February 17, 2018 · 9:45 am

Neville Weereratne: the Artist and his Distant Homeland

Tony Donaldson

This essay on the life and art of Neville Weereratne is based on interviews recorded in Melbourne in July 2014 and from material collected during fieldwork in Australia and Sri Lanka.

 Neville Weereratne.

The artist and author Neville Weereratne died in Melbourne on 3 January 2018 at the age of 86. He was born in Colombo on 3 December 1931. A Sinhalese by descent and the youngest of five siblings, he began drawing at about the age of six. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Hulftsdorp, near to the Supreme and Magistrate courts, but their home was requisitioned by the civil authorities in World War 2 and so the family moved into a house in Dehiwela owned by the Peries family (Ivan and Lester).

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, performance, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, working class conditions

February 17, 2018 · 1:49 am

Colombo City in Singapore Style? Its Hinterland Trumps That Idea …. Witness: The Recent Elections

Wilfred Jayasuriya

I assume that the government is using the Singapore model of economic development, which focuses on services and not on agriculture or industry. In the 1970s when economic development or development economics became the favourite subject of politics and economics I was lucky to do a one year post graduate diploma in Oxford University for government officers. One question raised was “How valid is the Singapore model?” and the short answer given by Robert Mabro, an Egyptian academic who ran the course was: Singapore has no hinterland.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, economic processes, electoral structures, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes

February 17, 2018 · 1:22 am

Curiouser and Curiouser ….. Inquisitive Eyes!

Seeing is Believing !!

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, landscape wondrous, life stories, travelogue, wild life

February 16, 2018 · 3:27 pm

Buddy-Buddies. Endearing Moments

Thanks to Dr Mervyn de Silva in SRI LANKA

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, landscape wondrous

February 14, 2018 · 7:04 am

Different Worlds: Upali Mahaliyana’s Novel

Upali Mahaliyana’s Introductory Note

This is NOT my autobiography.  Although Ajith, the main Character in this novel, shares the times and a part of his background with me, he is a completely different person who had a very different character and a life to mine.  His family has absolutely no resemblance to mine.

This is NOT a biographical novel either.  Although Ajith binds the story together, it is not just his story.

Instead, it is a story of changing lifestyles, values and attitudes of Sri Lankan society over different times and different environments, demonstrated through five generations of the same family.  It covers an era from the early part of the twentieth century to the present times and a geographical area from a rural village in Sri Lanka, through a provincial city and the capital city into the Sri Lankan diaspora in the world.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, heritage, life stories, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, world affairs

February 14, 2018 · 1:58 am

Is the Resounding Silence of the Western Powers Today a Meaningful Pointer to the Recent Past?

J. Natasha Gooneratne, in Island, 14 February 2018, where the title is “Yahapalanaya and silence of international community”.… Note that the highlighting has been imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Does the international community’s silence during the rule of Yahapalanaya mean Sri Lanka is finally on the ‘right’ path, or that we’re finally doing what we’re told to do!!!

Mangala Samaraweera at UN, 2015– http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/39111

From 2009 to 2014, Sri Lanka was so heavily featured in international news and foreign government feeds that it was impossible to ignore. From the US led resolution, submitted to the UNHRC, to opinions on how the former government leaders should be tried in international courts (one American journalist even explained how the former Defense Secretary could be taken out of Sri Lanka and be tried in a US court in order to remove impediments toward Yahapalanaya rule), to unsubstantiated claims about corruption, the international community seemed to only want to take out the Rajapaksa-led government, whether they had proof or not of what they were writing about. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, economic processes, foreign policy, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, war reportage, world events & processes

February 13, 2018 · 1:20 am

D H Lawrence in Kandy 1922

Jane Russell

D H Lawrence came to Ceylon with his wife Frieda in late February 1922. Lawrence once referred to the later years of his life, spent wandering from place to place across the world in search of relief from illness, as his “savage pilgrimage”.  Interestingly, the Lawrences arrived just a couple of years after Hilda Westbrook (soon to be Kularatne) first passed through the Colombo Harbour steamboat passenger terminal.

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under British colonialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, education, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world affairs

February 13, 2018 · 12:48 am

Political Turmoil NOW: Charting Prospects and Pathways with Huge Question Marks

SWR de A Samarasinghe, in Island, 13 February 2018 where the title is “Ups and Downs of Sri Lankan Politics and Looming Political Uncertainty. The Local Government Elections

article_image
 Last Saturday’s Local Government (LG) Election dealt a stunning blow to President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the two respective political parties, UPFA and UNP, that they lead and paved the way for the major political comeback of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, democratic measures, economic processes, electoral structures, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, parliamentary elections, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, welfare & philanthophy, world affairs

February 12, 2018 · 1:06 pm

Mahatma Gandhi’s Opposition to the Seizure of Palestine for the Jews

The Editor, News in Asia,  29 January 2018, where the title is as follows:: “What Mahatma Gandhi said about Jews’ bid to seize Palestine”

When the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to India recently, he was taken to Gujarat by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Ironically, the itinerary there included a visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s  Sabarmati Ashram. These steps seemed very odd and hypocritical as Gandhi had been against the establishment of Israel or the forcible settlement of Jews there without the consent of the Arabs, who were long settled there.

 Mahatma Gandhi on his frequent tours

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, historical interpretation, human rights, legal issues, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, unusual people, world events & processes

February 12, 2018 · 3:56 am

Implications of the Local Government Elections February 2018: An Incisive Review

Dayan Jayatilleka

It was the well-established, UNP and West-friendly website ECONOMYNEXT that broke the story using the ‘L’ Word—Landslide: “Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s proxy was set for an unexpected landslide victory in Saturday’s local council elections…Unofficial results showed that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was leading in almost all the districts outside the north and the east and was on its way to secure an unassailable 51 percent of the total votes polled.Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) was being pushed to a humiliating second place…”(‘Rajapaksa proxy heads for landslide in Sri Lanka vote’- Feb 10th)

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability