Divine Kingship in Cricket. In Australian Colours

Michael Roberts

TV footage displayed today on ABC and other Australian stations reveal a middle-aged South African fan telling David Warner something as he walks up the pathway to the pavilion after his dismissal.  Warner then pauses and with angry visage and turns to say something to the spectator who continues to speak (with a smile on his face).

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The History of Civil Society Organisations in Sri Lanka

Vinod Moonesinghe

Although the role and importance of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society organisations (CSOs) have diminished since January 2015, they continue to play a significant role. While the level of their co-operation with the state is fairly high, this has not always been so. The eruption on in July 2014 of a controversy regarding the political and media activities of civil society highlighted its long-standing friction with the state. Relations between state and civil society have been characterised by periods (of varying duration) of familiarity and of remoteness, of alliance and of antagonism.

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Introducing Prophetic Indictments by Mervyn De Silva

Noel Ranjith

Regular readers of “The Island” newspaper over the twenty year period from the 1980’s will remember the almost weekly columns written by Dr. Mervyn D. De Silva, who was in those years a Deputy Director of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, followed by being appointed as the Director of the Ministry of Plan Implementation, and later becoming a Member of Parliament through the National List. His most profuse and provocative period was during the tenures of four Presidents from Mr. J. R. Jayawardene to Mrs. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. His writings covered a wide range of public and national concerns and took their cue from what the controversial American journalist I.F. Stone believed was the purpose of good journalism  –to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”.

SEE  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1azJqPZnizXG0y-V3bTMeh0M_IUyxQqKA … FOR eBOOK VERSION Continue reading

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Michael Roberts in Conversation in London, 8 March 2018

VISIT https://vimeo.com/259131094

Distinguished academic Dr Michael Roberts was in England recently and talked about his experiences and work including his online life as creator of the Thuppahi Blog (https://thuppahi.wordpress.com) …. This Q and A takes 60 minutes.

Pic by Eranga Jayawardena

Michael Roberts is a historian by training and has taught at the Department of History at Peradeniya University (1961-76) and the Department of Anthropology at Adelaide University (1977-2003). His major works are in agrarian history, social mobility, nationalism and ethnic conflict. Based on his interest in the Tamil liberation struggle and the sacrificial devotion mustered by the LTTE, he has written extensively on suicide missions. Michael Roberts has also edited several volumes on Sri Lanka entitled Collective Identities. In 2004, he retired as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Adelaide University, but continues to write articles.

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Profound Reflections: Jean Arasanayagam in Response to Smrti Daniel’s Searching Questions

Jean faces Smrti 

Daniel 1: What in your childhood contributed to the kind of writer you are now? What recurring motifs and images from that time find expression in your work?

JEAN1: So many factors. As I delve into my mind those images together with the diverse motifs that were part of each and every experience of my childhood. I was greatly loved and cared for by my parents and had aunts and uncles who played an important part in the lives of my brother and sister (I was the youngest) and showered us with gifts, especially books, from a very early age. My parents too read a great deal and the houses we lived in were full of books – of course the individual tastes of my parents were reflected in their reading choices. My father loved reading on everything under the sun, sport, Big Game, hunters and hunting, colonial history and landmark figures, discovery and exploration, plantations and the lives of planters in Ceylon (many of them were his friends), reminiscences, biographies, autobiographies, explorers, wars, the jungle lore of Ceylon … So much and so much, while my mother read a great deal of romantic fiction. She had a great store of memories too and would relate very adult stories to me (in between it was Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, fairy tales, family history where she unfolded hidden narratives which penetrated my mind and which I have reconstructed into greater dimensions to trace our lineage and bloodlines – so everything, now that I look on it all, began in my childhood, as being the youngest I was closest to them while my brother was at College, and my sister too spent more time at school (Wesley and Trinity, later the University of Colombo for my brother, and Girls’ High School for my sister). It would take reams and reams to write about just this one aspect of my childhood. There are other aspects too – the freedoms I enjoyed when I was growing up in the provincial township of Kadugannawa, living in that house on the hill. Continue reading

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Collette on EFC Ludowyk … and More

Incidental Gains from An Item on Richmond College, and Its Apollo Club  = http://richmondcollege.org/drama

Prof. E.F.C. Ludowyk

html css templatesProf. Evelyn Frederick Charles Ludowyk (1906-1985) a Sri Lankan Burgher Shakespearean scholar, author, playwright and critic, the first Professor of English of the University of Ceylon is the son of E. F. C. Ludowyk (Snr) who was an English teacher at Richmond from 1908 to 1935. Prof. Ludowyk was born on the 16th of October 1906 in Galle and died in 1985 in England.

In 1913 he passed the Junior Cambridge Examination with First Class Honours, with four distinctions. He also had the unparalleled distinction of being the youngest King’s Scout in the British Empire at the tender age of thirteen. Continue reading

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British House of Commons press for Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sri Lanka, March 2018

HOUSE OF COMMONS HANSARD, 20 March 2018, 

Paul Scully MP (Conservative, Sutton & Cheam), Chair of UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils called a short debate in Westminster Hall on the establishment of a Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Sri Lanka. FCO Minister, Rt Hon Mark Field responded on behalf of HMG

    • I beg to move,

      That this House has considered the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission in Sri Lanka.

      It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I am delighted to be joined by fellow members of the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils. The turnout represents the depth of feeling, particularly among the Tamil diaspora, in our constituencies. Yesterday, I led a debate in this Chamber on cystic fibrosis, which was the first time I have seen it with standing room only. The fact that there are fewer Members here for this debate does not negate its importance. Every Member in this Chamber represents many thousand members of the Tamil diaspora, who remain concerned about what is happening in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Government’s slow progress in meeting the terms of UN Human Rights Council resolution 30/1, which the Sri Lankan Government co-sponsored.

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White ‘Jihadist’ terrorises White House!

So says CLEMENT in The Australian

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Alan Strathern on The Vijaya Story as A Variant of the Romulus Tale … and Stranger Kings

Alan Strathern of Brasenose College, Oxford, with emphasis in colour being an imposition by The Editor Thuppahi

ABSTRACT: The story of Vijaya, has long been central to the Sinhalese idea of themselves as a distinct ethnic group of Aryan origin with ancient roots in the island of Lanka. The ‘national’ chronicle of the Sinhalese, the Mahāvaṃsa (circa fifth century ce) presents Vijaya, an exiled prince from India descended from a lion, as the founder hero of Sinhala civilisation. In a companion article to this, I argued that the narrative of Vijaya and other founder-heroes in the Mahāvaṃsa revolves around the theme of transgression, and that this puzzling fact can only be explained by a consideration of the symbolic logic of the ‘stranger-king’ in origin stories and kingship rituals worldwide.

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Tales of an Infertility Pill are effectively dismissed by Sri Lankan Medical Specialists

If EVER there was a tale of gullibility and chicanery combining to spread violent killing and havoc among the populace, it is the manner in which some elements in the Sinhalese population accepted the validity of rumours that Muslim traders were dispersing infertility pills among the Sinhala peoples. Such rumours seem to have peaked immediately after the Digane-Teldeniya violence and may have been a factor inspiring the attacks. They are certainly part of the vicious propaganda being wrought by elements of the BBS type as well as gullible ordinary citizens.

From my studies of ethnic violence in the past, I note that this arena is where the voices and incitement of women contribute to the retributory actions we know as “riots” and/or “pogroms.” Michael Roberts ***

The featured picture shows Sri Lankan police commandos guarding a riot hit market place.

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