Happy Families
Photo by Arun Pillai-Essex I am having a somewhat surreal conversation with a young man. He is describing a telephone conversation with a woman calling from Australia who, ‘speaks with a Sinhala…
Identity
De Pilo Pendet: Reconciliation and the Catholic Church’s Role in Post-War Sri Lanka
Photo by Dominic Sansoni I have a memory that dates back several years. It is of a Good Friday Service at my family’s parish in Kotte, Sri Lanka and of the length…
Arya Sinhala and the restoration of the Commons of Lanka
Submitted to as a response to Kalana Senaratne’s assertion that Buddhism does not have a means for contemporary political engagement, in The ‘Mad Monk’ Phenomenon: BBS as the underside of Sinhala-Buddhism. ### Being…
Is reconciliation achievable without separation in Sri Lanka?
“The general population doesn’t know what is happening and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know” – Noam Chomsky Introduction In the article published in May 2010, I concluded: The emphasis…
THE MASTER: GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images, via Huffington Post – From ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez the writer par excellence has died. He was born…
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…
Launch of Special Edition: The end of war in Sri Lanka, five years on
In the corner of my room, there’s a large air-tight plastic bag I open once a year, and occasionally glance at with mixed emotions. It contains, carefully folded, all the newspapers I could…
2 Years after ‘Not In My Name’ campaign
Exactly two years ago to date, Not In My Name (NION) – Sri Lanka’s first web based campaign against violent religious extremism – was created and launched, just under a week after…
The National Question: All about State Power
Photograph courtesy PACT S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Memorial Oration, 26 April 2014 I am thankful to the S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Commemoration Committee for inviting me to deliver this memorial oration on the occasion of the…
Theocratic fascism in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy I’ve heard of home invasions but this is the first time I’ve watched a Ministry invasion. The country watched while the BBS swarmed into Rishad Bathiudeen’s Ministry in search of…
Right royal battle: The BBS vs. Bathiudeen
Photo courtesy Colombo Gazette The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a recent and chilling phenomena of Sri Lanka’s post war political landscape is locked in a battle with Minister Rishard Bathiudeen, leader of…
IN MEMORIAM: ANANDA CHITTAMBALAM
Photo courtesy Foreign Correspondents Association Sri Lanka I was engaged in the thoroughly humdrum activity of marking some LL.B Honours dissertations early this Good Friday morning when I received an email from…
The ‘Mad Monk’ Phenomenon: BBS as the underside of Sinhala-Buddhism
Photo courtesy The marauding Buddhist monks, who appear to be tied to a long political leash, have run out of control. They need to be stopped. But it is equally necessary to…
Women and Children: The Cutting Edge of International Law
Photo by UN/Myriam Asmani, via World Education Blog The Grotius Lecture 2014[1] PREFACE Sometime at the end of 2011, while I was still the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General…
Freedom and bondage: Lankans, then and now
Introduction There is a need to question the adequacy and suitability of current conceptions of both ‘human rights’ and ‘secularism’ to meet the challenges of unbridled majoritarianism, which seems perfectly at home…
