On making valid points and fudging critical issues
[This was a follow-up piece on what I had written about prominent NGOs like the Centre for Policy Alternatives, National Peace Council and Transparency International were up to. It is part response to...
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Wake me up when Egypt makes a revolution
Does anyone talk 'Arab Spring' any more, I sometimes wonder. If 'revolution' was what was happening in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt and if all that was thought to be cheer-worthy by Washington,...
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Vije is a good friend of mine
Years ago, at Royal College, in the Grade 10 Repeat class, there was a boy called Athula Gunasekera, better known for a nickname he earned later, ‘Olcott’. Olcott was not a rioter, but had a twisted...
View ArticleAnd Civil Society (real) floors Civil Society (imagined)
In a little over a month the UNHRC will vote on an anti-Sri Lanka resolution submitted by the world's worst human rights offender, the United States of America. The politics of these moves draws...
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On the lives and deaths of lyricists
It was the year 1994. It happened days after the People’s Alliance, led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), came to power after 17 long years in the political wilderness. In one of the first acts...
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Modi's ignorance and other tidbits
Modi's ignoranceBharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has assured that no military support would be given to Sri Lanka in the event the BJP comes to power. Modi is only PM...
View ArticleThe allure of one-upmanship
Last Thursday, Minister of Information Keheliya Rambukwella claimed that ‘friendly nations’ will move a counter-resolution to the one the US is to table at the UNHRC which, among other things, it is...
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Did you say hello to Errol Abu al-Mughith Husayn Mansur al-Hallaj Alphonso?
[This was written almost four years ago. The original title was 'Say hello to Errol Abu al-Mughith Husayn Mansur al-Hallaj Alphonso'. He's passed on. I remember him often, this wonderful man who...
View ArticleWiggie and Mavai have a word-brawl
[In a paralle universe of course...]It is not uncommon for two people in the same family to have widely divergent opinions. Brothers, after all, have set upon one another from time immemorial....
View ArticleAnd the battle down the alleyways of memory rages on and on
When do wars end? Do they end with surrender, with military annihilation of protagonist, the recovery of livelihoods, reconstruction of houses, hospitals and schools, the return of the displaced, the...
View ArticleAnd skylarks will not be silenced by order or deceit
I've written about people I've known, people I've encountered, random people marked by random incident. Some I've written about many times, not because other lives inspire less but that they have for...
View ArticleThe TNA reiterates complicity with terrorism
The Tamil National Alliance has responded with glee to the note penned by UNHCR chief Navi Pillai. The TNA, almost three years ago, salivated similarly when the illegally set up panel of experts (sic)...
View ArticleThe Ki-moon panel’s report and the strippers it spawned*
It's a neat plan. The ill-willed gets some quotes from the ill-willed, write a report, the 'informants' say 'see, even they say it' and mutual-massaging inflates, inflates and inflates. And so the...
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Ranil's expertise and other tidbits
Ranil's expertiseRanil Wickremesinghe has a solution, he says. He says he knows how to resolve problems between Sri Lanka and India. That's great. We know of course that not all solution-blueprints...
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The walls speak out
'We are layered and un-layered, again and again' -- Pic courtesy Sunday Times[In a parallel universe, of course]It’s that time again. Life is not easy as it is, what with tuition masters, karate...
View ArticleMarch of folly or opportunity
March is about ‘Geneva’ and has been for the past several years. March is also time for opinions from all quarters about how to handle ‘Geneva’. Naturally policy decisions and choices will be called...
View ArticleBarack’s spin on Ukraine
Barack Obama is livid. He is angry about unconfirmed reports (‘unconfirmed’ is the word used by the US-friendly British press) of Russian military movements inside Ukraine. Now, for the record, the...
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India and uncontained cats and other tidbits
India and uncontained catsA leopard that had made its way into the northern Indian town of Meerut caused a lot of panic, it is reported. One leopard. A single member of the cat family. Just imagine...
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Can we ever get beyond the twisted reach of crazy sorrow?*
Flavio Da Cunha Renzende. A man I cannot forget. Not for anything spectacular that he did, but one mindless-sorrow night in a small town called Ithaca, located in upstate New York. Flavio Da Cunha...
View ArticleGeneva is a distraction Sri Lanka can do without
To plan for year, they say, you have to plant rice. To plan for a decade you have to plant trees and to plan for a century, you have to teach the people. I believe that’s a Chinese saying....
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