Misleading the Opposition, Misreading the SJB-UNP-JVP
Photo courtesy of Sri Lanka Mirror It’s a simple question. Why, in the face of utter electoral destruction, doesn’t the UNP choose a new leader through a secret ballot? That question alone,…
Author: Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
A farewell to Fidel
Fidel was the last of the Titans, of the epic heroes. Whatever our travails, our generation and the ones before us were fortunate to live in the decades in which there were…
The Indrajit Coomaraswamy Issue: A matter of decency
Featured image courtesy Sri Lanka Mirror The issue of the appointment of Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy as the Governor of the Central Bank is a defining one. It is an issue on which…
THE SIRISENA SURGE: WHY MAHINDA IS STILL WAY AHEAD
Photo by AFP, via AsiaOne Two cheers then for Maithripala Sirisena whose act of resistance and rebellion is truly heroic. Why cheer at all? And why two cheers instead of three? Hearty…
POST-UVA POLITICAL PIVOT
Image courtesy Perhaps the most interesting single thing to watch about the upcoming Uva election is whether or not the UNP will get significantly more than half of the vote that the…
OPPOSITION TRENDS IN THE ELECTION SEASON
Image courtesy JVP Media Unit If the Rajapaksa administration wanted to mislead and confuse the mainstream opposition and lead it to an electoral dead-end, it could hardly do better than the opposition…
Is it the NGOs in Sri Lanka that need straitjacketing?
Photo courtesy JDS Just as a criticism of the Ministry of Sports or the Cricket Control Board, are in no way a critique of Sri Lanka’s cricket team or its sportsmen and…
IS THE BBS THE BOSS?
Photo courtesy There are scarier things, worse things, than Black July ’83. Aluthgama signaled the possibility of such things. The sequence of events, the lethal violence, the horror of Aluthgama were reminiscent…
CAN THE ANTI-MAHINDA CAMP THINK STRAIGHT?
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Guardian A basic reason for the inability of the anti-Governmental forces, political and civil society, Oppositional and dissentient, to compete with the regime, still less supplant it, is…
POST-ELECTION 2015 SCENARIO: GOTABAYA’S ENTRY TO ELECTORAL POLITICS
Image courtesy The news, based on an exclusive interview, that Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa may formally enter mainstream politics by contesting Colombo at the parliamentary election () casts a significant light — some…
THE STATE AND WAR: THE POLITICS OF PHILOSOPHY
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte, via Channel 4 Concluding rejoinder to Vangeesa Sumanasekara – Slavoj Zizek In the beginning was politics. Marx’s favourite figure in literature was Prometheus. The better known version of…
A response to the critiques of the victory celebrations
Photography by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via “” – Jacques Derrida: text delivered at Althusser’s funeral “” – Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories, London, Verso, 1990, pp 223-24. The central contention of the anti-victory celebration…
THE WAR, PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS
Photo by EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA courtesy LA Times Response to Vangeesa Sumanasekara’s My literate young critic Vangeesa Sumanasekara, a serious student of philosophy, seems to say that the focus of his disputation with my essay…
PLATO’S CAVE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN: ELITE FAILURE IN SRI LANKA
Photo by EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA courtesy LA Times ” Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebook 8 (1930-1932), 84. Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu (PiR Centre Press, April 28th 2014, Moscow) -Nic Pizzolatto, I I write…
THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY & REFORM STRATEGY: A PARTIAL CRITIQUE OF JAYAMPATHY WICKREMARATNE
Photo by Alexander Nikiforov Pro-Opposition strategists and ideologues placing their bets on abolishing the Executive Presidency while the Presidential election is less than a year away, is quite as sensible as placing…