Fair Dinkum
WATCH …. https://www.youtube.com/live/
Filed under american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, foreign policy, historical interpretation, law of armed conflict, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, war reportage, world events & processes, World War Three?
The Carpet Sweeper
Sad! The death of a political prisoner in a Russian jail. A familied man who chose to fight for what he believed in from within Russia. A dangerous move in Russia since the state leadership carries pathological traits shaped from past experiences of massive loss of life due to wars (civil and external), brutal dictatorships, and perceived national security threats from within and outside.
Ajith Samaranayake, in The Island in 1983 … now presented again on the aniversary when the plane carrying Wijewardene and others from KL to Sri Lanka simply disappeared
Between Sri Lanka’s 35th independence anniversary and his birthday Upali Wijewardene boarded his executive Lear Jet at Kuala Lumpur and in a single fateful flash became solidified into an enigma and a legend. The flamboyant tycoon who had left with five others never arrived in Colombo. Somewhere over the Straits of Malacca the plane disappeared with not a clue or a trace.
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.
Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, education, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, patriotism, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, theatre world, tolerance, unusual people, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
APPLENEWS conveying BBC Podcast = https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alexei-navalny-the-death-of-putins-biggest-critic/id1715473158?i=1000645632931
Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail, the prison service has said. What does that mean for the future of Russia, its opposition movement and its leader, Vladimir Putin?
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, disparagement, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom & censorship, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, trauma, Ukraine & Its Ramifications, unusual people, vengeance
Sired by George E. De Silva and Agnes Nell on 1 February 1918, Minette De Silva has claims to be one of Sri Lanka’s greatest achievers on the world stage. As the pictures of her with Picasso and others at a conference, the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, in 1947 reveal, young Minette outshone all the others in presentability and age. She then proceeded to imprint her innovative mark within her beloved island — as some of the photographs and the recent recognition of her extraordinary talent by competent personnel attests. …. Michael Roberts
Selections by Michael Roberts …. promoted by recent mail exchanges with Gayanthi Ranatunga and her reference to the concept “Asokan Persona” which was coined by me sometime back: Michael
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Jane Russell … presenting A Memoir as one Step in a series and deploying the spelling of “Minette” which Minette favoured (not Minnette)
The whine of Minette’s white Renault as it climbed the steep curves of the driveway to St George’s [in Kandy] could be heard long before the car arrived under the arched porch. The car headlights would be switched off and I’d catch a few words in Sinhala being exchanged between Minette and Punchi Rala, a tall, fair old man, whose thin grey hair was tied in a tiny knot behind his head, a dirty sarong half falling from his slack stomach. Punchi Rala was a semi-alcoholic (kassipu being his favoured beverage) who slept on a donkey bed in the recess of the porch. Under his bed he kept a pike that had surely been purloined from the last King of Kandy’s armoury.
Filed under architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Mahinda Balasuriya in ESPNcricinfo.com, 13 February 2024, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
It’s barely been three months since the end of Sri Lanka’s ill-fated World Cup campaign, but things are already looking up, according to head coach Chris Silverwood, who has been impressed by his side’s showings so far, particularly in the last two ODIs against Afghanistan.
Vindhya Buthpitiya: “How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War,” Trans Asia Photography (2023) 13 (1) … derived from ………………………………………… https://doi.org/10.1215/21582025-10365016 … with the aid of my Aloysian mate KK De Silva; whilr the highlighting is my imposition.
Abstract: This article examines the uses of images of women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during and after the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) to explore the contrasting mobilizations of visual representations of Tamil women cadres, focusing on the cultivation and framing of contradictory nationalist imaginaries by competing ethnic and state actors. In northern Sri Lanka, portraits of gun-bearing women fighters were wielded to signal revolutionary possibilities for the future of the Tamil nation-state as well as to inform the political socialization of its hopeful citizens. Meanwhile, images of Tamil women cadres were cast as gendered and ethnicized threats by the Sri Lankan state in what constituted a calculated form of visual ethno-political othering and weaponization. This article reflects on the ways in which such appropriations exacerbated the political precarity of and the denial of victimhood to Tamil women.
Malathy was the First Tamil Tigress to face death for the Tamiil for the Tamil Cause
Filed under accountability, anti-racism, asylum-seekers, authoritarian regimes, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, doctoring evidence, Eelam, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, language policies, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, nationalism, news fabrication, NGOs, patriotism, photography, politIcal discourse, racist thinking, Rajapaksa regime, refugees, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
thuppahi
