January 4, 2016 · 11:54 am

American Trojan Horses penetrating Sri Lanka Now?

Michael Roberts

George Soros, founder of Soros Fund Management LLC, takes part in a panel discussion at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank annual fall meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. The IMF said it is ready to "strongly support" European nations in their efforts to resolve the region's sovereign debt crisis. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** George Soros

George Soros –Pic by  Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

George Soros and Prof. Joseph Stiglitz will be visiting Sri Lanka in the next few days for discussions on economic and political paths at the highest levels. Their visits are a consolidation of American ‘patronage’ of the Yahapalanaya government marked by preceding visits from John Kerry and Samantha Power, heavyweights in the USA government. Both Soros and Stiglitz are controversial figures, subject to searing criticism from right-wing currents in USA as well as (2) left-wing intellectuals with grounded insights into the operations of the US government and (3) nationalists in the old colonized countries who are wary of the machinations of those so-called ’international’ agencies’ who espouse R2P interventions in support of human rights in ways that seem to complement USA’s agendas.

The line of protest voiced by those pressing allegation 3 above is presented below in Item B by “Patriot” taken from Lankaweb on 2nd January. It is preceded by Item A, a short MEMO on the run (Blackberry) from the Canadian lawyer-intellectual Christopher Black in response to my query inspired by Item B. Continue reading →

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January 2, 2016 · 11:22 am

Usman Khawaja’s Islamic Faith keeps him Sane and Grounded

cate_mcgregorCate Mcgregor, in The Australian, 31 December 2015, where the title is “Usman Khawaja opens up about his Muslim faith and cricket”

At times this summer, Usman Khawaja has reminded me of Eng­land’s David Gower at the peak of his majestic power. Both these gifted left-handers often attracted the adjective “languid” to describe the ridiculous ease, and abundant time, with which they played their shots. Like Gower, Khawaja looks improbably boyish, even vulnerable, stripped of the gladiatorial batting paraphernalia of the modern Test cricketer. He looks even younger and more boyish when his face breaks into a self-deprecating grin. This is not an infrequent occurrence despite the sensitive and ­serious topic we are discussing at the Australian team’s hotel on the morning after the Melbourne Test match. AA-KHAWAJA 2 Khawaja’s faith has been a source of comfort during difficult times in both his cricket career and life –Pic from  Aaron Francis

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January 2, 2016 · 1:55 am

A Classics Man on The Depressing State of Lanka’s Politics

Diogenes in The Island, 2 January 2016, where the title is “Politics: The inelegant art of ‘immoral ‘suasion!”

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Percipient readers of The Island would expectedly be dismayed, when they look around and observe the intriguingly disturbing developments taking place in the local political scene. The much-vaunted aspects of representative democracy, which basically lay stress on the elected representatives reflecting the will of the people in formulating and implementing policies which live up to the pledges made during election time, have over the years, been cleverly and imperceptibly turned into increasingly self-centred, aggressive endeavours to augment the individual and collective power of politicians, all done of course, in the name of the ‘will of the people’! We have witnessed the monolithic aggrandizement of hegemonic power by the former Executive President, which seemed totally unwarranted, particularly after the LTTE terrorists had been totally crushed and vanquished! This hegemonic dominance over the Legislature and the Cabinet facilitated the further strengthening of the numerical predominance of the ruling party in Parliament. This was accomplished by offering irresistibly attractive perks and other inducements as largesse, to members across the divide, to cross over. The public at large however, took a dim view of all these extravagant blandishments of power and dominance. This was a huge faux pas which the then incumbent President was never able to live down. Despite the magnificent victory won facing innumerable odds ,the people remained wary of the acquisition of unbridled power by the Head of the State, as they saw in it, a deliberate enervation and emasculation of the ‘will of the people’. The die was cast for the tide to turn decisively against him! Continue reading →

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December 31, 2015 · 6:31 am

Everyday Issues in Democratic Parliamentary Politics … Now in Sri Lanka

ONE. Michael Roberts: Democratic procedures in plural societies, whether in the West or the East, invariably seem to spawn a proliferation of parties and/or factions. These factions and minute parties can imperil the democratic process by generating instability and even rendering instability into a permanent feature of the political order during some moments in a country’s history. This sort of development was one factor that enabled the Nationalist Socialist Party to rise to power in the Weimar Republic; while Mussolini’s rise to power was also encouraged by such fragmentation. Given the several parties/factions in Sri Lanka’s present polity amidst the sometimes intractable issues arising from a spatial distribution of three ethnic communities — where “Muslim” constitutes a “religio-ethnic group” (embracing the Yon but not the Ja) when set alongside the categories “SL Tamil,” “Malaiyaha  Tamil” and “Sinhala” — the creation ofa new constitution needs to address this problem.

