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Dinner with daddy: The Motwani dinner table with Kewal, Clara and two daughters

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At a dinner honouring Mother. L to R - Dr. Kewal Motwani, Mrs. L. J. de S. Seneviratne, Unknown person, Mother and Mr. L. J. de S. Seneviratne, Permanent Sec. of Education

Excerpted from Chosen Ground: The Clara Motwani Saga by Goolbai Gunasekera

One thing I can say about life with my parents is that it was never dull. One parent was a school Principal and the other a Professor, and their united efforts ensured that every shining moment of the day was gainfully employed by their two daughters in learning something. This fact alone made for activity, if not for thrills or excitement.Father had a thing about dinner time conversation.

“Food digests better when we talk of soothing subjects,” he would decree, launching into a debate with Mother about the state of America’s foreign affairs. Mother, being American, and having lived out of the USA from the time of her marriage, was always up to date on what American Presidents were doing. America was the ultimate to her in just about everything, and it was a constant joy to her irreverent family to needle her on the subject whenever possible. She had a low tolerance for criticism of her motherland.

Su and I took sides indiscriminately, and a lively evening was had by all. I don’t know what all this argument did to our digestions, but obviously we flourished. Eventually my sister and I privately decided that the time had come to infuse dinner time chats with topics more to our liking. Accordingly, one night, Su led off.

“I saw a cute boy at the Barnes Place junction today,” she said brightly.

Our parents looked at her blankly. It hadn’t occurred to them that we’d ever noticed such unlikely beings as boys. We were aged thirteen and sixteen respectively, but such were the norms of the times in which we were raised.

Father slapped the table.

“Not of general interest,” he roared. “Now if Su had seen a comet passing overhead — that would be of general interest.”

“Honestly, Daddy,” I said, backing up my sibling, “our dinner conversations are so literary. Why can’t we relax?”

“I’m relaxed,” boomed Father. “Aren’t you relaxed?” he asked Mother across the table. “And what’s your problem in relaxing?”

This last was to me. Father had just read the latest Time on the Vietnam war, and was itching to get going on the subject.

“What would you two like to talk about?” Mother asked diplomatically.

Father looked frustrated, and began to fidget. Now, I’d reached the age of discretion, and hadn’t the slightest intention of revealing to my parents that Dearly Beloved (then Dearly to be Beloved) and I were having what my friends grandly termed an ‘affaire’, but which in reality was just a series of romantic phone calls usually made when everyone was out of the house. I simply smiled and let my sister carry on. She did.

“I want to know,” demanded Su, forthright to the point of lunacy, “if that cute boy I mentioned earlier can come and visit me at home. To chat about books and things,” she added hastily, seeing Father’s face begin to darken.

Mother and I watched apprehensively as his whole body seemed to swell with indignation. Mixing of the sexes was not yet allowed in the Sri Lanka of that time — and even less in sleepy Arazi, his home town, from where he had drawn his ideas on boy/girl relationships.

“Are you actually telling me you have spoken to this young ….” he paused, searching for suitable words, “this young despoiler of innocent girls, this depraved Romeo, this unethical whippersnapper, this……He was well launched.Su was not easily intimidated.

“What are you carrying on like that for?” she asked in honest bewilderment. “All my friends talk to boys at the Barnes Place corner. They cycle with us to school and then they go on to Royal … and stop kicking me, ” she added impatiently, to me.

It will be remembered that, unlike me, Su was a Bridgeteen. Following Mother’s educational theories that sisters should not attend the same school, we had been separated — though, frankly, I feel Mother might have been more concerned for the well-being of the schools rather than for the welfare of her two daughters. The vision of Su and her friends cycling up to the gates of St Bridget’s Convent in convoy, with the young stars of Royal College in attendance, quite shattered my parents.

“It’s boarding school for you, Miss,” Father roared at an indignant Su. “And don’t think I don’t mean it.”

At this point he recalled last month’s telephone bill and gave me a suspicious glare, to which I returned a perfectly bland look.

