May 13, 2014 · 7:43 am

Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation in Lanka: Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews, where the title is a variation on that utilized here

Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965) led me to argue that this was a powerful tendency in Sinhalese nationalist thinking and that this unexamined tendency was a major problem in securing political accommodation that would assuage the growing dissent among the Sri Lankan Tamils (Roberts 1978). The problem remains and has been marked in the theme motif for my thuppahi site, viz., “the Sinhala Mindset” (2009a).

It was highlighted once again in my article “Pillars for the Future” in Frontline on 22 May 2009 immediately after the Government of Sri Lanka, marshalled by the Rajapaksas and UPFA, defeated the LTTE military machine (Roberts 2009b). I argued here for a multi-faceted approach directed towards dismantling the practices which encouraged the majoritarian Sinhala part to elide itself as the whole of Lanka in ways that naturalized domination. Continue reading →

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May 9, 2014 · 1:38 am

Julie Bishop canes Weiss

Courtesy of The Herald and Daily News

The opinion piece by Gordon Weiss (“Stance on Sri Lanka needs urgent rethink”, 4/4) includes a number of assertions that need correction. Most seriously, Mr. Weiss makes the untrue claim that during a visit to Tamil regions in Sri Lanka’s North and North-East just over 12 months ago I was given a guided tour by the Sri Lankan military. I led a delegation that included Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Justice Minister Michael Keenan. A precondition of our visit to the Tamil regions was that we would be driven around by leading members of the Tamil National Alliance. This took place over more than two days, with no military, government or police accompanying our delegation. Tamil community representatives Our Tamil hosts were free to take us to any location of their choice and we were unhindered by any arm of the Sri Lankan government.

gordon weiss Continue reading →

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May 9, 2014 · 1:12 am

China’s ALIBABA ‘penetrates’ USA

Vindu Goel, Michael J. De la Merced and Neil Gough, whose original article has a different title

ALIBABAThe e-commerce behemoth Alibaba filed in the United States on Tuesday to sell stock to the public for the first time, in an embrace of the global capital markets that represents a coming of age for the booming Chinese Internet industry. It is expected to raised 1 billion dollars immediately and may be 15 billion eventually-making it the biggest American IPO since Facebook raised $$16 billion.  “Alibaba is the fastest-growing Internet company in one of the fastest-growing economies in the world,” said Sameet Sinha, an analyst with B. Riley & Company, a boutique investment bank in Los Angeles. “They are like an Amazon, an eBay, and a PayPal.” Continue reading →

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May 9, 2014 · 12:15 am

New Light on the Hela Havula

Abstract of Garrett Field’s Essay in the Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, 2012, vol. 38: 1/2 entitled “Commonalities of Creative Resistance: Regional Nationalism in Rapiyel Tennakoon’s Bat Language and Sunil Santha’s Song for the Mother Tongue.” 

This article highlights commonalities of regional nationalism between the poetry and song of two Hela Havula (The Pure Sinhala Fraternity) members: Rapiyel Tennakoon and Sunil Santha. I reveal how their creative works advocated indigenous empowerment in opposition to Indian cultural hegemony, and against state solicitations for foreign consultation about Sinhala language planning and Sinhalese music development. Tennakoon challenged the negative portrayal of Sri Lankan characters in the Indian epic, the Ramayana, and Santha fashioned a Sri Lankan form of song that could stand autonomous from Indian musical influence. Tennakoon lashed out against the Sinhala-language dictionary office’s hire of German professor Wilhelm Geiger as consultant, and Santha quit Radio Ceylon in 1953 when the station appealed to Professor S.N. Ratanjankar, from North India, for advise on designing a national form of Sri Lankan music. Such dissent betrays an effort to define the nation not in relation to the West, but to explicitly position it in relation to India. A study of Tennekoon and Santha’s careers and compositions supplement the many works that focus on how native elite in South Asia fashioned a modern national culture in relation to the West, with an awareness of regional nationalist, non-elite communities—who also had a stake in defining the nation—struggling against inter-South Asian cultural hegemony. Continue reading →

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May 8, 2014 · 2:11 pm

Romila Thapar on the doing of history — historical investigation/writing today

Professor Romila Thapar responds to Kuldeep Kumar in addressing the growth of Indian historiography, the tradition of dissent, and current attempts to stifle intellectual expression — courtesy of Governance Now magazine   Vol.05 Issue-06 (16-30 April 2014)

ROMILA THAPAR 22Your book The Past Before Us comprehensively deals with the historical traditions of early north India. One wonders why and how the view that Indians lack historical consciousness came to be accepted.

