too blady late
Jokes via Juxtaposition
Filed under taking the piss, world affairs
The Rohingya Issue: Bangladeshi Diplomat in Q and A with Ratnawalli
Darshanie Ratnawalli, from The Island, 23 September 2017, where the title reads “The Rohingya future generations in danger of radicalization”
When the attractive and affable High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, called the editor of this newspaper to discuss the Rohingya issue, he was engaging with the people of Sri Lanka in a refreshing act of non-traditional diplomacy. He was doing for Sri Lanka what the Kofi Annan Report was urging Myanmar and Bangladesh to do, engaging in “dialogue that promotes better mutual understanding, both at the level of the country’s leaders and people-to people ties” because “Myanmar and Bangladesh have different narratives on the challenges along their shared border. Despite the large numbers who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, the popular perception in Myanmar is that the problem is illegal immigration into Myanmar. There are also different historical narratives about the origin of communities and their population growth. These differences can only be narrowed by dialogue.”
High Commissioner Riaz Hamidulla
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The Buddha’s Middle Path is the Route to Lanka’s Present Constitutional Dilemma
Dayan Jayatilleka in The Island, 25 September 2017, where the title is “The ethnic issue: Fantasy vs. Reality. Response to Ladduwahetty and Hulugalle”
“At a time when national borders are vanishing, the borders in our own mind need to be erased in the interests of serious inquiry and discussion.”—Mervyn de Silva, The Age of Identity, 1993
As in life, there are no guarantees in politics. One can only avoid the most obvious mistakes and cultivate the wisdom to manage things prudently. A Constitution cannot function as a prison house. Countries, like people, stay together because of consent and mutual agreement. The “stability” that both Ladduwahetty and Hulugalle crave, cannot be ensured by rigidity and unilateral imposition. The stability of the whole can be achieved only through dialogue and consensus, involving mutual compromise and concessions, between the component parts. That is surely the logic and spirit of the Social Contract. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, constitutional amendments, devolution, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, world events & processes
How the Sinhala Chauvinists are Ruining Reconciliation as well as Sri Lanka
Kusal Perera, in Daily Mirror, 22 September 2017, where the title reads “Chaos, corruption covered by ‘Sinhala Patriotism” … with highlighting in Blue added by the editor, Thuppahi, while that in purple is Kusal Perera’s
“Save this Sinhala Buddhist country, not from those who rob their economic benefits, but from Tamil separatists and Muslim fundamentalists”
I have been given many epithets for trying to promote a decent and a civilised “North-South” dialogue for a common and a shared future with due respect to each other’s cultural identities. This week began with epithets like “Voice of (Tamil) Diaspora” and “A dollar paid Traitor”. Another called me a “Sinhala Buddhist basher”.
Filed under accountability, democratic measures, economic processes, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, world affairs
An Indivisible Nation in the New Constitution says Sambanthan
Sandasan Marasinghe & Camelia Nathaniel, in The Daily News, 22 September 2017, where the title is “Constitution formulated within a united, undivided, indivisible Sri Lanka: Sampanthan”
The process of formulating a Constitution for the country is being done within the firm framework of a united, undivided and indivisible Sri Lanka, said Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan yesterday.He also said that the successful conclusion of this Constitution making process on the basis of an acceptable reasonable and substantial national consensus would bring about a firm finality to this issue and Sri Lanka would perpetually be a united, undivided and indivisible country in keeping with the basic and Supreme Law of the country, and on the basis of the free will and consent of all its people. Continue reading
Filed under constitutional amendments, democratic measures, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, world affairs
Sri Lanka’s Constitutional-Political Dilemma TODAY: Three Types of Sri Lankan Separatists
Dayan Jayatilleka, in the Island, 19 September 2017,where the title is “Constitutional choices and Tamil politics. Three Types of Sri Lankan Separatists”
At the heart of the Constitutional Question is the crux of the continuing Sri Lankan crisis. And that is what may be variously called the Tamil Question, the Tamil issue, the Tamil problem, the Tamil national question, the Tamil nationalities question, the Tamil ethnic issue etc. I tend to see it as Sri Lanka’s North-South Question.
What is the Tamil Question? It is the problem of accommodating the identity and aspirations for irreducible political space of a community with a justifiable sense of pride and achievement, and doing so while not impinging upon the identity and aspirations for a secure space, of the unique community that forms the majority on this small island placed on a strategic sea-lane and in close proximity to a massive landmass with a huge population.
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Cricketing Outreach: Building Amity among Lanka’s Ethnic Groups?
Michael Roberts
A recent Skype chat with Uvindu Kurukulasuriya in London about Kumar Sangakkara inevitably led me to reflect upon the many reconciliatory measures Kumar has participated in – steps attempting to build bridges across the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic divide in Sri Lanka. Among these efforts, the most striking act was the powerful ecumenical statement he asserted at the end of his momentous Cowdrey Lecture at the MCC in London in 2011. “Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.”[1]
Murali Harmony Cup launched 2012 
Ian Botham with Murali
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Mattala Airport in China’s Game-Plan
Brook Larmer, courtesy of New York Times Magazine , 13 September 2017, where the title reads “What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence”
The four-lane highway leading out of the Sri Lankan town of Hambantota gets so little traffic that it sometimes attracts more wild elephants than automobiles. The pachyderms are intelligent — they seem to use the road as a jungle shortcut — but not intelligent enough, alas, to appreciate the pun their course embodies: It links together a series of white elephants, i.e. boondoggles, built and financed by the Chinese. Beyond the lonely highway itself, there is a 35,000-seat cricket stadium, an almost vacant $1.5 billion deepwater port and, 16 miles inland, a $209 million jewel known as “the world’s emptiest international airport.”
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Ferment in Lanka’s Political Firmament: Three Tamil Voices — Philips, Moonesinghe and Somasundram
Rajan Philips: “One more symbolic step: Wigneswaran’s audience with the Mahanayake Thera,” September 16, 2017
We need a break from the tedium, rather the opprobrium, of national corruption. To paraphrase Dr. Harsha de Silva’s public lamentation, the whole country is awash in corruption. The continuing non-promotion of people like Harsha de Silva and Eran Wickremaratne to full cabinet rank shows the depth of cabinet entrenchment by the corrupt and the crooked and the extent of exclusion of the bright and the honest. The government leadership has a lot to answer for its cabinet choices even as it has a lot of explaining to do about its highway contract choices.
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US Congress has Sri Lanka in Its Gunsights
Daya Gamage, courtesy of Asian Tribune, where the title runs thus “U.S. Congress Tightens War Crimes Noose on Sri Lanka”
The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations last week approved the FY 2018 Department of State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill with $51.35 billion for diplomatic and humanitarian programs that strengthen U.S. national security and support American values abroad. Despite the Trump administration’s soft-peddling of American values abroad – democracy promotion, good governance, human rights, and rule of law etc. – the Senate Appropriations Bill, co-authored by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democratic Patrick Leahy, independent of the White House budget proposals released last month, underscored policy iteration or ‘riders’ on Sri Lanka’s commitment to “increasing accountability and transparency in governance; supporting a credible justice mechanism in compliance with United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution (A/HCR/30/ L.29) of October, 2015”.
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