Courtesy of Cyril Ernst in California and Buddy Reid in Melbourne who brought this marvellous architectural feat to Thuppahi’s attention
For DETAILS watch this Video:
Enthusiasm for War: Australians in the 1910s and Jihadists in the 2010s
Michael Roberts
Introduction: Remembrance Day ceremonies in Australia and Europe led to the recuperation of items on the “Will to War” which I had presented way back in time[1] and Dr Richard Koenigsberg[2] in New York has chipped in by sending me copies of some of my articles in the Library of Social Science (his outfit). At a time in 2020 when sporadic jihadist assassinations in France and Australia in 2020 have reminded us forcefully of the recurring phenomenon of the force of Allahu Akbar in the Middle East as well as such outposts as Sri Lanka (witness the 21/4 strikes in 2019)[3] as well as Australia (see below).
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Rustic Roots of Talent: Cricket and Otherwise
Michael Roberts
The presence of Lahiru Madushanka in Sri Lanka’s Squad for South Africa[1] has also highlighted his origins in the deep southeast of Sri Lanka after Chaminda Vaas spotted his prospects.[2] In seeking more information about his roots within Facebook I chanced upon another vein of ‘gold’ on the manner in which personnel from indigent circumstances in distant rural areas within Sri Lanka – whether north, south, east or central highland – have circumvented the tyranny of distance and poverty to improve their circumstances.
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Henry Jayasena: An Appraisal in Appreciation — with Further Insights from Azdak’s Lore
Nandasiri Jasentuliyana
There was one other leading figure from the cultural world that I came to know very well, particularly through my association with Namel. It was none other than Henry Jayasena, acclaimed as an outstanding stage actor, film star, writer, producer, director, and translator, all rolled in to one. He is a legendary artiste of our times.
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The Horrors at Gallipoli: Killing One’s “Whaler”
The “Whaler” is the shorten-form Aussie term for a breed of horses in New South Wales that served as the stead for the famed Lighthorsemen Brigades in Egypt, the Middle East and Gallipoli during World War One. I thank Brigadier Sri Mudannayake** for bringing this somebe dimension of the disastrous Gallipoli and other Middle Eastern campaign to our attention.
Honouring ALL the Dead in War. Somasiri Devendra’s Ecumenical Epitaph
Somasiri Devendra
It’s a hundred years since the World War One ended.
It was called “the war to end all wars”, a war “to preserve Democracy”. It was, in fact, fought for nothing more than the needs of a handful of European countries wanting yet bigger pieces of the global pie, fighting each other for it or to deny it to others.
a war cemetery in Europe
British Garrison Cemetery Kandy
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Gallipoli, the Disastrous Attack on the Ottomans – A BBC Review in 2015
On the 11th November 2020 BritaIn and its former colonies marked REMEMBRANCE DAY to honour the dead in their 20th century World Wars. On 25th April every year AUSTRALIA and Britiain too remember the dead at Gallipoli … Anzac Day as it is called in Ausralia and New Zealand. In the year 2015, one hundred yeas after the event, the BBC clarified the course of events at Gallipoli with a documentary: ….. including this NOTE =
“Casualties are hard to estimate due to conflicting reports, but here are some approximate numbers …..
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- Around 21,000 British empire troops were killed
- Some 8,000 Australians
- 2,500 New Zealanders
- 55,000 to 85,000 Ottomans
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Kamikaze, Mujahid, Tamil Tiger: Sacrificial Devotion in Comparative Lens
Michael Roberts, reprinting an essay drafted in 2007 and since presented in Fire & Storm in 2010 (chapter 19: 131-38)
- “Gandhi tried for years to reduce himself to zero” (Dennis Hudson 2002: 132).
- Hitler: “You are nothing, your nation is everything” (quoted in Koenigsberg 2009: 13).
- LTTE: “the martyr sacrifices himself for the whole by destroying the I…” (Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam’s interpretation of a Tamil Tiger supporter’s poem; 2005: 134).
- Spokesman for Al Qaida after the Madrid bombing: “You love life and we love death”
- Col. Karuna, ex-LTTE: “Death means nothing to me….”
- The Hagakure is “a living philosophy that holds that life and death [are] the two sides of the same shield” (Yoshio Mishima in his The Way of the Samurai, quoted in Moeren 1986: 109-10).
- “Bushido means to die” (Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 117).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpbl0azdFM …. Kamikaze strike
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In Appreciation and Memory of ER de Silva of Richmond College, Galle
A. S. Wirasinha
It was an important day in 1914 when two brothers E.A. and E.R. de Silva left the Wesleyan Mission Boys’ High School at Ambalangoda and enrolled as pupils at Richmond College. Galle. Arthur, the older brother, proved a quiet and steady worker and later worked his way to posts of high responsibility in the postal department of Sri Lanka. It was the younger brother, Richard, who was to make a vital contribution to the school.
... with DS Senanayake
