Archive for December, 2010

Top 20 posts on Sri Lanka over 2010

Small - Screen shot 2010-12-31 at 8.15.03 AM

Featuring satire, poetry, photography and video to critical commentary and analysis, Groundviews covered major political events and processes in Sri Lanka over 2010. The site’s comprehensive coverage of the first commemoration of the end of war in Sri Lanka resulted in the publication of a seminal book that has been critically acclaimed by academia. Coverage of the 18th Amendment to the constitution was sui generis – content featured on Groundviews was completely absent from the Sinhala mainstream media, and only briefly touched upon in most English mainstream media. Only Groundviews looked at the real cost and symbolic violence of celebrations welcoming the President’s second term in office. This site exclusively featured accurate accounts of testimony to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) by key witnesses, including those given by renowned diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala and former Secretary of Defence, Austin Fernando. Furthermore, particularly disturbing testimony to the LLRC, first published in the Tamil language print media, was translated to English and republished for a wider appreciation and greater…

Continue reading »

At Your Service

Islanders always like to baila, party, party, nibble the ear whispering, pump themselves with arrack and go courting on the Green, but in these holidays at year’s end dedicated to forgetting the war and all those gadflies buried in graves, some families mourn their heroes away from the headlights’ glare of vans without license plates that remain in service waiting to be summoned when necessary. Repost This Article

Continue reading »

Democratic Debates in 2011

I am not aware of another county in the UN’s 200 odd membership that debates on its national anthem some 62 years after independence from colonial rule. Since we all agree that Sri Lanka is a unique state in many ways this is not a surprising development. What creates an abysmal level of inquisitive disappointment is that the decisions the country’s top executive body makes on this issue and the rationale put forward for such. This brief note is not on the latest saga around our national anthem but the subterranean political dynamic that governs such outcome. The notion of Political Power Sharing in Sri Lanka, however symbolic or tokenism it appears is antithetical and a dynamic centrifugal force that clashes head-on with the centripetal ethnoreligious political structure of the state. This is so deep and wide especially in the postcolonial setting. Postcolonial democratization, may it be at civic centered transparent governance or a Federal form of power sharing with…

Continue reading »

A Book That Defies All Definitions: A review of the End of War in Sri Lanka

From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka. Over this week alone, the site received over forty-thousand readers and exclusively featured over eighty-thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over a dozen photos, generating over one hundred and fifty-thousand words of commentary. Download the 162 page compilation of content as a PDF in high quality (25.4Mb, suited for printing), or low quality (3.7Mb, good enough to read on-screen). Responding to numerous requests from readers, academia and others, this collection was published as a book in mid-2010. The first review of the book appears today in the Sunday Leader titled A Book That Defies All Definitions by Prof. Sasanka Perera, Professor of Anthropology and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Colombo. His review is the first instance where an entirely citizen media generated book has been seriously reviewed in Sri Lankan mainstream media. It is reproduced below in full. The limited edition book…

Continue reading »

Different forms of terrorism

LTTE terrorism ended with the death of its leader Prabakaran in May 2009. But other forms of terrorism seem to have erupted in the country to keep the government busy waging many more wars on terror. One such war was declared on narcotics, alcohol and cigarettes and we are told it has been a success, in the case of cigarettes. Now, there is a kind of terrorism in the Universities. A vice chancellor has been assaulted and a minister has been jeered at. Students have also forcibly entered the ministry of higher education premises and destroyed public property. As a result Udul Premaratne, the convener of the Inter University students Federation has been arrested. Almost all our universities are in turmoil and the government points a finger at the JVP and its allies. Could the JVP alone bring about such unrest in the universities or is this also part of an international conspiracy to destabilise Sri Lanka?  One never knows….