TWO. Press Release from TNA, 30 December 2015: “TNA and SLMC leaders held 1st Round of talks aimed at realizing the aspirations of the Tamil and Muslim people in the proposed new constitutional arrangements. These discussions will continue.” TNA + mUuslim 12 Continue reading →

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December 30, 2015 · 8:43 am

Mahela: At the Epicentre of Many a Crisis

Wright Thompson, courtesy of ESPNcricinfo, October 5, 2012, where the title is “A man who speaks for a nation” … apparently an old essay penned in 2012

Three years ago, the Sri Lankan cricket team rode through the streets of Lahore, Pakistan, on the third day of a Test match. Captain Mahela Jayawardene, who is to his country what Derek Jeter is to the city of New York, rode near the back of the bus. The convoy, with a police escort, rolled through the streets outside the stadium. Mahela, known as MJ, took out his phone to call his wife, and that’s when they all heard what sounded like fireworks. Someone shouted, “They’re shooting at the bus!” They heard the bullets, marching down the side exposed to the terrorist gunmen, sounding like rain on a metal roof. Mahela dived for the floor, and the first 30 seconds of what happened next ended up on Christina Jayawardene’s voicemail. An RPG flew over the bus. A grenade rolled under it. It was a blur: policemen being shot in the street, dying on a Tuesday morning, bullets striking the tires, players screaming. When she played the message for Mahela’s oldest friend, tears flowed down her face as he listened.

31a--lahoregunmenAFP_608x325 TV image of attackers –reproduced in Roberts: Incursions 32b--HELICOPTER_45528386_006965739-1 Sri Lankan team being evacuated from Gaddafi Stadium

“I got hit,” her husband shouted, and she heard the fear in his voice. Next his friend and fellow star Kumar Sangakkara, also a cricket legend, got hit with shrapnel, too, then another and another. Six in all were wounded, only one by a bullet. Soon, the bus driver would heroically drive them to safety, and Mahela would call the president of Sri Lanka on a private number, flexing for the first time anyone could remember, telling the politician to get him and his boys home. But on the floor of the bus, wounded by shrapnel and bleeding, Mahela felt sure that he’d die outside a stadium, killed for the crime of being a cricket star in a part of the world where the games seem to matter way more than they should. Continue reading →

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December 30, 2015 · 2:51 am

Vigneswaran’s Fundamentalism and Present Political Manoeuvres spell Danger for Us Tamils

Mylvaganam Sooriasegaram, courtesy of Ceylon Today, where it will appear with the title “Logic behind the actions and politics of the NPC”

aa-wigneswaran-www.hirunews.lkVigneswaran–Pic from www.hirunews.lk

It is essential to try to go deep into the actions and politics of the NPC, led by TNA’s breakaway group centred around the Chief Minister, C. Vigneswaran and assess the inherent dangers. Separatist ideology and an attempt to return to the barren politics of the LTTE can be seen in every one of their actions. If this is not identified and exposed, once again the Tamil people will be forced to take the road to disaster and Sri Lanka will be plunged into another civil strife for decades. One such painful experience in our history is too many – we have to mobilize ourselves and act together to prevent its repetition.  Otherwise we will sleepwalk into another disaster like the one we had to endure during the last 30 years. I am not a nationalist but if we have to choose between the nationalism of the TNA and that of the Federal Party, the latter is a tolerable one. Neither is my choice… provided we can collectively work for a truly democratic Sri Lanka where all the different communities can enjoy equal rights, opportunities and privileges, irrespective of their religion, language and ethnicity.   Continue reading →

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December 29, 2015 · 12:45 pm

Fundamentalist Terrorism within the Catholic Church in Lanka: Christmas Tree Banned

THREE NEWS ITEMS presented below report the sweeping decree from the Catholic Bishops of Sri Lanka which banished the Christmas tree from the sacred portals of any and every Catholic Church in the island, arousing critical — and horrified — reactions from local parishioners as well as observers. What we see in this instance is another instance of the sweep of fundamentalisms of all sorts throughout the world. The Salafi/Wahabi currents of Islamic fundamentalism are not alone in the field of extremism. We have free-speech extremists of the Charlie Hebdo type who are ready to, so to speak, place their buttocks on the line in defense of satirical extremism. We have secular fundamentalists of the Gordon Weiss-Trevor Grant type who read complex political situations  in either/or terms that lead them to pick on the good guys and thus to abuse the bad guys via the colossal misrepresentation of the evidence….. et  cetera  et cetera. What a dogmatic world !! Michael Roberts

