March 21, 2011 · 5:57 pm

Motifs in Sri Lankan Cricket … including Saving Murali, Tamil Protests & the Lahore Attack

Michael Roberts, March 21, 2011

Incursions and Excursions in and around Sri Lankan Cricket is a new book that runs to 176 pages plus 32 pages of photographs that are not paginated, but numbered, in a cluster in the middle. The book is available at Vijitha Yapa Publications who also have a credit card system which runs efficiently – www.vijithayapa.com.

 Tamil demonstrators at Canberra, Feb. 2008

 Tamil demo, Oval, Kennington, 11 June 1975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Thilan Samarawera in ambulance — Pic from AFP

 Lasith Malinga at Presidential Reception for Cricketers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading →

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March 20, 2011 · 6:05 pm

Level playing field and affirmative answers in the Cricket World Cup

Mike Marqusee, Courtesy of The Hindu, 20 March 2011 and http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?p=1154

 At the outset of this World Cup, both the format and the event were on trial. Questions about its pre-eminence in the global game had been raised not only by the best forgotten 2007 instalment but even more by the rise of T20 and the IPL. While it’s too early to say, at the half way point the tournament seem to be answering these questions in the affirmative. At least that’s what it looks like sprawled in front of a TV screen in faraway London. Continue reading →

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March 10, 2011 · 2:13 am

Scams local and foreign: exercise caution

Renton de Alwis, in Daily News, 9 March 2011

I, in my 60’s and retired recently received this e-mail in my inbox. Like most of you, I also get Internet offers to manage estates of dead husbands, hidden riches of fallen African leaders and the like. Yet, this one was different.

The sender’s address looked that of a believable hotel recruitment outfit. The snail mail address of the hotel, on a Google search was found to be correct and the text read “I am Mrs Mary Spencer, the Vacancy manager of …… hotel in London. I want to let you know that we need men and women who can work and live in London. The hotel management will assist in your visa and work permit processing and will also take care of your one-way air ticket. Interested persons can contact me via our email address”. A different email address was given for the response. Continue reading →

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March 10, 2011 · 2:00 am

Cinderellas of Chulipuram

Elmo Jayawardena in the Sunday Leader, 27 February 2011

The hamlet sleeps under a clear blue sky. The place and the people in this almost desolate corner of northern Sri Lanka have seen and suffered decades of turmoil and had accepted the devastation of the thirty year war as a way of life. Even in peace the scars of strife clearly remain. The recollections of the people are sad and are common, of the young going to fight and returning in coffins. Many of their loved ones are buried in shallow graves in makeshift cemeteries. Seldom are they marked with name and place for remembrance. This is what insignificance and down-right poverty does to the departed. Many have gone simply missing, expendable innocents of the battles that took place in the name of ethnic divisions. A lot died at tender ages, fighting a war that was not theirs to fight, dragged into a conflict they knew little about except that they were born to a different race, in a country they rightfully called home. Continue reading →

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March 8, 2011 · 3:33 am

Simpleton misapplications of the Middle East examples

Dayan Jayatilleka, in the Daily News, 8 March 2011

 The conversation I had on Lankan trajectories and ‘declinist’ discourses in a Paris cafe on a Sunday with my friend and former colleague, Prof Nira Wickramasingha, now holding the Chair of South Asian History at Leiden University, reminded me of a point she had made sharply in her slender book History Writing. Sri Lanka, she had remarked, was one of the few countries in which mainstream newspapers carried pieces on history by those without any credentials or formal training in the disciplines of history and historiography.

This, she wrote, would never happen in India for instance, where any incursion into history in the quality press would have to be backed up with credentials in order to secure publication.

What she said of history is just as true of politics. Sri Lankan newspapers and websites are replete with pieces that go beyond intellectually legitimate critical commentary to the pontifically prescriptive and hortatory – almost in inverse proportion to academic training and testing in the domain of political studies or any of its sub-fields. Continue reading →

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March 7, 2011 · 5:53 pm

Populist Politics and the Sooriyawewa & Premadasa Stadiums

Michael Roberts

The old Premadasa Stadium was a monstrosity. The new one is far better on the eye though hardly a classic structure. Together with the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Sooriyawewa it was constructed in time for the staging of the World Cup. In this achievement both stadiums stand out sharply in contrast with the tale surrounding the renovations that were done at Eden Gardens in Calcutta.

