Features

Has Israel a Right to Exist?

Published

5 years ago

2021/05/23

by Gamini Seneviratne

Over 50 years ago in the aftermath of what is miscalled a six-day “war” through which the heavily armed Israeli armed forces slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and appropriated vast tracts of their land, I wrote “Draft for a Lyrical Ballad” (1968) part of which is given below. It was also a period marked by Robert Kennedy’s battles against Lyndon Johnson and the assassination of that Kennedy as well. It also refers to the twin agitations that shake the world and confront the West today.

America, you’re like me, a tired balloon

Looking up into the sky

On a clear, cold night

Waiting for all human sounds to die.

With the unremitting aid of the principal war mongers on this planet, the USA, Israel has acquired and used against unarmed people a whole array of the most obscene weaponry developed by Man (the caps serves to distinguish that entity from humankind)

In his essay of December 26, 2009, (Information Clearing House) “And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza? Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People”, Vincent Di Stefano places before the world some particulars of Israel’s criminal attacks on the people of Palestine. A few particulars follow:

Twelwe years ago Israel already had 180,000 heavily armed regular troops in their “defence” forces, 140,000 conscripts, 4,300 impenetrable Merkava battle tanks, 10,000 light tanks and armoured cars, 500 missile-laden fighter jets, 1,340 helicopters, three submarines, three destroyers and smaller warships. And the full might of Israeli military force was projected into the tiny space of Gaza during the three-week period from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. (Further details of what the so-called Israeli-Arab ‘wars’ have meant for the people of Palestine were included in my note of 2006 that follows below).

And right now in the midst of (or, perish the thought, in support of?) the carnage being visited on the Palestinians, US President Biden has offered them over $700 million worth of military hardware. Oh, and yes, he has also offered via USAID, a sum of $ 10 million to Palestine. To be channeled through Israel. Naturally. Biden, in whom people located hopes for humanitarian governance has, after all, done no more than confirm that America has no shame.

Let us look at what the engagement of the rulers of America (its military-industrial coalition) with Israel translates into. In February 2009, investigative journalist Conn Hallinan was to describe Gaza as “Death’s Laboratory.” Israel’s new weapons had caused injuries never before seen in the hospitals of Gaza. Many of these were the result of the widespread use of a new class of weapons called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). These were initially developed by the US Air Force and scientists from the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 2000.

DIME weapons consist of a high explosive core around which is wrapped powdered tungsten alloy in a carbon fibre container. On detonation, the tungsten sprays out explosively over a ten-meter radius shredding everything in its field. The resultant injuries are truly shocking. Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert commented: “The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns. . . . Those inside the perimeter of this weapon’s power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous amputations that we suspect have been caused by this.”

Here follows my note of 15 years ago on The Holocaust in Palestine.

In his Foreword to “The Little Drummer Girl”, John Le Carre reports that in Israel he was repeatedly assured that the “Palestinians are not a people.” What were they then? “A leftover rabble of peasants and layabouts whose only task for two thousand years was to keep the Jewish homeland ticking over until its rightful owners returned.”

That such was far from being the case may be gathered from the following: These are the words of the best-known British explorer of Arabia, Wilfred Thesiger. He was writing in the 1940s, around the time the Zionist ‘state’ was being set up: “I went to the ‘Empty Quarter’ with a belief in my own racial superiority, but in their tents I felt like an uncouth, inarticulate barbarian, an intruder from a shoddy and materialistic world”. How many in the White House, the State Department, the US Congress would understand such words, grasp such realities?

In a thumbnail account of how Israel has acted in that enterprise in the 1970s, Le Carre writes, “Israeli jets bombed the crowded Palestinian quarter in Beirut on the pretext that it was intended ‘to destroy the leadership’, – “though there were no leaders at all among the several hundred dead, unless, of course, there were future leaders among the many children killed.”

They obviously feel that they can get away with this savage treatment of the inhabitants of Palestine in their own land. Israel, in short, is a rogue state built on a violent process of encroachment into Palestine. ‘Legitimacy’ for its operations is traced to a sanction received from yet other intruders: the British and the French. One must begin the story of Israel with a look at the legitimacy of those who ‘sanctioned’ its creation. The so-called ‘Balfour Declaration’ (the caps there, some may think, give it some kind of legality) was no more than a personal letter of one paragraph from Balfour to his friend and creditor, Rothschild.

The most generous account by a Lankan of the Jewish intrusion into Palestine, now a totally unbridled invasion, was published 70 years ago in the ‘Ceylon Daily News’ by its Editor-in-Chief, H A J Hulugalle, an experienced and even-handed commentator. The substance of his report was that “The Jews of the world are concentrating on the gradual buying up of Palestine”. One such purchase, of 16,000 acres of a swamp that yields the water for agriculture in the Huleh valley, was made despite the protests of the Palestinians. It was bought for 200,000 English pounds off a young ‘absentee landlord’ domiciled in Syria, whose interest in the land was not in his fellow Arabs but in the waterfowl for his table. The ‘compromise’ imposed by the British occupiers of Palestine required the Jews to drain the land and render it malaria free; ‘in return’, the Palestinians were to have their land reduced by two-thirds of it! Those were relatively early days.

When Jewish immigration began in earnest in the late 19th century, (long before ‘the holocaust’ they keep talking about), there were only about 15,000 Jews in Palestine. In 1893 the Arabs comprised roughly 95 percent of the population. Even when Israel was founded, over fifty years later, Jews were only about 35 percent of Palestine’s population and owned seven percent of the land. ‘The Palestinian Problem’ today, as it has been for many decades, is that the Jews want as much of the land as they can lay their hands on, the ports, the sites sacred to Christianity and Islam – plus, of course, ALL the water that over the centuries had sustained the people of Palestine and Jordan.

