June 10, 2015 · 1:28 pm

Talaivar Pirapāharan among the Saivite Deities today in Tamilnadu

saved_resource  prabha2-Kovil

A Concerned Reader

The extent of misinformation and blind faith that exists among those who hear, read and think only in Tamil  has been highlighted by the recent news from the Sevugaraya Ayyanar temple in South Poigainallur village near Nagapattinam in South India. Apparently, Prabhakaran is raised to the level of a Guardian Deity, with the   Pro-LTTE Periyar Dravida Kazhagam acting as the prime mover of this deification. Apparently, the Tamil Nadu police had moved rapidly and removed the statues. However, we can well ask what would happen when Jayalalitha recovers her full powers. Continue reading →

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June 10, 2015 · 11:11 am

How to eradicate Islamic Terror?

Varun Ghosh reviewing David Kilcullen: Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State,  Black Inc, 2015 (?), 128pp, $22.99 … in The Weekend Australian, 6/7 June 2015, with the title “Snapping the terror tentacles.”

jihadists -OZA battle-weary West must summon the political will to defeat Islamic State and continue the fight against global terrorism. That is the central message of David Kilcullen’s expansive and ambitious Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State. Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer, develops his thesis by weaving together two distinct but related accounts: an analysis of the policy failures in Iraq that led to the rise of Islamic State and a broader evaluation of the global war on terrorism.

Kilcullen, in addition to his considerable experience as a counter-terrorism strategist and former adviser to US general David Petraeus and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, is a deft storyteller. The artful combination of his professional experience, insightful analysis and strategic recommendations makes for enthralling reading.

DAVID KILCULLENThe story of Islamic State begins in Iraq. Kilcullen is a severe critic of the decision to open a second front in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq before the conflict in Afghanistan and complex situation in Pakistan were resolved. By 2006, Iraq was mired in a sectarian civil war, led there by the “mindless obstinacy” of US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who “insisted on leaving the absolute minimum force in Iraq” following the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Ambassador Paul Bremer’s “disastrous de-Ba’athification edict and the disbanding of the Iraqi army” only compounded the folly. (Later, one US officer wrote to Kilcullen, “Note to self: consider renaming Camp Victory.”) Continue reading →

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June 10, 2015 · 10:50 am

Beheading the Citizenship of Some Jihadists! Australia getting tough

Cameron Stewart, in The Weekend Australian, 6/7 June 2015, where the title is “Half of all terrorists hit by citizenship changes” …  NOTE the striking interactive graphics which depict the suburbs of Sydney and Brisbane where individuals have been d identified and produce a photograph of each when you hit tht the right spot — Wow!!

Half of all Australians convicted or suspected of terrorist offences could be stripped of their citizenship under the proposed crackdown on dual nationals who engage in or support terrorism. This includes 11 dual Australian nationals jailed in the past decade for major terror plots, including planning to bomb the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights and the MCG on grand final day. The bill would also cover almost half of the estimated 110 Australians currently fighting for Islamic State and other extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. It would similarly jeopardise the citizenship of a large proportion of approximately 160 Australians whom ASIO suspects are actively supporting Islamic State in Australia.

PETER DUTTON  Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would have the power to strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals on advice from security agencies. Photographer: Liam Kidston Source: News Corp Australia

The figures, obtained by The Weekend Australian, bolster the government’s claim that the controversial measure could materially help reduce the terror threat to Australia. However, the number of those who are actually stripped of citizenship within Australia under the proposed change is likely to be modest, in line with the experience in Britain, which has similar laws. Even so, the surprisingly large number of dual Australian national extremists, both at home and overseas, would give the government broader scope to act against those it considered to pose the greatest risk. Continue reading →

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June 10, 2015 · 4:22 am

Knee-Jerk Idiocy in Foreign Policy: The Present Government and its Vengeance-cum-Patronage Politics

