Category Archives: working class conditions

February 5, 2023 · 11:39 am

ECSAT’s Charitable Work with Disabled Children Secures Awards in 2022

The Annual Report for 2022 presented by ECSAT  ... with some of the photographs attached to this report & highlighting emphasis imposed by The  Editor, Thuppahi

An Award in 2022: The Programme Director Roshan Samarawickrama is seen receiving the award on behalf of ECSAT for The Best Skill Development Centre for Children with Disabilities in Sri Lanka from the State Minister of Primary Health Care Dr. Sudarshani Fernandopulle. After 16 years ECSAT received this recognition which added great value to the reputation of the organisation.

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February 2, 2023 · 2:50 pm

The Fate of the Roma Gypsies in Europe: From Nazi Holocaust to Continuous Marginalization

Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”

Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945

 

Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936

“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “

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February 1, 2023 · 6:58 pm

Australia’s Response to the Refugee Problems generated by Sri Lanka’s Civil War in the 2000s and 2010s

Betts & Higgins address the “Migration Policy” pursued by Australia in the context of the refugee problems arising in the context of Sri Lanka’s “Civil War.” [i.e. what most refer to as the “Eelam Wars.”]. The full title is noted below and their “Abstract” is presented.

The infamous Alex Kuhendarajah on the Sumatran(?) coast witha boatlad of Tamil refugees  …. and other pictorial illustrations of refugees and their boats

 

For the benefit of those not familiar with the scenario, the refugees were mostly SL Tamils, but there was a ‘supply chain’ of agents and smuggler boats from Sri Lanka, India and the Indonesian islands that also catered to Sinhala and Muslim personnel seeking “eldorado” in the West via Australia. See some bibliographical items listed at the end which will lead one to even more literature…. Michael Roberts with thanks to Johnny De Silva in Melbourne for converting the file containing the Betts & Higgins article.

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January 20, 2023 · 10:58 pm

Bracegirdle’s Anti-Slavery Struggle as Depicted by Robert Gunawardena

Translation by Vinod Moonesinghe from Robert Gunawardena’s “Memoirs of Bracegirdle” … 1.44  to 

Robert Gunawardena 

Mark Anthony Bracegirdle

“Bracegirdle’s anti-slavery struggle”

In April 1937, a remarkable incident took place which strengthened the anti-imperialist struggle and aroused the interest of the masses. That is, the Bracegirdle Incident which is spoken about by older people to this day.

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January 7, 2023 · 10:46 pm

The Potency Borne by Pictures

Michael Roberts

This little presentation is a DEDICATION. It illustrates the potency and power of friends in producing an academic booklet in 2011. As it happens, the booklet bears the title Potency, Power & People in Groups and was financed by the good friends Godfrey & Amar Gunatilleke of the Marga Institute.

The “Acknowledgements” and the “Foreword” taken together spell out the names of those friends who assisted this project. But let me single out Anura Hettiarachchi for his aid in this project and in the endeavours leading to my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period (Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2004) because he was struck down by heart failure recently.

To Anura, then, in gratitude I place this item in my website.

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December 26, 2022 · 12:12 am

The Paravas in Sri Lanka and South India in the Sixteenth Century

Chandra R. de Silva

It is likely that the paravas (also known as Bharathas in Sri Lanka to indicate their Indian origin) were working as fishermen and mercenaries in South India and the north western coast of Sri Lanka well before the sixteenth century. Tradition links them to the evolution of the catamaran (a small craft with two hulls) and with a major role in pearl fishing in the Gulf of Mannar. They were also proficient in chank (turbinella pyrum) fishing: chanks being seashells that were used to make ornaments and drinking vessels. The coming of the Portuguese to the region in the sixteenth century provides us many Portuguese records that illuminate the history and seafaring skills of this community.. Historian Jorge Manuel Flores, for example, quotes a mid-sixteenth century Portuguese document which records thanks to a parava convert named Duarte de Miranda for assistance in navigating the seas off South India.

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December 16, 2022 · 7:47 pm

An Ethnological Introduction to the Tamils of Sri Lanka

 Karthigesu Sivathamby

 This item now presented in Thuppahi is the first part of a book in pdf format entitled The Tamils of Sri Lanka. In converting the pdf the whole text went haywire and the paragraph divisions were all over the shop. I cannot guarantee that my painstaking editorial reconstruction stuck to Siva’s original design. I have refrained from inserting any highlighting emphasis on the text: so the highlighting you see is there in the original… As far as I could work out, this work was finalized in 1989, but that point is subject to correction ………….. Michael Roberts Continue reading →

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December 11, 2022 · 6:14 pm

Bracegirdle’s AntI-Slavery Struggle in British Ceylon, 1937

A Section translated  from Robert Gunawardena, Satanaka Satahan, Kosgama: 2007, Vijith Gunawardena: ….. provided here by Vinod Moonesinghe  …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

In April 1937, a remarkable incident took place which strengthened the anti-imperialist struggle [in Sri Lanka} and aroused the interest of the masses. That is, the Bracegirdle Incident which is spoken about by older people to this day.

 Mark Antony Lyster Bracegirdle, an Australian, came to Lanka in December 1936 to gain appointment as the assistant superintendant of a tea estate owned by a British plantation company. It is possible that the plantation company which appointed him to this position did not know that he had been a young member of the Australian Communist Party. Having come to Lanka, Bracegirdle took up his duties in a tea estate not far from Madulkele, beyond Katugastota.

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December 3, 2022 · 10:07 am

Profound Mementoes for Michael Wille

ONE: A PRAYER for MICHAEL’s PEACEFUL REST

The kids at the Day Care at Bandarawela which Mike supported said a Prayer this morning for his Peaceful Rest.

💛🙏🙏

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November 29, 2022 · 8:00 pm

Re-visiting the Case of Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle of 1937: A Landmark Judgment that upheld the Liberty of the Individual and that affirmed the Fairness of ‘ British Justice’  

Prabhath de Silva, ... an article that appeared initially in the Daily Mirror, 25/26 November 2022– with highlighting in this version imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle (also known as Price) was born in Chelsea, England in 1912. His parents were Ina Marjorie Lyster and James Seymour Bracegirdle. His mother was a suffragette and an active member of the Labour Party. Bracegirdle migrated to Australia with his mother, and studied art, and later trained as a farmer. In 1935, he joined the Australian Young Communist League (YCL) and became an active young Communist.

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