Following this incident, our parents paid Reverend Mother Superior of St. Bridget’s a visit, and if Father had had his way, one of the nuns would have been permanently stationed at an upstairs window with a telescope trained on all roads leading to the school, to ensure the future and continuing purity of the Convent’s teenage cyclists. Hearing of this exchange betwixt authority and her parents, Su groaned.

“Good grief,” she lamented. “The nuns are sleuths and bloodhounds at the best of times. They’ve got eyes at the back of their heads.”

Actually things did not turn out half as badly as she feared. One of the nuns was an American, like Mother, and she did not view the whole episode with undue alarm. She wigged Su in school.

“Enjoyed your ride to school today, my dear?” she would ask Su, when she passed in the corridor. Su would smile weakly.

“Honestly,” she fumed to me, “to think a damn dinner conversation would lead to all this. Father can carry on about world affairs all he likes. I’m not going to say one word at meal times to anyone about anything.”

Father ignored her sulks, and Su kept her vow of silence for a week. Our sire carried on his soliloquy on topics of his choosing, but the salt of his conversational meal was lacking. Without the thrust and parry of my sister’s witty questions and cheeky opinions, he found dinner time pretty damn dull. Finally, he addressed himself gruffly to his younger offspring:

“Come now, Miss Grumpy, I’ve forgiven you.”

Truth to tell, Su, who loved talking, was finding her self-imposed silence unexpectedly hard to cope with. Matters returned to normal, but Su being Su, this happy state did not long continue.

One month to the day after the previous disaster she upset the dinner equilibrium all over again.

“I want to know,” she demanded of Father, “when I can learn to ballroom dance properly.”

Mother and I froze in our seats, and watched Father turn that familiar shade of puce. He opened and shut his mouth several times.

“At thirteen?” he said in a strangled voice. It was more a statement than a question.

“At thirteen?” he bellowed again, finding his usual tonal timbre, and she wants to dance with other equally silly 13-year-olds, I suppose?”

I sat looking demure, my halo shining brightly in contrast with what I thought was Su’s less than scintillating performance. But life is so unfair. A fortnight later, my cheeky younger sister joined Frank Harrison’s School of Dancing, and went on to win the odd medal here and there too. I was speechlessly envious.

“The thing is,” she told me, “the thing is to ask Father for the impossible. Then he settles for what you really want.”

Considering Father’s views on friendship between teens of opposite sexes, he was surprisingly non-vocal when it came to marriage. Both he and Mother realized the impracticability of arranging marriages for us in India.But one story needs be told.

One day Father received an agitated letter from a wealthy Sindhi merchant who had been his playmate in the village of Arazi. The merchant’s only son (the apple of his eye) was now practicing medicine in the USA, and was refusing to marry a Sindhi girl, claiming that he was too ‘westernized’ to settle down in India with an Indian wife. He wanted to marry an American colleague – also a doctor.

“Just think, Kewal, only my foolish son would think that an American would like India,” lamented the merchant, quite forgetting that Kewal’s own wife felt quite at home in Asia.

It transpired that the wayward son would consider marrying an Indian girl if she were educated and ‘westernized’. His distraught father suddenly remembered that his boyhood friend had an American wife and also two half-American daughters. He assumed that at least one daughter must be of marriageable age, hence the letter to Father asking permission for his son to meet one of them.

Father summoned me. His success with Mother over his attempts at arranging marriages for us had so far been minimal. She had washed her hands of the whole affair, thinking Father must really be out of his mind to be doing something so uncharacteristic. Father just could not get away from Arazi influences at times. In any case, she had a pretty shrewd idea how I would react.

Clearing his throat and looking at a point over my head, Father said gruffly:

“Er, would you like to meet a nice young man when you go to University in Bombay?”

I could hardly believe my ears.

“What?”

“A doctor is looking for a wife.”

Truly, Father’s personal persuasive skills were nil. “So?”

