Devika Brendon, in The Sunday Times, 18 February 2024
‘And gladly would she learn, and gladly teach’
My mother, Yasmine Gooneratne, passed away on Thursday night this week. She was 88 years old.
Category Archives: women in ethnic conflcits
Minnette’s “88 Acres” Watapoluwa Housing Scheme reaches World Heights
An Item in the Sunday Island, 17 December 2023, entitled “World Monuments Fund officially endorses ‘88 Acres’ by the MMCA Sri Lanka”…. placed on web a few days back & in the Island as https://island.lk/world-monuments-fund-officially-endorses-88-acres-by-the-mmca-sri-lanka/
World Monuments Fund (WMF), the leading global independent organisation devoted to safeguarding the world’s most treasured places, has officially endorsed the exhibition titled ‘88 Acres: The Watapuluwa Housing Scheme by Minnette De Silva’ by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA Sri Lanka). The exhibition is currently on display at the museum on the ground floor of Crescat Boulevard, Colombo 3, and will be open to the public until 7 July 2024.
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions
Another Time, Another World: Social Science in Postwar Sri Lanka
Uditha Devapriya & Uthpala Wijesuriya, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Background: In Sri Lanka, social science research witnessed an expansion in the 1950s. Various scholars, including Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere, found their calling in anthropology, and went on to introduce and popularise the subject in local universities. This period also witnessed an increasing interest in Sri Lankan and specifically Sinhala society from Western scholars, including Edmund Leach, James Brow, and Richard Gombrich. While many local scholars active in that period have commented on how social science research evolved at Sri Lankan universities, no proper study of this has been done yet.
Filed under architects & architecture, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, Colombo and Its Spaces, commoditification, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, education policy, Eelam, electoral structures, ethnicity, female empowerment, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, immigration, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, Islamic fundamentalism, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, NGOs, parliamentary elections, patriotism, photography & its history, plantations, plural society, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, press freedom & censorship, Rajapaksa regime, religiosity, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, tourism, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry
Hilda Muriel Kularatne, Theosophist & Educationist in Ceylon
Rehan Kularatne, presenting an original essay which has received its title and had highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
My grandmother Hilda Muriel Westbrook was born in Dulwich on 28 November 1895. She was the daughter of Walter Francis Westbrook, later Chief Registrar of the Colonial Office, and Jessie Duncan, a Scottish poet and scholar, the sister of noted (and absolutely dreadful) Celtic Revival painter John Duncan RSA. Jessie Duncan Westbrook was to publish a number of verse renditions of Persian, Sufi and Hindu poetry in the 1910s. She and my great-grandfather, being Theosophists, were both extremely interested in ‘Eastern’ religions.
Hilda was educated at the progressive James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) in Dulwich. Having excelled in modern languages (French and German) as well as in team sports like hockey (in addition to having Gustav Holst as her music master), she went on to Newnham in Cambridge to do a degree in Modern Languages in 1914, just after WWI broke out. (Though she completed the degree in 1917, she had to wait 30 years to be actually awarded her MA, as Cambridge was the last university in England to accept female graduates.)
Filed under accountability, British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, democratic measures, education, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, teaching profession, travelogue, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
Ruvendrini Menikdiwela in Key UNHCR Role
News Item: “Secretary-General appoints Ms. Ruvendrini Menikdiwela of Sri Lanka as Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Ruvendrini Menikdiwela of Sri Lanka as Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Ms. Menikdiwela will succeed Gillian Triggs of Australia, to whom both the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Refugees are grateful for her dedicated service to the refugee cause.
For Lanka: The Profound Interventions of Pauline & Dick Hensman
Rohini Hensman, in a commemorative essay about her politically committed parents in the SSA journal POLITY in 2023 where the title runs “A Hundred Years of Pauline And C. R. (Dick) Hensman”
The birth anniversaries of Pauline Hensman (née Swan) and Dick Hensman occurred over the course of the past year [ …]. This attempt to provide an overview of their life and times will inevitably suffer from gaps, since neither they nor most of their contemporaries are alive. It will, therefore, have to draw on the imperfect memories of their children and younger friends, who would have to rely on hearsay for the parts of their lives from which they were absent. Nevertheless, the main events and themes of their lives emerge quite clearly.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, British imperialism, caste issues, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, language policies, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, press freedom, racism, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
Articles on the Easter Sunday Attacks in Sri Lanka, 2019: THOSE in April 2019
VARIED…. IMMEDIATE – APRIL 2019
Nirupama Subramaniam 2019 “Nirupama’s Incisive Appraisal identifies Islamic Jihadist Patterns in Easter Sunday Terror,” 22 April 2019, ….. https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/nirupamas-incisive-appraisal-identifies-islamic-jihadist-patterns-in-palm-sunday-terror/
Filed under accountability, atrocities, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihadists, landscape wondrous, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, violence of language, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry
Encirclement in Religious Practice & Deadly War Strike
Michael Roberts, inspired by interaction & dialogue with Douglas Farrer of the National University of Singapore in the years 2009 to 2014**
VISIT 2012 “Encompassing Empowerment in Ritual, War & Assassination: Tantric Principles in Tamil Tiger Instrumentalities,” in Social Analysis, sp. issue on War Magic ed. by D. S. Farrer, 2014 ……………………………… https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/social-analysis/58/1/sa580105.xml
a groom ties the THALI round the bride’s neck…. https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/862931978596501453/
ABSTRACT: This study highlights the Tantric threads within the transcendental religions of Asia that reveal the commanding role of encirclement as a mystical force. The cyanide capsule (kuppi) around the neck of every Tamil Tiger fighter was not only a tool of instrumental rationality as a binding force, but also a modality similar to a thāli (marriage bond necklace) and to participation in a velvi (religious animal sacrifice). It was thus embedded within Tamil cultural practice. Alongside the LTTE’s politics of homage to its māvīrar (dead heroes), the kuppi sits beside numerous incidents in LTTE acts of mobilization or military actions where key functionaries approached deities in thanks or in preparation for the kill. These practices highlight the inventive potential of liminal moments/spaces. We see this as modernized ‘war magic’—a hybrid re-enchantment energizing a specific religious worldview.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, insurrections, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, military strategy, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
Australia’s Policy towards Sri Lankan Refugee Migrants after the Civil War
Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications” …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **
Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, charitable outreach, demography, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, refugees, rehabilitation, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes
Protecting Women from Trafficking & Abuse: Here. There. Everywhere
Stephen Keim, reviewing Elaine Pearson’s “Chasing Wrongs and Rights” …. 
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Chasing-Wrongs-and-Rights/Elaine-Pearson/97
Elaine Pearson was born in Sydney but grew up in Perth and completed her law degree at Murdoch University in November 1998.
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, asylum-seekers, authoritarian regimes, democratic measures, female empowerment, historical interpretation, human rights, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