This book that I published six months ago is on historical traditions in what I call early north India – that is anywhere from 1000 BC to 1300 AD. The book is essentially a study of historiography and that is an area of historical writing that we have not paid too much attention to in India, particularly not with reference to pre-modern India. It’s beginning to become very important with modern Indian history but less so with pre-modern history. It is significant as it is the study of the historians and ideology of the time, which conditions the writing of history. So, it’s history commenting on history writing. Continue reading →

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May 7, 2014 · 3:38 pm

Sri Lanka’s Politicians as a Scourge

Footprints In The Sands … by Derrick Mendis. s.j.

 DEREK MENDIS

Politics in Lanka is a dirty game

Sans sense of honesty, honour or shame.

On election-campaigns that squander millions,

When in power, make illicit billions.

 

Full of corruption, nepotism, crime,

They leave no footprints in the sands of time,

Self-seeking, self-serving, power-drunk quacks,

Cover up their crab-like, crooked tracks.

 

Parliament’s pack of jokers, jerks,

Abuse their power for self and perks,

Goons and buffoons, men of straw,

Brazenly bend and break the law.

 

They promise us the sun and the moon.

Pledges broken or forgotten soon,

Barefaced, through their teeth they lie,

On hollow words can we rely?

 

They flagrantly flout every rule in the book,

To come into power by hook or by crook,

From one party to another they jump,

Kiss President’s feet and lick his rump.

 

In sumptuous luxury they wine and dine,

Make ample hay while sun doth shine.

Of life’s best things they have their fill,

The taxpayers have to foot the bill.

 

They trot the globe and have a ball,

In five-star hotel, shopping mall,

Lavishly splurge like duke or count,

On bankrupt Lanka’s state account.

 

Their life is sweet, a bed of roses,

Gobbling Lanka’s scarce resources,

Our so-called rulers, leading lights,

Are a bunch of social parasites.

 

Their hands are soiled, palms well greased,

Our people, rich and poor are fleeced,

Most of them to the core are rotten,

They flaunt and flash their wealth ill-gotten.

 

How could these robbers ever dare

Their numerous assets to declare?

An auditor’s test they will not pass,

Many would end up behind bars.

 

Crime and corruption they cannot battle,

In their own cupboards many skeletons rattle.

A sincere statesman I fail to see

Among Sri Lanka’s powers-that-be.

 

Idolized heroes of yesterday,

Made traitors, villains of today..

Free-media muzzled, my country’s bane.

Journalists, editors attacked and slain.

 

Many politicians are vermin, pests,

Who earn fast-bucks and feather their nests,

They leave no footprints in the sands of time,

But craftily cover up their tracks of crime.

 

Rev Fr Derrick Mendis SJ

Colombo 4.

 

A NOTE: This poem has been circulated a number of times previously.  However, it is worthy of repetition, particularly in the present context.
Its author is Fr. Derrick Mendis, a Jesuit Priest, who was a brilliant student. He obtained a BSc Honours Degree in Economics. He then decided to qualify as a Chartered Accountant. The day he passed out as a Chartered Accountant, he declared his intention of joining the Society of Jesuits, which engages in evangelization and apostolic ministry, working in education, intellectual research and cultural pursuits, promoting social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

He is an amiable individual and is not averse to a sip of “spiritual” refreshment on social occasions, to complement his love of food. He is a talented musician, plays the piano and guitar [as well as the electron organ, ukulele, and flute]  wonderfully, has a magnificent singing voice and a lively sense of humour. This all contributes to him invariably being the life and soul of any social gathering. He amazingly also finds time to indulge in his love for the sea, by way of swimming, snorkelling, spear fishing and fishing with rod and line. A big man, he rides a tiny scooter, is quite rotund and sports a thick – now grey – beard. He is a highly respected priest, whose sermons are apparently outstanding, with a fair sprinkling of humour. He is, of course, quite outspoken, as his poem indicates. He is now retired from his pastoral role, but continues to work with lepers. He is quite a personality!

            

 

 

 

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May 6, 2014 · 1:35 pm

Sanga’s ecumenical homily draws a revealing exchange between two Ordinary Blokes

A — Scyld Berry quotes from Kumar Sangakkara’s MCC Address: “As the rhetorical climax, Sangakkara proclaimed his identity: “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.” It was a mighty statement in a neo-con world which portrays other people as different, alien, hostile, inferior, killable.”