 The old Premadasa Stadium in silhouete — Pic by David Colin-Thome

 

 

 Premadasa Stadium today —Pics by Pramod Fernando in isandcricket.com

Thus both venues stand as monuments to the hard work of Suraj Dandeniya and his team, including the army of workers of all types who slaved away for months. In this silent but imposing manner they are a slap in the face of the several media outlets, headed by the Island, who ran a concerted campaign of denigration against Sri Lanka Cricket in general and its chairman de Silva and his nephew Suraj in particular. The carping attacks were as concerted as they were strident Continue reading →

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March 7, 2011 · 5:22 pm

Humanitarian Issues During the War in Sri Lanka-Speech by Don Randall MP made in the Australian Parliament on 28 Feb. 2011

Date Monday, 28 February 2011
Source House Page137
Proof Yes
Questioner
Responder
Randall, Don, MP Question No.Mr RANDALL(Canning) (12.02 pm)—

I am pleased to speak on this motion on humanitarian issues during thewar in Sri Lanka. At the outset, I congratulate the member for Werriwa on bringing this motion to the parliament and for the measured way that he addressed it. I have always had high regard for the member for Werriwa’s interest in human rights issues and migration issues. On this occasion he is quite passionate about his views as the issue stands now.

  I come to this debate from a number of perspectives. One of them is the fact that I am the deputy chair of the Sri Lanka friendship group in this parliament and I have a keen interest in the issues. Like the member for Werriwa and others, I have had contact and lobbying from both sides of the Sri Lankan debate. Continue reading →

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March 7, 2011 · 12:36 pm

Danziger: Migration plays an important role in the Sri Lankan economy

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Leader [27 February 2011] covering wide range of migration related issues, Richard Danziger, Chief of Mission of International Organization for Migration highlighted the importance of migration related activities to Sri Lanka. “Migration plays an important role in the Sri Lankan economy and has enormous impact on society as a whole. There are some 2 million Sri Lankans abroad. That is almost 10 percent of the population.  Many of these perhaps as much as thirty percent – have a tertiary education. The total amount of money remitted to Sri Lanka will likely be over 3.5 billion US dollars this year,” he said, Continue reading →

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March 7, 2011 · 9:15 am

SSRR: Samaraweera slashes the Rajapaksa Regime

Mangala Samaraweera, in Sunday Leader, 27 Feb. 2011 under title:   “Rajapaksa’s Dictatorial Allies Foretell His Future”

 It is with great alarm that the peace loving people of the civilised world witness the despotic regime of Muammar Gaddafi killing his own people, using heavy weapons and even fighter aircraft to bomb civilian targets in a desperate attempt to retain power. Looking at the brutal suppression of peaceful civilian protests in Libya by its megalomaniac leader and his sons we cannot but draw parallels to the dynastic path the Rajapaksa regime has taken here at home.
For the last 42 years Gaddafi has ruled Libya with an iron fist, destroying all forms of opposition, stifling dissent, silencing free speech and paving the way for his sons to take over once he is no more. During this time he and his family amassed billions of dollars and siphoned the country’s oil wealth. Oil rich Libya with its population of just six million is run by a handful of family members and cronies loyal to the first family. Gaddafi’s sons Saif, Mutassim and Hannibal hold key positions in government and the military running the country as if it were their personal fiefdom.
Only the blind or those who refuse to see, in my opinion, cannot draw the obvious parallels between the Gaddafis of Libya and the Rajapaksas of Medamulana. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has often been pictured on the world stage with his arm around his best pal, Muammar Gaddafi has imposed single family rule in Sri Lanka and through the passing of legislation such as the 18th Amendment ensured that Sri Lanka is well on the path to dictatorship by the removal of term limits for the all powerful executive presidency. Continue reading →

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March 7, 2011 · 4:56 am

TTT: Tamil Tigers infiltrate Tory Party in Toronto

Anthony Rinehart,  Courtesy of Globe and Mail, Saturday, Mar. 05, 2011

Tories trying to win support from South Asians in Ontario have opened the door to remnants of a Tamil Tiger front group the federal Conservatives themselves banned in 2008. The unlikely association, forged behind a curtain of tough government talk about Tamil refugee ships and a feared terrorist migration to Canada last year, has developed since the Tigers’ separatist struggle was crushed by the Sri Lankan military in 2009.

Last month, Tim Hudak, Leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, announced Shan Thayaparan as his party’s candidate for Markham-Unionville. Mr. Thayaparan had helped run an election for a new Tamil separatist group, the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), whose key adviser, Nehru Gunaratnam, is a former spokesman for the outlawed World Tamil Movement. Federally, Tamil broadcaster Ragavan Paranchothy, who was in direct contact with the top Tiger leadership in 2009, is seeking the Conservative nomination in Scarborough-Southwest. Continue reading →

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