Picture by Sanjaya Senanayake ප්රශ්න නැතිවට ප්රශ්ණ is an old famous Sinhalese saying. The creation of problems because of shortage of problems in other words. The mysterious case of the ‘Humber’ dates smacks of just this. Unearthed at Cargills, Sri Lanka’s largest supermarket chain’s, now apparently racist, shelves their presence was first alerted (to me at least) by the ever ...
News The S&P 500 rose 0.7% on positive comments from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve while Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) dropped 1.8% as Greece’s prime minister asked for a two-year reprieve from cutting government spending. MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) slid 0.4% on signs of slow growth in the two largest economies in the world and concern over the Euro zone. Brent crude fell 12 cents after ...
As published in Echelon (artwork by same) May Day Rallies to me were a vague call back to communist absurdity, until I found out that the phenomenon actually started in America, and has more to do with the labor movement than communism. I’d always greeted it with appreciation; because like every Sri Lankan I appreciate the occasional holiday, them being ...
What if I told you, that the world we live in, in something that is constructed for us, not something that is constructed by us. You and I are recipients of ideas, we are re-producers of ideas, not producers of them. Our ways of seeing the world, of perceiving it, of understanding it, and, as a consequence, of acting within ...
The Rally For Unity crew has done a pretty neat timeline and infographic (click to enlarge) of the events that took place in Grandpass between June and August this year. Accurate information is crucial if anything is to be done about the upsetting problems we’re seeing today. IMO mainstream media, due to various restrictions, is failing at providing a ...
Galle Face (and a shameless plug for my Instagram) Washed out streets and a clean Colombo welcome the start of SAES2013. A literary metaphor for a fresh beginning? Perhaps. But also an ominous symbol of one the themes of the conference. The weather in Colombo hasn’t been normal for years now. When I was a kid, the monsoon was like ...
illustration by KAL (great to have met him in Sri Lanka at the US Embassy btw) “Kabul ain’t Colombo” I said unthinkingly. My Afghan friend laughs. Leaving things in one’s car while one wanders off into a restaurant or a mall isn’t done in Kabul. Not if you want to find them still there when you come back. Kabul isn’t ...
Quite enjoyed Vedi, which i had the pleasure of watching on a recent bus ride to Jaffna. Tamil movies capture the imaginations of millions, and completely command the attitudes of a good chunk of them. A certain segment of Tamil movie fans will swear by their favorite movie stars. To them this shit is real. And this is evidenced by ...
Town Hall/ White House Original post from the SAES blog. I’m blogging and tweeting from the South Asian Economic Summit along with a few others, hastag #saes2013. This morning Pakistani economist Akmal Hussein talked about how mainstream economics/capitalism teaches that inequality is essentially an un-avoidable by product of growth. He said that equity is not only a measure of social justice ...
As published in Echelon (artwork by same) May Day Rallies to me were a vague call back to communist absurdity, until I found out that the phenomenon actually started in America, and has more to do with the labor movement than communism. I’d always greeted it with appreciation; because like every Sri Lankan I appreciate the occasional holiday, them being ...
ACADEMIC AND REPORT WRITING https://independent.academia.edu/AbdulHalikAzeez RECENT JOURNALISM AND PHOTOJOURNALISM https://cargocollective.com/abduhalikazeez/Photojournalism
What if I told you, that the world we live in, in something that is constructed for us, not something that is constructed by us. You and I are recipients of ideas, we are re-producers of ideas, not producers of them. Our ways of seeing the world, of perceiving it, of understanding it, and, as a consequence, of acting ...
Azath Salley was arrested yesterday. One of the allegations made against him is making comments that incite religious hatred. Azath Salley in recent months has built a reputation of of sorts of being pretty much the only Muslim politician with the courage to go up against the BBS in public. This affidavit penned by the General Secretary and Leader of ...
Some of the placards attested to food being the greatest unifier. I agree. Yesterday’s Rally For Unity, I think, was a resounding success. There was a fair bit of commotion in the run-up to it with various would be social media saboteurs attempting to close the event down. But the turnout was a testament to its reach. By my estimates, around ...
Do you know what it means? Most pejoratives have origins in completely acceptable descriptive words. ‘Negro’ comes from the Latin ‘Niger‘ which means black, ‘Paki’ is shortened from ‘Pakistani’. Terms like Chinaman, Coolie are also derived from relatively innocent descriptive origins. They get their pejorative connotations after being repeatedly used in an insulting manner. Other names originate directly from a desire to put down ...
image from the Colombo Gazette Tonight’s protest against the BBS (well, actually a vigil to promote the ‘true values’ of Buddhism which the BBS are going against) was an eye opener in many ways. Number one, injustice And this MUST be mentioned first and foremost. It was an eye opener to be on the wrong side of injustice, assuming there ...
Dharmapriya Dias and Gihan De Chickera in a scene from Machang Sri Lankans have a fascination with everything foreign. Going ‘to the foreign’ or ‘ab-road’ is considered to be the epitome of success. For after you are ‘in the foreign’ life there is going to be all feather beds and high disposable income. I’ve run into many people like that ...
After stewing about it for more than two days ‘Team Mobitel’ appears to have finally come up with a response. It’s actually quite ridiculous. They apologize for any ‘inconvenience or pain of mind’ caused but reiterate that the racist ringtone will remain on their site on a ‘revenue share basis’. Apparently they still care about upholding the ‘true values of unity ...
The BBS ringing tone on Mobitel had recorded nearly a 1000 buys as of 9am, 27 March Racist and hate groups are supposed to remain on the sidelines of society, screaming their subversive rhetoric in order to appeal to the seedier side of the collective conscience. Their funding usually comes from shadowy sources with powerful interests and money to be ...