Continue reading »

Interview with Asoka Handagama

Screen shot 2010-12-24 at 8.08.19 AM

Asoka Handagama is one of Sri Lanka’s best known and most controversial filmmakers. His films divide audiences and the critics – you either love them and celebrate his genius, or you hate them and decry his take on incendiary social and political issues. We began the interview with Asoka explaining how he approaches the creation of a film – what drives him to do what he does. He also speaks about the freedom filmmakers once had to express themselves in comparison to later years, when films were banned and Asoka himself was subject to a great degree of public vilification. I asked him whether after Aksharaya (Letter of Fire) and its violent reception, he thought of giving up filmmaking. Later on, I also point to what Asoka said about filmmaking going back by decades if Aksharaya was blocked, noting that despite its ban, Sri Lankan filmmaking both during the final years of war and after it, displayed no visible signs…

Continue reading »

An Era of Sri Lanka’s President: From Mullivaikal to Oxford Union

[Authors note: Mullivaikal is where the last phase of the war between Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) and Liberation Tiger of TamilEelam (LTTE) took place.  According to the Government of Sri Lanka, this was the place war came to an end with the military defeat of LTTE, but for majority Tamils and international human rights activists, this was the place at-least 30000-40000 Tamil civilians were massacred by SLAF. The ‘controversy’ began from here and continues even after 19 months.] The Diaspora re-emergence President Rajapakse, the man who tamed the Tamil Tigers faced his first “Political Waterloo” since he came to the power.  Rajapakse and his family have portrayed themselves as an undefeated regime in the region until the President faced the fiasco in London in early December. This development transpired as outrageous war crimes and crime against humanity evidence have been revealed in the wake of submission to the UN expert panel deadline approached and the president visited to London…

Continue reading »

Governance, Rights and Reconciliation: The National Anthem and Other Disturbing News from Sri Lanka

Screen shot 2010-12-22 at 6.15.47 PM

Original photo from Business Today The headline story of the Sunday Times of 12 December 2010 was deeply disturbing.  According to it the Cabinet has made a decision that henceforth the national anthem will only be sung in Sinhala.  Subsequent reports confirmed that the issue was discussed in cabinet but that no final decision had been taken. In the meantime the status quo was to be maintained. At a time when the principal challenge facing the country is to move beyond a post –war situation to a post-conflict one, where the sources of conflict are not sustained or reproduced and at a time in which much is made of the regime’s commitment to reconciliation by way of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission raising this issue at cabinet level, the lack of clarity with regard to what transpired and the suggestion that a decision may have been deferred, all constitute a chilling rebuke to efforts at reconciliation and a blatant,…

Continue reading »

Interview with Kanak Mani Dixit

Kanak Dixit

Kanak Mani Dixit is editor of Himal Southasian regional magazine and publisher of the Nepali-language Himal Khabarpatrika newsmagazine. He was actively involved in resisting King Gyanendra’s takeover and was detained many times by the Police. Kanak’s career spans the United Nations as well as media, and he is also an author of a number of children’s books. Though extremely humble, Kanak is one of South Asia’s best known journalists. He is also the Chair of the Film South Asia documentary film festival, among the best known film festivals in South Asia. I first met Kanak around seven or eight years ago in Kathmandu, at a time when media from Sri Lanka and media from Nepal had several exchange programmes. Kanak stood out as one of the most progressive voices in the country, and in later years, one its most fearless, participating in the peoples movement against a monarchy that violently clamped down on dissent. Writing in 2006 Kanak averred, Thanks…

Continue reading »

Launch of Groundviews 2.0: New features, enhanced readability, comprehensive search

Regular readers of Groundviews would have noticed the site upgrade that went live last week. The new website sports a complete overhaul of underlying site technologies and presentation. Content is now presented in an easier to read font and format. More white space enhances readability and the rolling features tabs on the homepage allow readers to go directly to articles that are topical. Other key features of Groundviews 2.0 include: The critically acclaimed special editions and other key sections of Groundviews are now more easily discoverable through the top menu A completely overhauled site search, now powered by Google, means that the full power of the world’s leading search engine is available on Groundviews as well. The same boolean operators and advanced search features of Google can now be leveraged on the site. Combined with a brand new archives page, the new archive page addresses one of the most requested features of the site. HTML5 (i.e. non-Flash based) video and…

Continue reading »

Julian Assange’s turn for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011

