Radhika and Nihal launch CPA’s THE REPUBLIC AT 40

The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice

SEE http://www.cpalanka.org/the-sri-lankan-republic-at-40-reflections-on-constitutional-history-theory-and-practice/

The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice, a collection of scholarly essays edited by Asanga Welikala, Senior Researcher, Legal & Constitution Unit was launched at the 80 Club, 25, Independence Avenue, Colombo 07, on 21st December 2012.

CPA’s latest publication, in association with the F riedrich Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF), marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Sri Lankan Republic.

Speaking at the launch were its Editor as well as Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama and Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy.

Disparaging Ethnic Epithets in Lanka: A Chat – Van Arkadie and Roberts

I: Preamble:Alex Van Arkadie is not known to me but seems to have received a stack of reports on the humanitarian side of the IDP camps [2009-12], which had recently been posted in http://thuppahi.wordpress.com from some circuits of email, perhaps that generated by Victor Melder. This conversation was an incidental outcome. Michael Roberts.

II: Alex Van Arkadie to Michael Roberts, 30 September 2012

Pardon me for the intrusion. Tell me please, what relevance does the word ‘thuppahi‘ have in relation to your works of mercy for the abandoned, helpless and needy?  I am rather concerned, because not all of the contemporary Burghers in Sri Lanka would consider it user-friendly?

Jane Russell’s Reflections on Oppression, Violence and the Paths of Response available to Us All

Jane Russell, 13 September 2012

This lengthy comment was inserted by Jane Russell in response to Nalliah Thayabharan’s lengthy diatribe against the oppressions of the caste system in the Jaffna Peninsula in the mid-20^th century. I believe Russell’s little essay deserves greater prominence and used my prerogative to present it as an article in its own right in thuppahi.  Clarification of the background is provided at the end of this post. Web Editor.

There are elements of fascism in every society — the class system in the UK, although ameliorated by a welfare state, still bears a strong resemblance to the brutal Victorian class structure which condemned millions to poverty, misery and death 150 years ago: the underclass in the USA today live in conditions akin to outcastes in Asian societies: in Africa, south and central America, China and Russia, there are millions of victims of proto-fascist social structures –everywhere human beings are divided, either by class or race or religion, and this enables one powerful group to abuse less powerful groups and to justify this abuse on the grounds that members of other groups are less human and deserving. If you want to find an example of modern social fascism, look no further than the gun lobby in the US… but there are so many examples..…..the treatment of homosexuals in certain African states, the mistreatment of Shia by Sunnis in Bahrain, the systematic murder of tribal peoples in central America……… the list is endless and endlessly enduring.

Sanderatne reviews Kapi Kannangara’s book on caste and class transformations

Nimal Sanderatne in Sunday Times, 27 May 2012

A.P. Kannangara’s, A Survey of Social Change in an Imperial Regime, is a fascinating narrative of how different segments of society in British Ceylon responded to the changes in economic opportunities and administrative changes brought about by the British. It is an absorbing documentation of the caste and class transitions that occurred during British rule. The descriptions of these transitions and transformations of caste and social status are intriguing and captivating.