ONE: News Item in Sunday Times, “Bishops ban Christmas trees and Santas in churches,” ….For the first time in history, the Catholic bishops have decided there should be no Christmas trees or Santas in churches during the festive season, a spokesman said yesterday. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo and president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL), has sent out a circular, banning Christmas trees and Santas in Catholic churches of all dioceses.

Rev. Fr. Cyril Gamini, the Church’s Social Communications Director, said the bishops believed that Christmas trees and Santas were only decorations and should not be brought into the sanctity of the church. However, some Catholics were quick to protest against the order by the bishops and asked that it be revoked. One Catholic said that to set up a Christmas tree outside the church was not practical because it would be exposed to the current bad weather and could be damaged.

“Christmas trees and Santas are beautiful and harmless Catholic traditions and they should remain that way,” an irritated parishioner from the Catholic majority area of Moratuwa said.

christmas tree and church Continue reading →

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December 29, 2015 · 10:48 am

Radical Free-Speech Academics enable Jihadist Extremism

Rowan Callick, in The Australian, 29 December 2015, where the title is “ASIO head’s terror gag ‘reflects academic fashion’,”

Academic theoreticians are to blame for Australia being in a position where ASIO head Duncan Lewis, “an unelected securocrat”, tells democratically elected MPs that “silence is the price they have to pay for an uneasy civil peace”. David Martin Jones, a former associate professor at Queensland University who is visiting professor at the War Studies Department at London University’s King’s College, told The Australian that, from a widespread academic perspective, “the market and the West perpetuate the real global ­violence, not terrorists, who merely resist the capitalist behemoth”.

DUNCAN LEWIS ASIO head Duncan Lewis ‘merely reflected a widespread view that criticism of Islam by a non-Muslim will only provoke Muslim rage and provide more recruits to Islamic State’.

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December 29, 2015 · 10:22 am

The Aesthetics of Script and Alphabet

Courtesy of The Island, 1 December 2015, where the title is “Five of the world’s most beautiful alphabets“

SINCE THE BIRTH OF THE ALPHABET in the Near East around 2000 BC, endless writing systems from different languages and cultures have thrived and perished. The classic example is Egyptian, a highly developed civilization whose legacy remains the form of a famous hieroglyphic writing system…which we’ve never been able to fully decipher. Over the last 2,500 years, the Latin alphabet has become so popular it’s swept away writing systems of peoples once dominated by the Romans. However, more than two billion people still write in other formats, and a few of them display an impressive handmade beauty.

aesthetics 11 Below are five of the most aesthetically attractive alphabets in the world, and the reasons why you’re probably never going to read them.

1. Burmese (Myanmar): The Burmese alphabet (from old Burma, now called Myanmar) is composed of circular shapes that must always be drawn clockwise. The mesmerizing script has a raison d’être more practical than aesthetic: The palm leaves in which the letters were traditionally carved were easily torn by straight cuts. Continue reading →

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December 29, 2015 · 12:37 am

Jetwing Hotels break New Ground in the Jaffna Peninsula

Himal Kotelawala, courtesy of Daily FT, 13 November 2015, http://www.ft.lk/article/495869/Jetwing-Jaffna-to-jump-start-northern-economy,… where the title is “Jetwing Jaffna to jump-start northern economy“

The Jaffna peninsula is set to get its first-ever star class hotel, as Jetwing Hotels and Mercantile Merchant Banking Ltd. (MMBL) together near completion of Jetwing Jaffna, a Rs. 1 billion 3+ star hotel with 54 rooms and two suites, expected to generate employment and various other opportunities to the local populace starting January 2016. Yarl Hotels Ltd., a company set up solely to oversee the project, is scheduled to go public as soon as operations begin, at a price that has yet to be determined. With the official opening of the hotel little more than a month away, the Daily FT caught up with senior businessman and Yarl Hotels Independent Director/Chairman Rajan Asirwatham on the projected economic dividends of the hotel for the hitherto neglected people of an entire province ravaged by nearly three decades of war.

ASIRWATAHN--JETWING HOTEL Jetwing Jaffna Continue reading →

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