Nanda Godage … with a title imposed by the Editor

India is without doubt the most important country to us not only because of her proximity and our blood relationship but also because she is developing into becoming a Super Power and because of her capacity to do us harm. Our security and development are our foremost national interests and, therefore, India is indeed the most important country to us on the planet. SSThe Island on Sunday carried a front page report filed in an Indian newspaper to the effect that our High Commissioner described as ‘India friendly’ had been recalled. When the new administration took over we expected a professional approach to the management of our external relations, but some actions such as this are similar to those indulged in by the previous administration. We saw our foreign relations mismanaged in recent years with ‘relations of the rulers’ who had neither the qualifications nor the temperament nor knowledge nor understanding of diplomacy and international relations being appointed to promote our national interests; but there were indeed a few exceptions and one such was the appointment of Prof. Sudarshan Seneviratne as our High Commissioner to India. He obtained a doctorate from a prestigious Indian University and is a much respected man in Delhi and, above all, that had close friends in high places in the administration which is a tremendous asset and advantage to us; removing him merely because he was appointed by the previous administration is undoubtedly a stupid act and against the interests of the country. Continue reading →

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June 10, 2015 · 2:53 am

Sri Lanka’s Intelligentsia: A Clarion Call in 2015

Ranjith Senaratne, courtesy of The Island, 10 June 2015, http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=126212

“All reasonable men adapt themselves to the world. Only a few unreasonable ones persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves. All progress in the world depends on these unreasonable men and their innovative and often non-conformist action”. George Bernard Shaw.

During the last presidential election, among the political parties and pressure groups, professionals and intellectuals made an impact in changing and moulding public thinking and swaying public opinion, which resulted in a regime change. An important feature in this scenario was that the public accorded hearing and recognition to what the intellectuals said. This healthy, emerging trend has to be managed properly for the benefit of the country and its people, without allowing it be exploited for narrow political and personal ends. In the current political context, the public has only scant regard for the most of politicians because of their misdeeds, misconduct and/or poor educational./professional background. In my previous article titled “Civic Responsibilities and Moral Obligation of Intellectuals and Professionals in National Development” in the Island on the 21st / 22nd April, 2015, it was clearly shown that the proportion of ministers in our cabinet with a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification is much less than that even in Pakistan, India and Uganda. The situation could be still worse when it comes to our parliament. This is in spite of the fact that Sri Lanka possesses a much higher literacy rate than those countries, which is truly ironic.

SIRISENA 11 SIRISENA at pooja Continue reading →

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June 8, 2015 · 9:04 pm

Reflections on Ondaatje’s WOOLF IN CEYLON

 Gamini Seneviratne, reviewing Christopher Ondaatje: Woolf in Ceylon. An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf-1904-1911 (2006)

 woolfceylonThis book runs to over 300 pages – room enough for Christopher Ondaatje to touch on virtually every aspect of Leonard Woolf’s life and work. It would of course be possible to pursue each of them towards a clearer understanding of both (author and subject). In a review of this kind, though, a consideration of what appears to be the author’s view of what Woolf experienced here and in England must suffice. Note that Ondaatje’s account is embellished by many photographs, some of them truly excellent. Some have been drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and the University of Sussex, many are of Ondaatje’s own making.

The author has been to a great deal of trouble researching the people and places mentioned by Woolf in his writings on / from Ceylon: ‘The Village in the Jungle’, ‘Stories from the East’, his letters and ‘Growing’ the segment of his autobiography that covers his stay here in the early 1900s, and his official Diaries as Assistant Government Agent, Hambantota. Ondaatje’s writing is lively and lucid, perhaps less so here than in ‘The Man-eater of Punani’. A selection of the photographs in both books merits publication in a separate portfolio.

CHRIS O--11 Continue reading →

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June 8, 2015 · 10:20 am

Nationalism, the past and the present: The case of Sri Lanka

Michael Roberts

This review article was drafted in 1991 and should therefore be assessed in the light of the literature available then. In those days it took at least two years for an article to be refereed and published. The essay  discussesthe following three books: Jonathan Spencer, A Sinhala Village in a Time of Trouble.  Politics and Change in Rural Sri Lanka, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990, 285pp; Jonathan Spencer (ed.), Sri Lanka.  History and the Roots of Conflict, London: Routledge, 1990, 253pp; Manning Nash, The Cauldron of Ethnicity in the Modern World, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989, 142pp. It was originally printed in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1993, 16: 133-161. Emphasis has since been added in red.

