Category Archives: the imaginary and the real

An Evisceration War in GAZA …. by Germs …. Bombs & Gunfire

An Item in Anadolu Agency, 20 November 2023 ….

The former head of Israel’s National Security Council said the spread of epidemics and humanitarian disasters in the Gaza Strip  would help Israel reach victory faster. “The way to win the war faster and at a lower cost for us requires a system collapse on the other side and not the mere killing of more Hamas fighters,” Major General Giora Eiland wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

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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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The Palestine-Israel Conflict: Its Political and Legal Underpinnings

Rohini Hensman:  “The Political and Legal Underpinnings of the Palestine-Israel Conflict,” in New Politics, 2023 …. ……………………… https://www.academia.edu/110094670/The_Political_and_Legal_Underpinnings_of_the_Palestine_Israel_Conflict?email_work_card=view-paper

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive attack on Israeli territory, killing 1405 people including over 300 soldiers according to the Israeli state, although a month later the death toll miraculously came down to 1200. The Israeli state has responded by bombing the Gaza Strip, in which Hamas has its headquarters and over 2.3 million civilians have their homes, starving inhabitants of food, water, medicines and fuel. But why did this happen? And what can be done about it? On these questions, there is no agreement whatsoever.

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DIG Jingle Dissanayake’s Report on the JVP in Lanka, 4th November 1974

A NOTE from Michael Roberts, 27 November 2023

This file is among the documentary material under my name in the Special Collections, Barr Smith Library, Adelaide University and Samantha Farnsworth, its chief, sent me a pdf copy  I cannot recall how the original Mss came into my hands. Its pdf format has been converted to Word File by my friend KKS Perera in Lanka. The spacing is erratic and difficult to change. I have resisted the temptation to highlight important details because I do not have adequate background knowledge of the situation in 1972 to 1974 (even though I conducted one or two lectures to JVPers held in the prison camp at Katugastota …… including Gamini Keerawella …… one of my previous History Honours students).

The photographs are my insertions …. and perhaps hit ‘n miss in character .

Wijeweera in rousing flow on platform … & on way to court with his lawyer

 

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Fantastic Predictions: WORLD CUP FORECASTS from Lankan Cricketing Fanatics

A FORECAST by Errol FERNANDO, …. A Piano Player from the Heavens, 19 November 2023

After a long tournament, we reach the final that we all predicted many weeks ago, Lorenz   –   India vs Australia   –   with the obvious prediction that India will win. Millions will back India,of course.

Let me take a different path by predicting a win for the Aussies, especially if they bat first. Head, Marsh and Maxwell are dangerous players who can take the game away from India.

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The Logic behind the Hamas Raid of October 7th 2023

Scott Ritter of Global Research, 14 November 2023, whose chosen title is  “The October 7 Hamas Assault on Israel: The Most Successful Military Raid of this Century” …. with highlighting emphasis in purple being that of the Author; while other highlights in blue  or red are those imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi … who thanks Jayantha Somasundaram of Canberra for leading him to this important essay

There is a truism that I often cite when discussing the various analytical approaches to assessing the wide variety of geopolitical problems facing the world today—you can’t solve a problem unless you first properly define it. The gist of the argument is quite simple—any solution which has nothing to do with the problem involved is, literally, no solution at all.

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Revelations within Colonial Photographs of Ceylon: “Veins of Influence”

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in Early Photographs and Collections, by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra

 [This book is a pioneering monograph that brings a rich array of early and previously unpublished images of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives.

 

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Forgetting …. and Remembering

Michael Patrick O’Leary

I do not do much new writing these days but I do a lot of remembering. I have been reading a book about Forgetting by Gabriel Josipovici, but I have forgotten where I put it. Also have Ivan Illich’s  H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness and Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting and A Sivanandan’s (met him in 1968) When Memory Dies and Forgetting by Scott A Small.

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Bertrand Russell’s Message to the World on Zionism in January 1970

“Bertrand Russell’s Last Message“…. January 1970 presented at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egfCTz-ZuZU .… & now sent to me by “A Sri Lankan in Brisbane” who reiterates the stance he took a few days back with An APPRAISAL that I present for readers to appraise after listening to the You Tube presentation marked above and is attached Blogging Theology MEMO below.

Portrait of British philosopher and social activist Bertrand Russell smoking his pipe as he looks out to sea, circa 1960….. Photo by Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

 


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Plinio’s Description of “Taprobane”

Piero Perondi, whose chosen title was “THE SPLENDID TAPROBANE ALIAS SRI LANKA””

The main ancient source on Taprobane is the Roman historian Plinio the Old, in his manuscript “Natural History”, which does not fail to briefly retrace the testimonies of previous authors. He states that only in the time of Alexander the Great was it made clear that Taprobane was an island; before it was considered almost another world, the “land of the Antichthone ” (i.e. the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere).

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