Police fired water cannon and tear gas Sunday at stone-throwing protesters after tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Brussels against Covid-19 rules.
PK Balachandran, in The Citizen, 8 August 2021, where the title is “In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Link with Buddhism is Brushed Under the Carpet”
Unsustainable claims put forward by the Sinhalese and the Tamils on language, religion and ethnicity, have muddied Sri Lankan politics in the post-independence era. The Sinhalese loudly proclaim that Buddhism is quintessentially and exclusively, a “Sinhala” religion. The Tamils, on the other hand, claim with equal vehemence, that they have always been unalloyed Hindus, who had never ever had anything to do with Buddhism, which they identify with “Sinhala hegemony.”
Filed under ancient civilisations, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, cultural transmission, economic processes, evolution of languages(s), heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, paintings, photography, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes, zealotry
Paul McNamee in The Age, 15 January 2022, where the title reads “Djokovic an easy target in anti-vaxxer witch hunt”
Clearly, the outcome of the Federal Court case on Sunday has implications for Novak Djokovic. How about for the Australian Open?
The Australian Open is far and away Australia’s biggest international sporting event. Hosting all the world’s best tennis players in arguably the best sporting precinct in the world, it generates close to one billion dollars in economic impact for the state of Victoria. It puts Melbourne front and centre on the world stage for two weeks but, this year, for all the wrong reasons.
Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, Australian culture, australian media, coronavirus, cultural transmission, disparagement, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, performance, politIcal discourse, psychological urges, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, taking the piss, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, tourism, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Jayantha Somasundaram, from two-part series in The Island, 22 & 29 December 2021, entitled “Victory in the East”
“I have given you independence, now go and preserve it.” – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
In the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Mutiny, when over 50 percent of the 130,000 Indian Sepoys joined the uprising against the British East India Company, the theory of ‘martial races’ was developed by Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army 1885-1893. Thereafter it was believed that the best recruits would be drawn from British India’s north-west. “The Punjabi Muslims headed the list, followed by the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, the Rajputs and others claiming Kshatriya ancestry,” claims G.S. Bhargava in Their Finest Hour, a record of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. “Brahmins and Bengalis, including Muslims were out. In the south, while Tamils were tolerated, the Telugus, the Coogis and the Moplahs were not encouraged to join the army.”
Global Times Item, 10 December 2021, where the title runs thus “French media pushes anti-China narrative in a monolithic block, but at least one man is fighting for objective views”… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Photo: Zheng Ruolin, a senior Chinese media professional and European studies expert, talks with Maxime Vivas, French writer and journalistFiled under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, China and Chinese influences, cultural transmission, democratic measures, discrimination, disparagement, education, historical interpretation, life stories, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom & censorship, propaganda, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes, zealotry
Brian Victoria, in Countercurrents, 5 December 2021, where the title is “An Option Taken Off the Table”
As most readers know, whenever the US seeks to force a nation to accede to its wishes, a spokesperson will say, “All options are on the table,” meaning the use of military force is at least a possibility if not likely. Seldom, however, will one ever hear a US spokesperson say, “The use of military force has been taken off the table.” Instead, one is left to ponder when military action doesn’t occur if it might have been called off because the offending country acceded to American demands. Thus, the mere threat of military action is sometimes sufficient to bring about the desired result.
Test Firing of the Hwasong Missile North Korea
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Malinda Seneviratne in his web-site MalindaWords where the title runs “Spit and venom in Geneva (same old, same old)”
It’s Bachelet’s hour. That’s Michelle. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The second of her bi-annual Christmas-come-early party in Geneva. Time to get her kicks, probably. The grave countenance, deep tone and malice disguised as concern. Yes, folks, it’s that time of year of regurgitating tired arguments based on tendentious claims made by unreliable sources with agendas that have little or nothing to do with human rights.
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Chandre Dharmawardana, writing from Canada (see below)
Sri Lanka is heading towards an agricultural disaster similar to that created by Stalin who was guided by a so-called “Dialectical Materialist” version of agricultural science announced by Lysenko, a “party scientist”. Sri Lanka’s leaders also have ideologues who have various scientific and medical backgrounds and are ready to present “justifications” for the push for 100% organic agriculture. Here we trace this pseudo-science movement back to some of its roots and discuss some of the pseudo-science that is being presented as “science”.
Dr. Jayasumana and Dr. Sanath Gunatilleke confronting a farmer in an unequal discussion.
Filed under accountability, biotechnology, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, doctoring evidence, economic processes, education, environmental degradation, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes, zealotry
Michael Roberts, reproduing here an article that appeared initially in 1989 with the same title in Ethnos, 55: 1-2:69-82. … and also in Swedish in Lanka. Tidskrift om Lankesisk Kultur (Uppsala), No. 2, March 1989. I regret that the presentation here has not been able to incoroporate diacritica for indigenous words.
ABSTRACT: This essay decodes a sixteenth century folktale which records the Sinhalese reaction to the arrival of the first Portuguese. Where the historiography has interpreted this tale as benign wonderment in the face of exotica, a piecemeal deconstruction of the allegorical clues in the ‘story is utilised to reveal how the Sinhalese linked the Portuguese with demons and with Vasavarti Maraya; the arch enemy of the Buddha. In this fashion the Portuguese and the Christian sacrament of communion were represented as dangerous, disordering forces. The piecemeal reinterpretation of this short text, however, must be overlaid by a holistic perspective and the realisation that its rendering in oral form enabled its purveyors to lace the story with a satirical flavour: so that the Portuguese and Catholicism are, like demons, rendered both disordering and comic, dangerous and inferior – thus ultimately controllable. In contending in this manner that the folktale is an act of nationalist opposition, the article is designed as an attack on the positivist empiricism which pervades the island’s historiography and shuts out imaginative reconstructions which are worked out by penetrating the subjective world of the ancient texts.
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thuppahi
