“Lies are believed amongst every race;
And was any race ever the sole possessor of Truth?”
Abdallah al-Mar’arri (973-1057)
Religious bigotry
When Martin Wickremesinghe’s Bhavatharanaya was first published, some Sinhala-Buddhists (lay and ordained) wanted it banned for ‘insulting’ the Buddha.
There are American Evangelicals who think that Harry Potter books should be prohibited for promoting anti-
Christian values.
The BJP student union […]

“Sri Lanka faces a crisis of transition and transformation… Sri Lanka has been unable to make the transition from war to sustainable peace; from what I believe was fundamentally a just war to a just peace.
The crisis is at least in part a crisis of the post war discourse. … The discourse has not been […]

While it is by no means the place of a uniformed officer, however highly placed, decorated or both, to comment on the peaceful political conduct of members of parliament and/or of academics, the story told by the new Chief of Defence Staff, to the effect that Mr Sampanthan and Mr Sumanthiran attended an event of […]

“The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They….seemed not to value human life…”
Bradley Manning (Statement at the Trial – referring to an American attack on Iraqi civilians)
The ‘Rajapaksa Model’ of warfare had eight fundamentals, Indian journalist VK Shashikumar wrote in the Indian
Defence Review . […]

REPORTS FROM THE GROUND
 
Some staff members of the Sri
Lanka Telecommunications had told Women’s networks working in Mannar that many i thier offices and especially those from the deep South have been offered relocation option with housing, relocation allowance and government job opportunities in the north.
Attached in this article is a letter sent by the new […]

Let the memory of these dark days of Black July instill in us the conviction that the one and only means by which Tamils can reach a life of safety and dignity would be the creation of an independent State of Tamil Eelam. With that same conviction, let us rededicate ourselves on this day to […]

At a recent press briefing the new Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya reportedly warned of attempts by the Tamil diaspora to tarnish the country’s image ahead of several important events — the impending visit of Human Rights chief Navi Pillay, the upcoming Northern PC elections, the UNHRC session and CHOGM.
In view of recent […]

In honour of ‘Shanie’ (Lankanesan Nesiah)
“There can be no patriotism without justice… As soon as the right of one individual is violated, the right of everyone is jeopardised”.
– Georges Clemenceau
In the morning of January 13th 1948, Mahatma Gandhi began the final fast of his life.
The target of Gandhi’s last fast was not the Colonial rulers […]

The assessment of the UNP
The jury is no longer out on the UNP-led protest rally in Colombo last week and what it revealed about the state of
that party. The Sunday Times (Colombo), the newspaper least sympathetic to the government, most hostile to the UNP’s dissidents and the most charitable to the existing opposition leadership carried […]

“The government’s strength as a political force is that it has within itself all shades of political opinion from within the ethnic majority Sinhalese community. It is dominated by leaders who hold to nationalist positions, but it also has the religious extremists, liberals and leftists within its ranks. The government has also been able to […]