B — blogger “Stel En” writes: “I am a Sri Lankan. But I am confused of Sangakkara’s statement “I am a sinhalaese, tamil, muslim, Buddhist…mmm very confusing. If he is a Buddhist, killing cows is a sin. But if he is a Muslim he should kill cows for EID festival. Just saying

C– blogger “Kalindu Perera” shoots him down: “no need to say you’re a sri lankan. the fact that you took that statement literally, completely ignoring the finer nuances of it shows amply that you’re from nowhere else but our little emerald isle……… well done on completely missing the point of what he was saying, and making this into yet another religion vs religion argument. Are you by any chance one of Gnanasaara’s people?”

****

SEE http://thuppahis.com/2011/07/09/kumar-sangakkara%E2%80%99s-ecumenical-lankan-nationalism/

Kumar Sangakkara’s Ecumenical Lankan Nationalism

“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” …. Kumar Sangakkara’s concluding sentences at his 2011 MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture, 4 July 2011…. for which see http://www.scribd.com/doc/59318468/2011-MCC-Spirit-of-Cricket-Cowdrey-Lecture

 

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May 6, 2014 · 11:46 am

Fulbright’s global vision is a LESSON to those with narrow parochial minds, Mr President

Amarakeerthi Liyanage’s Open Letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa

His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa, The President Socialist Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka, Office of the President, Temple Trees, 150 Galle Road, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka.

MR PROCLAIMS

Dear Mr. President,

AMARAKEERTHIMy name is Liyanage Amarakeerthi, a Fulbright Scholar (1998-2000) and a university lecturer.

I am also a fiction writer of some fame and acclaim. More importantly, I am a Sri Lankan citizen who imagines a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka where all its citizens can live without any form of discrimination regardless of their ethnicity, caste, gender and so on. Usually I do not write letters to political authorities or any person wielding power. As an intellectual I keep a critical distance from all centers of power. I will certainly not write any letter to such authorities to gain personal favors of any sort. However, I often write in order to draw the attention of people like you, Mr. President, towards the important issues of our country. I publish such letters in the press, which is one of the important spaces for freethinking citizens to express their views on matters of national and international significance.  In some of my recent articles to the press I have argued that state funding for education in our country has dramatically dwindled under your presidency. Yes sir. It has gone down. I hope you have read some of those articles. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2014 · 11:33 am

Introducing Political Conflicts in South Asia

Gerald H Peiris

GERRY PICSince the termination of European dominance over South Asia in the mid-20th century people living in most parts of the region have been plagued by various types of violent political conflict – some, excruciatingly prolonged and devastating in impact – most of which have roots in the colonial legacy. These range from international military confrontations and protracted civil wars to intermittent and localised riots involving rival groups with distinctive primordial or associational identities. Documentary sources of detailed information (academic writings, official records and trails of media reports etc.) on such turbulences, though available in abundance, are widely scattered, with certain sources remaining confined to archival depositories serving exclusive institutional needs. The present study is the product of an attempt, sustained over many years, to gather, systematise, and synthesise the information extracted from these sources, adopting, where appropriate, a comparative approach, and highlighting thematic concerns of salience to an understanding of the successes and failures of the South Asian countries in their post-colonial nation-building efforts. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2014 · 11:21 am

A Comparative Exploration of Political Conflict in South Asia: Peiris forges New Paths

Gamini Samaranayake reviews Political Conflict in South Asia by Gerald H Peiris … Peradeniya, 2013 .. from Island, 5 March 2014

 

ggerry BOOK COVER This monograph has a broad scope, one that encompasses political conflict in the countries in five national entities of South Asia – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka – and their trajectories of state-formation with all their turmoil, upheavals and inter-group confrontations. In the literature on contemporary processes of globalisation there has been a widespread practice of referring to Asia in general terms. This has tended to obfuscate the very distinct difference between South Asia and the other macro-regions of the ‘Asiatic Crescent’. South Asia, being the cradle of four main world religions, is the venue of a rich and highly diversified social and political history. It is the home of almost one-fifth of the world population, with a large proportion of its inhabitants living in conditions of poverty. Although the British Empire at its zenith included almost the whole of South Asia, the present nation-states of the region have their own distinctive political legacies from the past. Continue reading →

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