriations exacerbated the political precarity of and the denial of victimhood to Tamil women.

Malathy was the First Tamil Tigress to face death for the Tamiil for the Tamil Cause

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February 12, 2024 · 12:13 pm

‘Made’ in Australia: The Journal SOUTH ASIA

SEE … https://southasianstudies.org.au/journal/

   

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies ranks as the leading academic journal in South Asian studies. It provides a forum for scholarly research, comment and discussion on the history, society, economy, culture and international relations of the South Asian region, drawing on a range of disciplines from the humanities and social sciences. South Asia publishes cutting edge, innovative, conceptually interesting, original case studies and new research, which shape and lead debates in the field.

SOUTH ASIA-Journal

 Professor Kama Maclean: a key figure in the history of the journal

 

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February 6, 2024 · 1:23 am

Ganeshananthan’s & Karunatitilaka’s Novels Reviewed by Anjum Hasan

Anjum Hasan:  “Even As A Ghost”  in The New York Review of Books, 18 January 2024 … reaching me via a tennis-mate Ralph Schlomowitz who is a ‘religious’ adherent of the NYRB and matters highbrow;while Amaasiiri De Silva in New York sent me the whole text in Worsd File –thereby ‘undermining’ the NYR’s effing barriers.

Hasan reviews two new books relating to Sri Lanka in this essay: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Random House, 348 pp., $28.00; $18.00 (paper) …. & The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Norton, 388 pp., $18.95 (paper)

In their new novels, V. V. Ganeshananthan and Shehan Karunatilaka use the “distance of time” to dramatize large chunks, if not the whole, of Sri Lanka’s recent past.

 

 

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January 1, 2024 · 11:05 pm

Empowering the Body and ‘Noble Death’

Michael Roberts and Arthur Saniotis, … reproducing the editorial introduction to a collection of essays devoted to the topic identified in the title pesented  within Social Analysis, Volume 50, Issue 1, Spring 2006, 7–24 © Berghahn Journals  ... with highlighting emphasis imposed in this version by Michael Roberts

Facing death with equanimity and with a honed, trained body is an expression of sheer power.[1] When a group of like-minded individuals confronts an opposi- tional force with equal mental and bodily capacities, whether on a sports field or in a warring conflict, the result is power compounded. Each article in this special section ‘confronts’ such powers. Together they explore several regionally specific projects in Asia in which dying for a cause is seen as a virtue.

There are several parts of Asia where social practices and cultural traditions have consciously nourished bodily empowerment. In these select yet dynamic traditions, mind and body are conceived as a unity. Attentiveness to cosmic powers is an integral aspect of disciplined ascetic practices that seek to har- ness bodily energy in maximal ways. These practices confront death. They are directed toward transcending the fear of death—and death itself. When they are inserted into a moment of violent conflict involving interpersonal combat, they encourage a steely, terrifying fearlessness as well as deadly striking power.

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December 22, 2023 · 4:24 pm

The Renewal of Fighting over Palestine on 7th October: How Come?

Camel Rider, responding to a general inquiry raised by Thuppahi in his Email Circuit

With regard to the mystery of why Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, I think the reason goes like this. The issue of a Palestinian state has been fading for many years due US foreign policy and the Abraham Accords sought to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states. If left unchecked, that process would have seen the death of Palestine, even among Arab states. Hamas gained an extraordinary strategic victory on October 7th in the sense that the issue of a Palestinian state is back on the table, the Abraham Accords are in tatters, and the majority of the world is demanding a solution.

Journalists take cover behind cars as Israeli soldiers take position during clashes with Palestinian fighters near the Gevim Kibbutz, close to the border with Gaza.

 

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December 22, 2023 · 12:16 pm

Facing Hermon: Palestinian History 1918-to-Today’s Holocaust

Blackjack Bibi ….  see TPS Note at the end

I won’t comment on the Chris Hedges video. I was more interested in Dickie Hermon’s comment (see https://thuppahis.com/2023/12/19/chris-hedges-mea-culpa-on-palestine-for-the-westernworld/ … ).

The first thing to be said is that it is unfair and unreasonable to insinuate that Hedges is a holocaust denier. It is wrong to suggest with a guess that he might be, and it is clear Dickie has no evidence to support that claim. He is on weak ground here.

Richard Hermon in https://thuppahis.com/2023/12/19/chris-hedges-mea-culpa-on-palestine-for-the-westernworld/

Michael, Please see my previous comments! on this subject .My position is clear These guys are “SPIN DOCTORS” putting their own spin on what they want to put across .in 1948 when Israel declared itself a state after the UN had given its approval and History states that the Arab nations all declared war on Israel and attacked it ,this Person states that the Zionists attacked the Palestinians ,at that point his veracity went out the window .I guess that he would also say that the Holocaust was Israeli propaganda.
with my warmest regards
Dickie HERMON

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December 19, 2023 · 10:42 am

Chris Hedges MEA CULPA on Palestine for the Western World

 

Chris Hedges – Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, best-selling author & activist……. “When those who are occupied refuse to submit, when they continue to resist we drop all our pretence of our civilising mission and unleash as in Gaza”.

 

****  ****

 

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December 11, 2023 · 1:45 pm

Operation Eagle Claw: USA Special Forces’ Failure in Iran in 1980

Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, [SLAF retd] as compiler presenting US special forces operation for the rescue of hostages at the US Embassy in Iran in 1980 that ended in a failure  …. Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw and Google Images 

Introduction:  Operation Eagle Claw was a failed operation (carried on 24 April 1980) by the United States Armed Forces ordered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to attempt the rescue of 52 embassy staff held captive at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran.

 

The operation, one of Delta Force’s* first, encountered many obstacles and failures and was subsequently aborted. Eight helicopters were sent to the first staging area called Desert One, but only five arrived in operational condition. One had encountered hydraulic problems, another was caught in a sand storm, and the third showed signs of a cracked rotor blade. During the operational planning, it was decided that the mission would be aborted if fewer than six helicopters remained operational upon arrival at the Desert One site, despite only four being absolutely necessary. In a move that is still discussed in military circles, the field commanders advised President Carter to abort the mission, which he did.

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December 8, 2023 · 1:07 am

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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December 3, 2023 · 12:36 pm

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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