“Well … er … would you like to meet him?”

The chance of paying Father back was too good to miss. “Daddy! Are you arranging for me to speak to a BOY?”

“Well, he is a mature and well-qualified individual. Not the sort I see hanging around near post-boxes, that your sister seems to find so exciting.”

“Daddy, are you SURE? He might have only one thing on his mind.”

(One of Father’s pet phrases at this time was: “Young men have only one thing on their minds, and that one thing is not repeatable.”)

Father knew he had to accept the wigging. He accepted our pretended shock with good grace, and told me it was entirely up to me.

In point of fact I did meet the young man in question. He took me out to dinner when I was at university in Bombay, but both of us had other romances going and marriage between us was not an option. However he has always been a convenient peg on which to hang a winning argument with my husband. During any disagreement I can always say:

“And to think I gave up a doctor for you!”

Father wrote to his friend. According to Mother, he gave his usual excuse.

“Who am I, a mere father, to know what goes on in the heads of women. Let your son marry his American. He will probably be very happy. After all – I am.”

Riot over the diet

Father’s long lecture tours distanced him from his growing family for much of the time. He was thus spared the sight and company of squealing babies, which in his eyes was all to the good. Father never learnt to carry an infant. “Squirming little creatures,” was his comment on all new borns.

Not given to panegyrics, he viewed his two daughters with a judicial eye. He seemed to regard any successes of ours as accidental and unexpected. Fortunately, Mother was the opposite. My sister Su and I grew up in an alien land, but not once did we feel anything but totally Sri Lankan. For this we had our parents to thank, for we were brought up as Sri Lankans first, and Asian/Americans as an afterthought.

Our school friends had parents who had fallen into the traditional roles of courtship and marriage. Our own parents, on the other hand, had fallen into a quite unique category. We never tired of hearing the tale. “So tell us, Daddy,” Su would say, “Tell us the story of how you proposed?”

Father loved the narrative. “What do you mean, ‘propose’?” he would ask. “Your Mother saw this superbly romantic-looking Indian and I hadn’t a chance in hell. I was at the altar before I knew it.”

Mother would sigh resignedly. She knew, and we both knew too, that the reality had been very different.

Father was 28 and Mother just 18 when they got engaged. At 19 Mother was married, and half way through her degree in Languages and Music at the University of Iowa. Just after their marriage, Father transferred from Yale in order to be near her. When the financial debacle of the Wall Street crash wiped out Father’s American bank account, it meant that our parents could not afford to live together on campus since married quarters were expensive.

Accordingly they simply pretended they were single. When Mother was awarded her degree, Father insisted that she do a Master’s in Education. “The British will go,” he predicted, “and India’s schools and colleges will need qualified Principals.”

Mother thereupon enrolled in Professor Ensign’s class and began her thesis. Professor Ensign was an avuncular type of person, and had given Father quite a lot of added correction work by way of helping him earn extra income. One morning, he called Father aside. “Kewal,” he began, “I have a young girl from Kentucky in my class who is interested in the East. I think you should meet her and tell her about India.”

Father agreed, of course, and found himself being introduced to Mother. They shook hands gravely, trying not to meet each other’s eyes. To the end of his days, Professor Ensign thought he had played Cupid. Father never enlightened him, and the story of his matchmaking success enlivened the good Professor’s dinner table for many moons after that.

Mother took me to see Professor Ensign when I was four years old, as she was back in America on furlough. He patted my head, and gave me a photograph of himself with Mother on one side of him and Father on the other. It was a picture I treasured for many years but alas, cannot trace at this moment.

“You wouldn’t be here if not for me,” he is supposed to have said to me. Mother smiled her gentle smile. “Very true,” she said, telling one of the few untruths she ever uttered.

One wonders how a bond was forged between a youngAmerican girl and an already mature Indian Doctor of Sociology. What similarities existed that resulted in this unusual yet successful partnership? Su and I would endlessly discuss the matter. Both of us expected to marry in Sri Lanka or India (which we did), and both of us wondered what it would be like if we fell in love with an American.

