The Disillusionment of the Diaspora
[Editors note: Also read ] Indi’s post entitled “How Diaspora Can Overthrow The Government” set me off on a train of thought. Thought about the Sri Lankan diaspora, its role in Sri Lanka,…
Reconciliation
Sri Lanka’s Tamil question: Justice, Lies and Videotape
Sri Lanka’s thirty year war is now more of words than of guns, but it is no less bitter. RNW’s team in the country met with fierce resistance from the Sri Lankan…
Why Government Rhetoric and Propaganda Might Divide Sri Lanka
In an interview Professor Rajiva Wijesinha gave concerning government responses to international pressure, he remarks that “people believe what they want to believe”. Wijesinha’s ironically astute observation sheds light on why government…
Towards a Common Ground of Understanding: A response to “Aachcharya”
Photo credit Sri Lanka Guardian Whether it be fleshing out Sangakkara’s “modern, pluralist worldview of unity in diversity”, the intersection of identity and race relations, the identity crises facing young generations of mixed…
Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Morning After Thoughts and The Local Authorities’ Elections in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Eranga Jayawardena/The Associated Press President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga always wrote well and spoke eloquently when she resisted a propensity to be overly loquacious. While her recent peroration contains many intelligent…
Back to Basics: The Need for an Honest Conversation About ‘Sri Lankanness’ and ‘Sri Lankan identity’
Photo credit Sri Lanka Guardian pages are engaged in an important debate on the nature of Sri Lankan identity, a debate that is not new but rehearsed as a response primarily to…
I AM… Identity crisis in Post-conflict Sri Lanka
Photo by Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images “There are no more minorities” said the President after the defeat of the LTTE – a secessionist rebel group that waged a war against Sri Lanka in…
Our Sri Lankan Identity: Another Case of ‘Being Nobody, Going Nowhere’?
(AP Photo/Manish Swarup, from JDS) The 2011 MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture delivered by Kumar Sangakkara was indeed a very thoughtful, courageous and passionate one. Much has been written about the…
A ‘Sri Lankan identity’ and race relations
– Prof. H. L. Seneviratne, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, Lanka Monthly Digest, June 2011 – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, June 2011 A regular contributor and commentator…
Trail Sri Lanka: Pressure by the International Community may have made a difference?
Photo courtesy Iromi Perera Some argue that International pressure will not change Sri Lanka for the better; however, recent evidence reveals the contrary. D.B.S Jeyaraj in a recent blog post argued that…
Looking at Sangakkara’s speech from governance perspective
Image courtesy World Cup Cricket 2011 Photos The former Cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara, in his great Sir Colin Cowdrey speech at Lord’s, spoke of a shared fanatical fashion and collective joy and…
Kumar Sangakkara steps forth like Young Ceylon
Kumar Sangakkara’s Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture for the MCC this summer was the antithesis of that presented within the same portals in 2006 by Martin Crowe.[i] Where Crowe returned to the…
Trail Sri Lanka: Celebrating the Sri Lankan spirit
(Are you folk walking to the North?) Not exactly the kind of question one is asked at 7.30am on a Friday morning. But it wasn’t your average Friday morning. At that point,…
The absence of Patriotism, Pluralism and Cosmopolitanism: ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ in retrospection
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS Former Sri Lankan child soldier Warnakulasuriya Anthony Sunil Rexy (right) laughs with other inmates as they play earlier this month at a government rehabilitation center in Ambepussa. Original in…
Sri Lanka’s War Burden: Two years on
Photo credit Eranga Jayawardena/AP, Encyclopædia Britannica Online During the last couple of months, the former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka – Mr Gordon Weiss has been promoting his book titled “The Cage”…