Julian-Assange_Mihalik

Photo courtesy Wired A week or so ago, a veteran editor cum journalist in a conversation on conflict and peace said, his choice for the next peace prize is Julian Assange. Agreed. But what qualifies a person for the Nobel Prize for Peace ? Alfred Nobel said it must be awarded to the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses” in his last will left dated, 27th November, 1895. Nominations for this most prestigious world prize for peace, from among 300 other prizes awarded around the world, is drawing to a close on 01st February, 2011. The question is, can Julian Assange of WikiLeaks be nominated and is he qualified for nominations? With Liu Xiaobo of China awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace this 2010 year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has, from the first Nobel Peace Prize…

Continue reading »

A tragi-comedy? The UN Advisory Panel and war crimes in Sri Lanka

UN SG Panel

Photo courtesy Inner City Press There is nothing to scratch heads for, to find the reason why Moon at the UN and Mahinda in Colombo agreed to have the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Panel on Sri Lanka, make a sudden visit to Colombo and meet SL President’s “Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC). Its simple logic. They both could wash their hands off mounting international pressure for an independent investigation on war crimes and crimes against humanity accusations, international organisations now seem to feel, have enough evidence piling up for investigations. “WikiLeaks” with its dump of US diplomatic cables in the public domain has added substantial supplementary documentation for a renewed stronger call to investigate war crimes in Sri Lanka, with the British Channel 4 airing more video clips on gory killing of suspect, unarmed LTTE cadres, though not authenticated. There is also the case of  a murdered woman seen in the clips, claimed by some as the TV announcer…

Continue reading »

Living in the Global Glass House: An Open Letter to Sir Arthur C Clarke

Sir Arthur C Clarke - our reliable tour guide to the future

Colombo, Sri Lanka: 16 December 2010 Dear Sir Arthur, I write this on your 93rd birth anniversary. Just over a thousand days have passed since you departed. Like all true rationalists, you didn’t believe in any afterlife. So I don’t expect you to be somewhere there, ‘keeping an eye on us’. You did enough of that during your 90 years on this planet! But as the first decade of the Twenty First Century draws to a close, I find it helpful to address this to you, and to reflect on some of your timeless ideas. You not only had remarkable powers of prescience and imagination, but also remained upbeat that humanity will survive its turbulent adolescence. As you were fond of saying, you had great faith optimism as a guiding principle, “if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy”. Three years ago this month, I worked with you in drafting and filming your 90th birthday…

Continue reading »

O country, Thy National Anthem…

It was reported lately that an interesting issue came up at a recent cabinet meeting, namely, the National Anthem of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. It was also reported that the cabinet has established that the National Anthem will hereafter be sung exclusively in Sinhala. According to news reports published in the local and international media, several cabinet ministers opposed this measure, while others supported it. A brief news report published in a blog managed by an expatriate Sri Lankan journalist noted that despite press reports saying the contrary, a final decision on this issue is yet to be taken. What follows is an attempt at contributing to the ongoing debates/interactions on the National Anthem. Reading through the multitude of articles and reports on the issue, this writer was struck by a comment, apparently made by a cabinet minister. It was a point raised by the said minister to justify the fact that our National Anthem should only…

Continue reading »

Is the Tamil version of our national anthem a joke?

Recent media coverage in Sri Lanka has focussed on the confusion over the ban of the Tamil version of Sri Lanka’s national anthem. In media reports that need to be read in the context of the ignominy suffered by the President in England recently, it was suggested that the President had, “reportedly argued that no one of the other countries in the World had national anthem ‘in more than one language’. He also told the cabinet that the Tamil anthem is a limitation which undermines the unity amongst people in Sri Lanka.” This of course is blatantly wrong, as Indran Amirthanayagam noted on Groundviews. Sutirtho Patranobis from the Hindustan Times captures it well, “At a time when Rajapaksa’s been talking about a trilingual society — Sinhala, Tamil and English — the move could be interpreted as regressive. The lessons of history seemed to have been forgotten here; discrimination over language was one reason behind the civil war. If one nation, one anthem…

Continue reading »
Page 1 of 212

About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

cezarneaga.eu