“You won’t have the chance,” Father told us grimly once, when Su had been foolish enough to voice her views on matrimony. “Perish the thought. You’ll marry here, and like it.”

So what was the glue that held the bond between our parents firm? Firstly, both were Theosophists. My American grandmother was so much into Theosophy that she even influenced Mother to become a vegetarian at 17. Father had been a vegetarian from birth and through Jamshed was an ardent Theosophist himself, so it does seem as though similar food habits and similar religious beliefs formed that first strong link between them. Secondly, they were both highly educated. A third factor was the difference in age between them: Father did not find it difficult to mould his young wife into his ways of thinking.

He found Su and me, his two daughters, far more of a challenge than he liked. “Where has your Mother’s gentleness gone?” he would demand, glaring at Su’s rebellious face. On principle Su objected to everything. “I’m going to eat meat the minute I marry,” she would declare. Father would blench.

“And I’ll drink, too,” she would add. He would go even paler.

“We’ve begotten a changeling,” Father would tell Mother, who would smile and tell him to bear in mind that adolescence was generally a trying time. “If those two young ingrates want to make graveyards of their stomachs, who am I, a mere Father, to stop them?” he would say plaintively, hoping Su would overhear him. “And if liquor addles their brains, it doesn’t matter. They are addled already. Curdled would be a better description,” he would add.

Father’s aversion to meat and liquor certainly led us into some strange situations. Travelling together in America had Su and me cringing in our seats at restaurants. “The steak is excellent, sir,” the waiter would say, handing Father the menu. Father felt called upon to inform the entire restaurant, of his dietary preferences.

“Not a piece of meat has ever passed my lips,” he would declare in ringing tones. “And I don’t intend to start now.”

“Perhaps a nice Dover sole, then?” the waiter would say soothingly. Father’s voice would rise several notes. “And what, pray, is the difference?” he would ask the unfortunate waiter. “They are both flesh of living creatures, are they not? Nasty bloody business, all this meat guzzling.”

Diners at other tables began to lose their appetites. Father was in full spate. “Just order, dear,” Mother would say tactfully and, truth to tell, the manager of the restaurant was by now ready to give us all a free meal just to get Father out of there. Everyone settled for omelettes and salad. Fortunately no one had yet heard of the cholesterol scare, and we must have eaten enough eggs to start a poultry farm upon our return home. Father did not think eggs violated any Brahmin laws of ethics or dietetics.

His attitude to liquor was even worse. He had dinner one night with Mr. and Mrs. Argus Tressider, American diplomats in Colombo in the 1950s. A week later, Nancy Tressider met Father again and he complimented her on her dessert.

“Oh, you liked my brandy souffle, did you?” she asked innocently, not realizing that she was virtually hitting Father in the solar plexus. He went pale, and his stomach churned. He collected Mother, and hightailed it out of there so fast she had hardly any time to make her excuses to her hostess. He went home and was sick for twenty-four hours.

“I’m poisoned, poisoned,” he groaned hollowly every few minutes. “My entire system has been polluted.” He went on a water diet of detoxification. He was a psychological mess. Nancy rang up the next day to find out how Father was getting along after his hasty exit the previous night. Mother told her the truth. “But Clara, my dear,” Nancy said, “I only used brandy flavouring for the pudding.”

Father faced our gales of glee with fortitude. He admitted shamefacedly that it was a case of mind over matter, but when the day eventually came that Su married an officer of the Indian Army and did take the occasional glass of wine, Father was genuinely upset. “Your pure bodies,” he would lament. “What a great, great pity.” I never had the courage to admit that I did likewise. “Poppycock,” Su would mutter.

But now that I am a grandmother myself, and face dietary and health problems as do we all, I wonder: did Father have a point?


