Richard Koenigsberg
Wars are fought–soldiers die–to testify to the truth of a society’s sacred ideal. If so many people die for an ideology—it must be real.
Category Archives: World War II
Michael’s Testimony for VE Day in Britain, 8th May 1945
Michael Roberts
Tears rolled down my eyes in profound sorrow and joy as the news media on TV and computer-script dwelt on the VE commemorations in Britain — Yesterday and Today 8th and 9th May 2020. Perhaps that may surprise some readers. So …… let me clarify.
Yes, I was only seven years old or thereabouts then in 1945. Yes, I was resident in the Fort area within the town of Galle in the island of Ceylon …. not in Britain or Europe. So, how is that event so meaningful …. and so profound in my thinking-mould. Continue reading
Filed under authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes, World War II
VE Day, 8 May 1945 …. as Nazi Germany Surrenders: In Pictures
The King and Queen of Britain with Winston Churchill in between and Princess Elizabeth nd Princess Margaret on the flanks
Churchill waves to the crowds below
Edmund Leach: Biographical Studies from Tambiah and Others
Adam Kuper in London Review of Books Vol. 24 No. 10 · 23 May 2002
- Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life by Stanley Tambiah
Cambridge, 517 pp, £60.00, February 2002, ISBN 0 521 52102 5 - The Essential Edmund Leach: Vol. I: Anthropology and Society by Stephen Hugh-Jones and James Laidlaw
Yale, 406 pp, £30.00, February 2001, ISBN 0 300 08124 3 - The Essential Edmund Leach: Vol. II: Culture and Human Nature by Stephen Hugh-Jones and James Laidlaw
Yale, 420 pp, £30.00, February 2001, ISBN 0 300 08508 7 
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, cultural transmission, education, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes, World War II
Forebodings Associated with Place: ‘Slaughterhouse’ Battlefields
Paul Murray, in West Australian, 8 October 2017,where the title reads “Brutal bayonet charge at Battle of 42nd Street hidden in grim landscape”
by PETER MONTEATH ….Published: 1st November 2019 …. ISBN: 9781742236032
It seems illogical to think that places could retain a memory. Surely they can only invoke one? But we’ve all been somewhere that the surroundings — the place itself — made us feel uncomfortable, perhaps for no particular reason. That creepy, uneasy sensation that something is not quite right there. My strongest experience was visiting Culloden in Scotland, the scene of a gruesome massacre in which military incompetence sacrificed a thousand soldiers supporting the Scottish Jacobites — many with little personally invested in the outcome — pitted against their new Hanoverian rulers.
Koggala in the Western Imperial Design in the 20th Century, 1931 onward
Michael Roberts
The recent political debate on SOFA, MCC etc (see Roberts 2019) highlights the place of KOGGALA in the Western imperial map of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The British airfields at Katunayake Trinco and Koggala were part of the imperial defence system – a geo-political ensemble that became even more significant after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in WW Two marked vulnerabilities not envisaged till then.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, British colonialism, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, military strategy, modernity & modernization, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes, World War II
DS Senanayake’s Life and Times by KM de Silva … hits the island roads
Press Release from the ICES at Kandy
The ceremonial launch of two publications of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES, Kandy) titled, respectively, as The Life of D. S. Senanayake (1884-1952): Sri Lanka’s First Prime Minister, by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and its Sinhala version, D.S: Sri Lankaway Prathama Agraamaathya, by Professor K. N. O. Dharmadasa, was held in Kandy on 3 October 2019 in the presence of a large gathering invited by Prof. Upul Dissanayake, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, who sponsored the event in collaboration with the staff of the ICES.
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The Japanese Air Raid on Ceylon, Easter 1942
Jayantha Somasundaram, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 18 April 2019, where the title is “The Most Dangerous Moment”
“British Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered the most dangerous moment of the Second World War, and the one which caused him the greatest alarm, was when news was received that the Japanese Fleet was heading for Ceylon.” –The Most Dangerous Moment by Michael Tomlinson (1976) William Kimber, London.
Diego Garcia and the Fate of Its Its Indigenized Chagossian People
ONE = A Summary Report
Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Atoll, a “group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean” (Jayaweera 2018). Though discovered in 1512 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Mascarenhas, it was uninhabited till the French moved in and took over in 1783. The atoll passed to the British after the Napoleonic wars in 1814/15. Thereafter the atoll was administered from Mauritius and was considered part of its domain. Over the years the overseers and workers imported to work the plantations and settlements on the islands became indigenized as “Chagossians” and by the 1960s are said to have been around 1500 in number (note the imprecision).
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, atrocities, British colonialism, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, colonisation schemes, discrimination, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes, World War II
The Kandy Äsala Perahära by Lorna Dewaraja
Tissa Devendra, in The Island, 3 October 2018, with this title “Mirror of Civilisation” being a book review of The Kandy Asala Maha Perahera – by Dr.Lorna Dewaraja (Vijitha Yapa Publications 2018)
In publishing this fine book, Vijitha Yapa has faithfully fulfilled the last wish that Dr. Dewaraja expressed to her family – to hand over to Vijitha Yapa the manuscript of her book on the Kandy Perahera. I now have the privilege of reviewing this publication.
Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, cultural transmission, education, elephant tales, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, World War II
