Darshanie Ratnawalli
Having a technocrat as President, we started off well following in the footsteps of China and East Asia. We also introduced innovations such as using intelligence services for contact tracing and root ball operations, trying to cut out the infection paths from society the same way a malignant tumour is cut from the body.
Sanjiva Wijesinha …. see https://sanjivawijesinha.com/2020/04/10/a-life-for-a-life/
The tall good-looking army officer rose from his chair, came around in front of his desk and extended his hand to Deborah Roth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Roth” he smiled, motioning toward one of the leather-covered armchairs by the window. “Please take a seat.”
He turned to the sergeant who had met the woman at the front entrance of the military hospital and had accompanied her through the security checks. “Thank you, Tissa. I will call you when the lady is ready to return.”
A Composite Collection
Michael Roberts: An Introductory Note, 30 April 2020
In early April this year 2020 I came across new data – or rather, information which had bypassed me earlier – garnered by DBS Jeyaraj via his exchanges with KP Pathmanāthan[1] in KP’s capacity as the head of the international arm of the LTTE from 31 December 2008.[2] This data confirmed and elaborated on the processes of Western imperialistic intervention in Sri Lanka in 2009 as the LTTE slid to defeat.
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John Richardson
Dear Michael, Thank you for your thoughtfulness it providing me the opportunity to comment on Champion’s photographic lens. However, I don’t know that a brief intervention from me would add much to the discussion. As you know, I spent more than 17 years trying to unravel and respond constructively to the tragic and not infrequently horrifying scenarios that unfolded during those years and subsequently.
Leelananda De Silva, in Island, 28 April 2020, and 11 August 2018, where the title is “Godfrey Gunatilleke – A Life of Quiet Achievement”
Godfrey Gunatilleke is one of the leading intellectuals in the latter half of the 20th century in Sri Lanka. Never a man to be confined by disciplinary compartments, he straddled across many academic and administrative fields in his long career. An English scholar to start with, he was one of the finest products of the University of Ceylon which lasted in its pristine form (as envisioned by its founding fathers) for 20 years from 1943 to the early 1960s.
A= Godfrey Gunatillake (c) and Gen. Anton Muttukumaru, Ceylon’s High Commissioner in Canberra, at a 1965 ECAFE meeting in Wellington …. B = Godfrey clarifying a point
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Gerald Peiris[1]
From the recent correspondence[2] between you and the ace photographer Stephen Champion, (published in your Thuppahi blog), I came to know about a composite event staged in London in July 2008 consisting of an exhibition of photographs recorded by Champion “while travelling around Sri Lanka Sri Lanka for over twenty-two years”, and the launch of an album containing such images, and a published report of an interview intended to publicise the exhibition and the album conducted by Saroj Pathirana for the BBC Sandēsaya programme. For several reasons I found this event quite interesting and relevant to an understanding a type of external intervention in Sri Lanka’s conflict situations and decided to respond to your request for my observations. What I find it necessary to say ought to be prefaced with a note that I have not met Champion, nor seen either the aforesaid exhibition or the album, and not listened to the Sandesaya broadcast. In my search for background information on Champion I came across three Internet image galleries titled, respectively, Colours of Change, Dharmadeepa and Portraits. Though I am no connoisseur of this or any other form of art, I did admire his black & white creations in the Dharmadeepa collection.[3]
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Michael Roberts
When I came across some ‘new’ material[1] of great import relating to KP Pathmanathan’s valiant efforts to extricate the LTTE leadership from their deteriorating military situation in early 2009 and to whisk them away to Eritrea with the active support of the great powers, and then reiterated my longstanding criticisms of the Western powers’ imperial effrontery in a fresh article this April,[2] I was surprised to receive an email note out of the blue from Stephen Champion in March this year 2020 – one wholly supportive of my slashing criticisms of the West.
I assumed that Champion was writing to me from UK and was mighty pleased because I was aware of his enterprising camerawork in trying and dangerous conditions in the late 1980s and have a copy of at least one of his pictorial works.[3] I decided to seek out more information on Champion via Google and immediately chanced upon Saroj Pathirana’s report in the BBC Sandeshaya programme describing an event mounted by Amnesty International in July 2008 displaying some of Champion’s photographic collections (see Pix above). Adhering to the principle of progressing step-by-step in temporal order, I placed this item within my Thuppahi site on 20th April 2020.
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Dr Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, in The Island April 25, 2020, Tracing the Portuguese Cultural Imprint on Sri Lanka”
Way back in 1998, I theorised on the extent of Lusitanisation in Sri Lanka, in my paper entitled The Portuguese Cultural Imprint on Sri Lanka, published in Lusotopie (Journal of Sorbonne, Paris), de Silva Jayasuriya (2000): “The Portuguese era marked the end of medieval Sri Lanka and the beginning of modern Sri Lanka. It changed the island’s orientation away from India and gave it a unique identity moulded by almost 450 years of Western influence due to the presence of three successive European powers: the Portuguese (1505-1658), the Dutch (1658-1796) and the British (1796-1948). The Portuguese cultural imprint can be analyzed by examining: (a) those who claim Portuguese descent (the Portuguese Burghers), (b) those who do not claim Portuguese descent but who follow the Roman Catholic faith, (c) those who are neither of Portuguese descent nor follow the Catholic faith but nevertheless underwent a sociocultural transformation. Language is a necessary element in the set of culture. The other elements are subjective and could include religion, food, dress, music and dance.
Dr B. J. C. Perera, “Tribute to A Superlative Human Being,” Island, 26 April 2020
I am greatly honoured, and indeed tremendously privileged, to present this homage of remembrance to a great son of Mother Lanka who left this worldly life on the 28th of March 2020.
Deshabandu Doctor C. G. Uragoda MBBS(Ceylon), MD(Ceylon), Honorary D.Sc (Colombo), FRCP (Edinburgh) and FRCP (Glasgow), is portrayed on the Internet as a Physician, an acclaimed expert on occupational respiratory disorders, a renowned author, an unmatched folklorist, a celebrated historian and a dedicated ecologist. That is a superlative description; one that has reached the pinnacle of excellence. Continue reading
N. Sarawanan, whose preferred title is “The Story of Lovina Alphonso — A Dalit Heroine of her Time,” 9 April 2019 …. https://medium.com/@dalithistorynow/the-story-of-lovina-alphonso-a-dalit-heroine-of-her-time-7d43310dd7aa
The “Rodi” caste people are the most oppressed in the Sinhala community. Historically, this community was involved in folk religion, magic, mantras, and ritualised caste begging. Rodis were treated as untouchables and violently discriminated. Rodiya men and women were denied permission to wear any upper-body covering. It was also forbidden for them to cover themselves below the knee. In one era, both men and women were only allowed to cover their genital area and nothing else. Even if they felt ill or cold and clothed themselves to feel warm, and an “upper” caste person caught them in the act, they would have to say, “Please forgive me, Lord, I was feeling too cold!” It was up to the “upper” caste person, then, to decide whether to allow the act of covering or not.
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thuppahi