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Shame! Ragging raises its cowardly head again

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2025/05/9

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Ragging at Sabaragamuwa university has resulted in the loss of another student’s life and there is another incident of barbaric attack on an anti-rag student of J’pura university by some students from the same university. Whether the bullies are backed by political parties or not, they show their undeveloped and conformist minds that need urgent refinement; if they are connected to political parties and student unions, the latter show only their vulgarity and duplicity when they wax eloquent about modern education, culture, decadent politics, human rights, corruption and all that jazz. That this barbarous practice continues in broad daylight and under the very nose of university and law enforcement authorities is deplorable and puzzling to say the least. It is ironic that the best minds, the superstars in academia, the leading lights in education and the guardians of all that is progressive have become helpless spectators of this bullying happening in their universities. The ignominious records of rag victims in our country are a crying shame as all those perpetrators have been from that somewhat musty and largely conservative ‘cream of intelligence’ as they are called at all inauguration ceremonies where their egos are pampered.

Ragging in our universities is a sure sign of the backwardness of our culture and education, in comparison with that of civilized societies. The brutal practice of ragging shows that education in our country, both in schools and universities, has a lot of room for improvement about making the undergraduate population sensitive and sensible, more than ‘educated’. Of course, we can understand torture if it is something which happens in the underworld or in any place where the new recruits must be brutaliesed before they are admitted to their circles, but how can one understand when it happens in the highest seats of academia? Professor O. A. Ileperuma has, in his article “Ragging and loss of life” published in The Island of 5 May 2025, stated that some academics turn a blind eye to ragging perhaps “because they themselves were raggers in the past and see nothing harmful in such sordid instances of ragging”. This is pathetic and may perhaps prove some of the accusations that have been made ad nauseum about the lack of a wholesome education in our university system, which is said to be obsessed with mass producing ‘employable graduates’.

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. As far as the ragging culture in our universities is concerned, desperate measures are long overdue. In the highest institutes of learning where knowledge is produced and all the progressive and advanced ideas are supposed to be generated, there has been unfathomable brutality, crudeness and conventionality in the name of an acquired beastliness which they call ‘ragging’ to give it a quasi-academic smell when all it amounts to is lack of refinement which can be linked to numerous reasons.

Most of the culprits are the victims of a system which esteems hierarchy where it is accepted that superiority is synonymous with repressive power and inferiority is another term for meekness and passive acceptance of all commands coming from above. It is a mentality which is based on the warped logic that superiority is absurd if the seniors have no right to snub the juniors. Those who have tasted humiliation in one form or another for long due to reasons inherent in society can grow up to be vengeful. Most of these diehard raggers often show signs of this mentality in the way they behave the minute they have been automatically lifted to their pathetic superiority after one year in the university where they enjoy a mistaken sense of immunity from the law. The widely publicised idea of ‘freedom’ associated with universities and their relative aloofness from the rest of society and the aura they have acquired have made them safe havens for the raggers if the unmitigated brutality in ragging over the long years is any indication. The question is why (oh why?) these learned bullies despise civilised behaviour so much in their enclaves of power merely on the strength of one year’s seniority. If it is their one year’s accumulated knowledge which makes them feel superior to the newcomers in an aggressive way, surely, such knowledge is questionable, which must intrigue educationists, psychologists, sociologists and all academics interested in the role of education in character building.

Raggers have been saying ad nauseam that ragging is given to make the new entrants tough enough for academic work. As we know their methods include using foul language, humiliation, intimidation, physical and psychological abuse, torture, beating and forcing rigorous exercises even leading to death. The resultant trauma has led some to commit suicide. All this is done to help the new students with a proven capacity for hard work in the academic field!

However, there are some pertinent questions to be asked. Is this method of building resilience of potential academics backed by research? Should this ‘programme’ be conducted by senior students (who are apparently mentally unsound)? Aren’t there better qualified people to conduct a civilised programme which would help make the newcomers ready to face the trials of academic life? Do they believe that no refined programme can be as ‘effective’ as their ragging? Why should they spend their valuable time doing it when it can be done by experts in a more organised and civilised manner? Have they ever been cultured enough to discuss this so-called ‘personality development’ programme with the relevant authorities and academics, with any reliable evidence to prove its effectiveness?

