The Thirty Year Old Boy
I would like to believe we have been forgiven, that the end justifies means, that prejudice has been copy-edited out of the nursery reader, that the black man with roving eyes and…
Year: 2010
The untold story of a child
This war has taken the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and children. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced, and the abnormality of the war and post war situation is…
FROM VICTORY TO NORMALISATION IN SRI LANKA
No war is fought sans atrocity. It destroys everything. Even when a war is fought with the best adherence to internationally accepted laws of warfare; it still breeds hatred, enmity and many…
Soldier: Hero, villain or both?
Each time I see a soldier, my mind shifts into ‘mode chaos’. When I was a kid, things were black and white. They were my heroes; the guys who were taking the…
Was I wrong to oppose the war?
I used to think non-violence would win in the end. Even with a murderous megalomaniac for an opponent (I mean Prabhakaran, not Mahinda), I believed the offer of an open hand would…
We Regret To Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time
We regret to inform you that your condolences cannot be accepted at this time. At present, both our pain and our hope defy that word, which has been offered and denied us,…
Madness
Colombo, Nov 2: A mentally challenged man, who jumped into the Indian ocean to escape arrest, drowned after being badly beaten up by Sri Lankan police in the water in front of…
The end of war: Framed reflections by Deshan Tennekoon
[Editors note: Deshan Tennekoon is one of Sri Lanka’s best, young photographers. We are ardent fans, and requested Deshan to send photos that amongst the hundreds taken by him, resonated most with…
I REMEMBER: 19 May 2010
As we come together to commemorate the anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s long and bloody civil war, these are some of the things I remember: I remember hearing reports in…
Film premiere: The Truth That Wasn’t There
I am always wary of write-ups by filmmakers of their films. Labours of love often elicit painful diatribes. The messy, malleable margins of Sri Lanka has long been an issue that many…
19th may, 2010
killinochchi town getting ready… may 2010 19th may. you have nothing to say? i can only falteringly mouth, nothing of …. nothing begets nothing, a king says, and launches a war against…
One Year On After the Guns Fell Silent at Vellamullivaikkal: Is There Foresight to Settle the Political Score?
In advising political leaders the Italian historian and political advisor Machiavelli (1469-1527) offered the  following words which have a relevance to the current predicament of the Sinhala political leadership after the war…
THE WAR AND MY TIMES
Fidel quotes a Cuban saying that a man is marked more by his times than his family. My times were shaped by armed conflict: wars, insurrections and counter-insurgency; successive wars in the…
Editorial: One year after the end of war
One year after the war ended, when and the physical manifestation of the LTTE. Bearing witness is never fully objective, never completely impartial. We have few narratives that, with the same vigour…
In conversation with Dr. Harsha de Silva, MP
Interview III – Dr. Harsha de Silva from Young Asia Television on Vimeo. I recently spoke with Dr. Harsha de Silva, now a National List MP from the United National Party (UNP).…
