Reviewer –   Prof. N.A.de S. Amaratunga PhD, DSc There are two major impressions that the discerning reader will not miss while reading Galle Face Protest: Systems Change or Anarchy? – Politics, Religion & Culture in a Time of Terror”,writtenby Sena Thoradeniya. One is the vast amount of information it carries regarding the machinations that the […]

By Sena Thoradeniya (Contd. From 17 September 2023) 1. Land Claims of Chieftains In 1875 a vast quantity of valuable forest land was claimed by Chiefs and Headmen what were known as British Grants” conferred upon them soon after the Kandyan War of Independence in 1817-1818 for the services rendered by them to the British […]

By Sena Thoradeniya N. B. In a time of chaos, confusion, disorder and uncertainty discussing about Kandyan Chieftains may be interpreted as something akin to engaging in  ecstatic revelry, overlooking current issues. But as a modern myth has been created, that Kandyan Chiefs subverted” the policies of the British, expressed their resistance to British colonialism”, […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has become a celebrity newsmaker, a prominent object of media attention, like a Cardinal Superstar! (No comparison with 1973- American film Jesus Christ Superstar”). Oftentimes he gets an opportunity to create news and get media attention. These opportunities are made for him by either local politicians and bureaucrats or […]

By Sena Thoradeniya These days Julie Chung, the US Ambassador is in Jaffna peninsula. Her Tour de Jaffna, meeting families of the disappeared, female officers of CBSL regional office Kilinochchi, woman-majority workforce producing and packaging curry and chillie powder, people engaged in USAID- funded see weed cultivation, North Central Naval Commander (discussed challenges to maritime […]

By Sena Thoradeniya N. B. In a time of chaos, confusion, disorder and uncertainty discussing about Kandyan Chieftains may be interpreted as something akin to engaging in  ecstatic revelry, overlooking current issues. But as a modern myth has been created, that Kandyan Chiefs subverted” the policies of the British, expressed their resistance to British colonialism”, […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Several decades ago, at school we used Philip’s Modern School Atlas and saw countries of Asia, Africa and South America were given different colours to symbolise which colonialists – British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch or Italian – had subjugated those countries. On the occasion of the 77 th Independence Day of […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Beginning with the third part of this essay we give examples to illustrate the unholy alliance that existed between the British Colonialists and Kandyan Chieftains perpetuating Colonial Administration in Ceylon. This aspect will be discussed under several sub-headings. At the outset it should be mentioned that there are certain limitations to this […]

By Sena Thoradeniya The first part of this article was published on May 13, 2023 in LankaWeb three months ago. As we were engrossed in a major work in the last few months, we did not have time to see its conclusion. (1) Debunking Myths The main objective of the second part of our article […]

By Sena Thoradeniya  On 24 July, 2023 Julie Chung the American Ambassador, on the anniversary of Black July”, attended a special exhibit” of the sculptor (who moved the Court of Appeal against Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s candidature that he had not renounced his US citizenship), to see the powerful and moving stories expressed through art that reveal […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Sri Lanka is still reeling from the blows of economic meltdown and bowing down to continuous pressures from Western capitals, this time from Canada as well and India. Hopelessness for the future rather than an abstract theoretical construct has become ingrained in the minds of people as an irrefutable fact. Men and […]

Lanka Lead News කෘතහස්ත ලේඛක සේන තෝරදෙනිය මහතා විසින් ඊනියා ගෝල්ෆේස් අරගලයේ ඇතුලාන්තය සම්බන්ධයෙන් විශ්ලේෂණාත්මකව ලියන ලද GALLE FACE PROTEST: SYSTEMS CHANGE OR ANARCHY? Politics, Religion & Culture in a Time of Terror in Sri Lanka” ග්‍රන්ථය 2023 ජූලි මස 04 වෙනි දින කොළඹ 7 නිදහස් මාවතේ පිහිටි පුස්තකාල හා ප්‍රලේඛන සේවා මණ්ඩල ශ්‍රවණාගාරයේදී එළි […]

By Gunadasa Amarasekera Courtesy The Island (Introduction to Sena Thoradeniya’ s book- Galle Face Protest: System Change or Anarchy?) (Introduction to Sena Thoradeniya’ s book- Galle Face Protest: System Change or Anarchy?) ‘US foot prints at GF protest site’ deals with the international players involved in the Aragalaya. In the article ‘Who were most afraid of […]

By Sena Thoradeniya (1) Introduction This article was first published in The Island” online edition on March 31, 2020 during the covid pandemic under the title Dullewa Dissawa and Somana Cloth”. Since a modern myth is invented and spread by some columnists who write to English dailies in Sri Lanka that (1) the British Colonialists […]