As we know, these raggers who are self-appointed ‘experts’ in character building of sorts expect total submission from the juniors they try to brutalise, and those who dare resist this bullying are viciously suppressed. To what extent does this compulsory compliance expected from the new students at the beginning of their academic career help them to be better undergrads?

How much more brutality in ragging is to be endured by the new university entrants for “desperate measures” to be called for?

by Susantha Hewa

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80th Anniversary of Second World War

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2025/05/9

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The beginning of World War II: German warplanes attacking Poland in Sept. 1939.

One of the most important dates in World War II, is May 9, 1945, when the Soviet red flag with the hammer and sickle emblem was raised over the Reichstag building, the German parliament. This confirmed Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Soviet Union. Since then, 80 years have passed upto May 9, 2025. It is very timely to look back on the past 80 years of history, and to briefly discuss some of the current issues and the future.

Beginning and End of the 2nd World War

World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland. Within a year of the war, the world’s imperialist powers had divided into two camps. Germany was on one side, targeting Europe, Italy Africa, and Japan Asia, while Great Britain, the United States, and France were on the other side of the war.

Within a short time from the start of the war, Germany had conquered many countries in Europe, and on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union joined the anti- Nazi Allies and launched the “Great Patriotic War” to defend the world’s first socialist state, and progressive forces around the world acted in a way that supported the Soviet Union.

Three major battles known as the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk turned the tide of World War II, shattering Hitler’s dream of capturing Moscow in a few months (4 months) through Operation “Barbarossa” and celebrating the victory from Red Square. By the beginning of 1945, the entire Soviet Union had been liberated from Nazi Germany, and by March 1945, the Soviet Red Army had surrounded Berlin from the east, south, and north, and then surrounded the entire city, surrendering the German forces, ending the European War of World War II on May 9.

World War II was a major war in which 61 countries, representing 89% of the world’s population participated, and the total number of deaths in this war was 50 million, of which 25-30 million were Soviet citizens. The Soviet Red Army, which ended the Great War for the Liberation of Europe on May 9, 1945, entered the Battle of Manchuria three months later on August 9, 1945, and defeated imperialist Japan. By then, the United States had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (on August 6 and 9). Thus, the Soviet Union played the major role in defeating the fascist military coalition, including Nazi Germany, during World War II.

Post-World War order

Negotiations, to shape the post-war world order, began while World War II was still ongoing. In talks held in Washington in January-February 1942, in Canada in 1943, later in Moscow, and in Tehran, Iran in November-December 1943, the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and China agreed to establish an international organisation with the aim of preserving world peace. Later, the Soviet, American and British leaders who met in Yalta in Crimea agreed on the structure of the United Nations, the Security Council, and the veto power, and the United Nations Charter, signed by 50 countries in San Francisco in 1945, came into force on October 24, 1945.

Rise of Socialist world and collapse of colonialism

With the Soviet victory in World War II, the world underwent unprecedented changes. Although Mongolia was the only socialist state other than the Soviet Union at the start of World War II, after that war, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania in Eastern Europe also became socialist countries. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established in 1945, and in 1947 a socialist state was established in East Germany under the name of the German Democratic Republic. The Chinese Revolution triumphed in 1949, and the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959. Thus, the socialist system established in a single country by the October Revolution in 1917 developed into a world system against the backdrop of the unique victory of the Soviet Union in World War II.

Another direct result of the victory in World War II was the collapse of the colonial system. National liberation struggles intensified in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and new independent countries emerged one after another on these continents. In the 25-30 years that followed the end of World War II, the colonial system almost completely collapsed. The United Nations, which began with 50 member states, now has 193 members.