spencer--www.sasnet.lu.se Spencer  leslie g- Gunawardana 

Benedict Anderson and Dr. Niall î Dochartaigh at NUI Galway Photograph by Aengus McMahon

Benedict Anderson and Dr. Niall î Dochartaigh at NUI Galway
Photograph by Aengus McMahon

The ongoing ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has aroused interest in both the reasons for the breakdown of its polity and the roots of Tamil and Sinhala identities. The resurgence of nationalism in Eastern Europe will encourage studies in the broader implications of the Sri Lankan data for social science theory. As a result of the excesses of the Nazi upsurge, Western scholars have tended to regard nationalism as retrograde and potentially patho­logical (e.g. Kedourie 1960) or reprehensibly atavistic.  In South Asia, in contrast, ever since the decolonization process got under way, nationalism has been viewed positively—as long as its goals were framed in terms of the existing (colonial) political boundaries. The recent upsurge of violence has encouraged Asian scholars to question this perspective.  Such questioning is sometimes embodied in the term ‘chauvinism’ (e.g. Coomaraswamy 1987: 74-81). This term is not a novel addition to the Asian English lexicon. It was used in British Ceylon in the 1920s and 1930s to describe those who pressed for Tamil and Sinhalese sectional interests: these spokesmen were reviled as “communalists”, “chauvinists” and “tribalists” by both the moderates and radicals who espoused a Ceylonese nationalism.[1] Continue reading →

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June 2, 2015 · 5:28 pm

CPA launches web book on Presidentialism

Reforming Sri Lankan Presidentialism – Provenance, Problems and Prospects is a collection of scholarly essays edited by Asanga Welikala.

Download the entire contents of the book, by Volume or by individual contribution, here.

Bala-VannamaThe cover of the book …Chandraguptha Thenuwara

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May 29, 2015 · 2:02 pm

An Aussie Bloke’s Reflections on the Warring Mentality of Humankind, 1914 -2015

Walter Steensby

Hello Michael, At last I’ve read the entire paper.[1] Good analysis. Some comments follow, in no particular order.

Regarding Monis, recent reports of his mental health paint the picture of a man who was a lunatic rather than a terrorist. Some might ask, is there a difference? What annoys and saddens me about the whole episode is that Monis’ actions got the maximum possible media exposure, while the tragedy in Cairns at almost the same time, where that woman killed seven of her own children plus one other, was largely ignored. One doesn’t like to rank tragedies, but I would have thought that eight child murders are just as newsworthy as two adult murders. I cynically suggest that the Monis affair was emphasised to continue keeping the people afraid of infidels.

Recently I went to a musical (re)presentation of the International Congress of Women held in 1915 in The Hague….international_congress_women_560

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May 24, 2015 · 5:20 pm

DHEEPAN: A Fictional Tale of Tamil Tiger Asylum Seeker – Now in the Cannes spotlight

“Dheepan” is one of 19 films in competition for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or top prize,  to be awarded on Sunday. The story of Dheepan is that of  a former fighter in the Sri Lankan civil war trying to make a new life in France with a fake family.

“Dheepan” by one of France’s most acclaimed film directors, Jacques Audiard, tells the story of the  war-scarred title character meeting a young woman and a nine-year-old girl in a refugee camp. In order to win passage to France, they assume the identities of a dead family to use their travel papers. The Film appears to have received wide acclaim and is featured in several media reports, including the Guardian, Washington Times and The Daily Mail. 
London’s Evening Standard newspaper called it an “intense thriller that goes to the heart of the immigrant crisis”. And cinema trade magazine Screen International said the picture offers “the pleasures of captivating storytelling with an irresistible human pulse”
Sri Lankan immigrant drama ‘Dheepan’ finds a home at Cannes
From left, actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan, director Jacques Audiard, actress Claudine Vincent Rottiers and actress Kalieaswari Srinivasan pose for photographers during a photo call for the film Dheepan, at the 68th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)

From left, actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan, director Jacques Audiard, actress Claudine Vincent Rottiers and actress Kalieaswari Srinivasan pose for photographers during a photo call for the film Dheepan, at the 68th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 21, 2015. ..by JAKE COYLE – Associated Press – Thursday, May 21, 2015

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