By Sena Thoradeniya I am disappointed that an MP has made baseless allegations & spread outright lies in a book that should be labelled fiction”. For 75 years the US and SL have showed commitments to democracy, sovereignty and prosperity and future we continue to build together”, twittered American Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung […]

By Sena Thoradeniya (Excerpts from a Forthcoming Publication Titled Dumbara Rata”) (1) Introduction Still our Kalu Suddhas lament that Ceylon lost British planters owing to granting of Independence” to the country and then impending nationalisation of the plantations. They add that the brown sahibs left the country owing to Sinhala Only” Act and later Land […]

By Sena Thoradeniya From time to time Sri Lankan Ministers in charge of Agriculture and Livestock Development and their officials attempted to improve the breed of cattle by means of imported animals. A few decades ago, it was alleged that a stock of cattle imported from a foreign country was infected with various types of […]

By Sena Thoradeniya On January 8 supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil invaded and pillaged Brazil’s Presidential Palace known as Planalto Palace regarded as a national treasure, designed by a modernist architect, along with the Congress building and Supreme Federal Courts. Protester’s shattered glass and burnt iconic furniture, ripped floors, broke windows and doors, […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Chairman Mao concluded his article titled, Report on An Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (1927) quoting the parable of Lord Sheh who loved dragons. As told by Liu Hsiang (77-6 B.C.) Lord Sheh was fond of dragons that he adorned his whole palace with drawings and carvings of them. But […]

By Sena Thoradeniya This is a sequel to my previous article titled Booker Prize, Chattel Slavery, Sugar, its Politics and Sri Lanka” posted on October 30 th 2022. In the last part of my article, First Moon of Maali Almeida” I had quoted certain passages from the Booker Award winning novel Seven Moons of Maali […]

By Sena Thoradeniya a pile of crooked nonsense” with the winner determined by who knows who, who’s sleeping with who, who’s selling drugs to who, who’s married to who, whose turn is”. That is how A.L. (Alison Louise) Kennedy, a Scottish writer and Booker Prize judge in 1996 described the Booker Prize in 2001. Preamble  […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Engineering the ouster of the Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and satisfied with the ascension of a person of their preference, Western power block headed by the US and INGOs now have moved their operations once again to Teheran, Iran. Iran, known as Persia until 1935, founded by Cyrus the Great has […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Preamble This essay was originally written in April 2022, attempting to provide information in a nutshell of protest movements and demonstrations that had taken place demanding either anti-imperialist interventions, political reforms or ouster of rulers, beginning from the May Fourth Movement in China in 1919. Our aim was to provide new insights […]

By Sena Thoradeniya 1. CALL FOR SYSTEM CHANGE When President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa came into power calling for a System Change” we looked at him positively, that he was promising something his predecessors had failed to deliver. In his pre-Corvid encounters with the villagers in remote areas (Gama Samaga Pilisandarak”) he expressed powerfully in front of […]

By Sena Thoradeniya 1. DIDN’T GR HEAR THE GALLE FACE PROTESTERS SING”? When the protesters were occupying the Galle Face Green and protesting at some other sites what were our intelligence personnel and Defense Ministry panjandrums doing was anyone’s guess. Did not the deposed President hear the slogans chanted by the protesters, see placards, banners […]

By Sena Thoradeniya 1.  A Repetition of History In an article published in an English daily on June 9, I brought to the attention of local and international supporters, sympathisers and theorists of Galle Face Protesters an impending catastrophe that would have sent shock waves through their nerves. Instead of making a detailed description of […]

By Sena Thoradeniya This is the second part of the article, Group Formation and Culture of Galle Face Protesters” posted on August 23.2022. A. Culture of GF Protesters – An Overview In the second part of this essay we discuss an area hitherto untouched by any writer, Culture of Galle Face Protesters (GFP). Since we […]

By Sena Thoradeniya During their occupation of the Galle Face Green, Galle Face Protesters (GFP) had brought forth the relationship between youth, politics and culture to the focus of cultural critics. Nobody had ventured into study this phenomenon in detail in the uprisings of 1971, 1988-89 and Tamil Eelam War, although fragmentary  references were made […]

By Sena Thoradeniya M.P. Wimal Weerawansa participating in the debate on Emergency Regulations on 27 July said that CIA through USAID and NED (National Endowment for Democracy) have funded various Sri Lankan Non-Governmental Organisations aiming regime change and protesters were attempting to destroy the State with the aid of external forces. He disclosed the amount […]

By Sena Thoradeniya Broadly speaking there were two major groups who supported and sympathised with the Galle Face Protesters (GLF); (1) Local players and (2) International players. It was easy to identify the local players, but not the international players who were hidden and used various agents and dubious methods to attain their main objective, […]