With the end of World War II, working class struggles intensified. Communist parties were formed all over the world. Although the Sri Lankan working people’s movement was in a state of truce during World War II, the war ended in May 1945 and by August it had gone on a general strike. The 8-hour workday, wage boards, holiday systems and monthly salary systems were won through that struggle. The working class movement in this country was able to win many rights, including pension rights, overtime pay, and other rights, through the general strike held in 1946. Although the general strike of 1947 was suppressed, there is no doubt that the British government was shocked by this great struggle. In the elections held in 1947, leftist and progressive groups were elected to parliament in large numbers, and independence with Dominion status was achieved in 1948.

World is in turmoil

Until this era, which is 80 years after the end of World War II, the world has so far managed to prevent another world war. Although there have been no world wars, there have been several major conflicts around the world. The ongoing Middle East conflict over the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, the conflict created by Western powers around Iran, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recently escalating Indo-Pakistan conflict are among them. The limited military operation launched by Russia to prevent the NATO organization reaching its borders, has transformed into a battle between Russia and the collective West. But the conflict now seems to have entered a certain path of resolution.

Several parties have launched trade wars that are destabilising the world, perhaps even escalating into a state of war. Thousands of trade sanctions have been imposed against Russia, and the US President has declared a trade war by imposing tariffs on dozens of countries around the world.

Meanwhile, the world has not yet been able to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of global warming, which has threatened the existence of the entire human race.

The Bretton Woods Organizations (International Monetary Fund and World Bank), which were economic operating institutions established after World War II, have not only failed to lead the world’s economic development, but there is a strong allegation that the guidance of those institutions has exacerbated the economic problems of newly independent countries.

At this time of commemoration of the 80th anniversary of World War II, it is our responsibility to resolve the above problems facing the people of the world and to dedicate ourselves to the future of humanity.

Way forward

Accordingly, a futuristic, new economic order is emerging, and a multipolar world has been formed. The most important point to emphasise here is that the world order that was established after World War II, which encompasses various fields, is a system jointly developed by the great powers that won that war, and the reforms that need to be made in accordance with the demands to change this world order to suit the current reality must be identified collectively. No single country can change these world structures.

People are rallying all over the world for issues related to the survival of the entire human race, such as controlling global warming. New programmes that contribute to the economic development of most countries in the world have been or are being developed. The New Silk Road projects, the BRICS organisation, the New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are such programs/new institutions. A global process has been launched to prevent a nuclear war and maintain world peace.

Many of the above-mentioned issues and problems have arisen through imperialist military and economic planning and operations, and therefore, the contradiction between imperialism and the people has become the main contradiction of this era. Therefore, it must be emphasized on the 80th anniversary of the Second World War that the way forward in the world will be through the people’s struggle against imperialism.

by Dr. G. Weerasinghe
General Secretary, Communist
Party of Sri Lanka

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New Mayors; 80th Anniversary of VE Day; Prince Harry missteps yet again

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2025/05/9

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This week’s Cry is put together as the voting goes on for mayors of Municipal Councils. Cass is rather confused about this second tier of government, so she googled and here is what she got: “There are currently 29 municipal councils in Sri Lanka. These councils govern the largest cities and first tier municipalities in the country. The local government system also includes 36 urban councils and 276 Pradeshiya Sabhas.” Not that this has made matters clearer to Cass.

She believes that for a small country of 22 m people, we are too heavily governed from above, with a central government and then all these councils and sabhas below.  Consider the number employed in them; most underworked and underworking. Another matter is that if you want a matter seen to, regarding property rates, etc., you are most often sent from this Sabha to that council.

This came about with the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution introduced on November 14, 1987, following the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which aimed to address the ethnic conflict by granting some autonomy to provincial councils.  As Cass believes it was imposed on us by India after the threat expressed by India, instigated by Tamil Nadu, when Prabhakaran in his military childhood, was cornered and almost captured in Vadamarachchi.

India rained parippu on the northern peninsular, demanded no arrests of LTTE; and it was rumoured Indian forces were poised on the southern and south eastern coasts of the subcontinent ready to sail to war to the island below them. PM Rajiv Gandhi came instead; Prez JRJ was constrained to meet, greet and honour him. One rating in a guard of honour which handsome Rajiv inspected, expressed the majority people’s opinion; “We don’t want you here!”  After which guards of honour worldwide are kept strictly at a safe distance from the VVIP honoured.

To Cass the most important fact of the election progressing now and its outcome is that she hopes newly elected mayors will insist on the Municipal Councils’ employees doing the work allotted to them: mostly garbage collectors; sprayers against mosquitoes; PHIs inspecting kitchens of eating houses and those in charge of general cleanliness of cities keeping s clean.

Complaints are numerous that roads are dirty, garbage piled up and drains and small waterways clogged so water remains stagnant and thus the rapid spread of most debilitating chikungunya.

May 8 1945 – VE Day

This date marked Victory in Europe. “… after Britain and its allies formally accepted Nazi Germany’s surrender after almost six years of war. At 15.00, the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced World War Two in Europe had come to an end.” Allied Forces marched into Germany from west and South and the Russians entered from the north. Hitler committed suicide and the Nazi so far invincible forces were shattered, battered and splintered. It was Emperor Hirohito who surrendered Japan and himself on August 15, 1945, after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (Aug 6,9).

Thus, this year is the  80th anniversary of the end of World War II and Britain brought out its Palace Guards, forces and cheering crowds to celebrate the event, and more to pay homage  to veterans still living and extend gratitude to those soldiers, sailors and airmen and women who laid down their lives to save their country. King Charles III was present in a special seating area which had other members of the royal family; politicians and veterans and their families, while some of those who had served in the war rode in open cars to the cheers of the spectators.

The Netherlands and Canada too mounted celebrations. Canada made it a point to pay allegiance to the British Monarch as their head, and Cass feels sure King Charles III reciprocated with acknowledgement. Commented on were video statements Cass heard that this reiteration was for the benefit of Prez Trump with his plans to annex Canada as the 51st State of the US.

Prince of groans and complaints 

In the midst of this pageantry and show of British royal family’s unity was Prince Harry cutting a very poor figure of himself, most in an interview given to the BBC after he lost his British Court of Appeal challenge over his security arrangements. “The Duke of Essex, who attended both days of the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice last month, was appealing a ruling dismissing his challenge to the level of police protection he receives in the UK” He was demanding  armed security for himself and his family if and when they visit England. This was refused because of his own withdrawal from royal duties, opting not to be a working member of the British Royal Family; and moving to the US to live.  Videos Cass watched tore him to pieces on several counts. He said he could not bring his wife and children to Britain. He said he wanted reconciliation but his father would not speak with him. Then the blunder of adding the sentiment that King Charles’ days on earth were numbered. “We don’t know how long he has to live.”

He was very annoyed with a compere of a British late-night show for referring to him as Harry with no Prince or Duke salutation.  He and his wife are not allowed to use HRH by King Charles’ orders, but it was said Meghan loves using the title. Here is a straightforward case of wanting and not wanting something, of utter selfishness and gross grasping.

Local news in English

Cass bemoans the fact she is no longer able to watch MTV News First at 6.30 of a morning. MTV late news in English is at 9.00 pm but it was repeated the next morning. Served lots, I am sure. In Cass’ case the TV set is monopolised by the two helpers she has with her. They watch teledramas on various channels all through the late evening almost to midnight. Can she butt in? Never! They need entertainment. So, no local news for her these days until she goes to another TV channel for news in English – few available. She hopes TV One will resume its news relay in English at 6.30 am after the welcome chanting of pirith. 

Cassandra wishes everyone and our much-loved country a continuation of the peace of Vesak. Oneness of the people as good persons was demonstrated in the crowds in Kandy recently. Mosques opened their doors wide to let in anyone and everyone come in and sleep. All races supplied food and water. Such unity was not seen before. A propitious sign for the future.

 

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