Ben-Gurion wrote in 1941 that “It is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.” In 1947-48, when Jewish forces drove up to 700,000 Palestinians into exile, Ben-Gurion had told Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

The current (i.e. in 2006) Zionist leader, Ehud Olmert, came to power on an explicit promise to unilaterally set Israel’s “permanent borders”. The ‘package’ that he took to Washington included, in return for $10 billion he asked for (and received), a plan for the Zionists to withdraw from many smaller settlements – at least 17 in the first phase – in the West Bank and move most of the people in them to larger blocks that they ‘expect to annex’. The man also made it clear that “It will be only a civilian disengagement, not a military disengagement,” The Israeli army will remain in the bits of land the settlers are being moved out of.

Let us look, very briefly indeed, that history being so extensive – at just what the Zionists did. What they continue to do, under cover of the government of the USA, and therefore with apparent impunity is a ‘breaking story’ that may soon explode in their collective face.

The creation of Israel in 1947-48 involved explicit acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres, and rapes by Jews The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) also murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners-of-war in both the 1956 and 1967 “wars”. In 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights. Following its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 it also directed the massacre of 700 innocent Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. During the First Intifida (1987-1991), the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protestors. The Swedish “Save the Children” organization estimated that “23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the Intifida,” with nearly one-third sustaining broken bones. The same proportion of the beaten children were aged ten and under.” Israel’s response to the Second Intifida (2000-2005) was even more violent: The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir openly argued that, “Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat”.

After the victory of Hamas, in an open general election, in late January, Israel withheld $50 million a month in Palestinian customs and tax receipts, though it continues to pay Israeli companies $5.5 million a month from those receipts for the water and electricity used by the Palestinians.

Israelis are often touted as being the epitome of bravery (almost on par with George W Bush – seen, once, in dim light on an aircraft carrier hundreds of miles away on his ‘visit to the troops in Iraq’; the George Bush who, for the two days he spent in India and Pakistan, hunkered down, respectively, in a fort off Delhi and in Islamabad in the US Ambassador’s residence, heavily guarded within a vast expanse of streets emptied of people).

What do the Israelis in fact do? Israel is using men who have been conscripted to slaughter the Palestinians. Such men aren’t out there ‘fighting for Israel’s right to exist’. Their heart is not in butchering innocents; – their energies are focused on remaining unhurt themselves, no matter how many innocents they murder. Hence the commanders of the Israeli army are committed to guaranteeing that none of the conscripts will be in danger of injury, much less death.

In “Hiding Behind Civilians’ (New York Times, 22 June, 2006), Haim Watzman, who had served as an Israeli infantry reservist in the West Bank in the 1980’s and 90’s, and authored “Company C: An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel”, wrote, “Soldiers who had to raid a house or patrol a dangerous stretch of road would grab a nearby civilian and place him in front of them. This civilian had no function other than to protect Israeli soldiers.” Though Watzman says that he has “Never met a soldier who thinks armies ought to be able to maim and kill civilians with impunity,” and that “The practice was not a grassroots initiative. It was an army policy, handed down to soldiers by their superior officers,” he also points out that when the Israeli Supreme Court banned the use of such human shields, (just nine months ago), “many in the army felt they had been robbed of a tool that made their jobs safer, and which helped the commanders protect the lives of their soldiers.”(! ! !)

What have the great warriors of Israel put in its place? Bulldozers. Instead of entering a house behind a human shield, Israeli soldiers turn the house into rubble. Watzman concludes: “Morality in combat is not just an abstract principle. It is an element of an army’s strength. If the safety of soldiers becomes the standard according to which an army designs its missions, an army that does not take risks will be easily beaten by an opponent that does. It’s essential for a society to demand that its army observe moral standards, even if the price to be paid is that more soldiers will be killed.” Tell that to Olmert, – who has “vehemently denied that there was any Palestinian “humanitarian crisis”, adding that, “We wouldn’t allow one baby to suffer one night because of a lack of dialysis,” – or tell it to the marines.

Let’s take a look at them ‘in action’. After warplanes knocked out half of Gaza’s electricity and pounded sonic booms over houses, Israeli tanks, hunkered down inside southern Gaza at the airport on Wednesday, (last week) reported the New York Times.

The impact of this, presumably humanitarian assault (which continues as you read this), is that: “Repeated sonic booms are wreaking the havoc they have wrought before: repeated sonic booms are smashing windows, sending children screaming into the arms of terrified adults, old people collapsing with heart failure, pregnant women collapsing with spontaneous abortions. Mass terror, despair, desperate hoarding of food and water. And no radios, television, cell phones, and no way to get news of how long this nightmare might go on.”

That is from Virginia Tilley’s latest report, as are the following.

“As food in the refrigerators spoils, the only remaining food is grains. Most people cook with gas, but with the borders sealed, soon there will be no gas. When family-kitchen propane tanks run out, there will be no cooking. No cooked lentils or beans, no humus, no bread – the staple Palestinian foods, the only food for the poor. (And there is no firewood or coal in dry, overcrowded Gaza.)

“And, a grimmer fact: no water. Gaza’s public water supply is pumped by electricity. The taps, too, are dry. No sewage system. Word is that the electricity is out for at least six months. The Gaza aquifer is already contaminated with sea water and sewage, due to over-pumping (partly by those now-abandoned Israeli settlements) and the grossly inadequate sewage system. To be drinkable, well water is purified through machinery run by electricity. Otherwise, the brackish water must at least be boiled before it can be consumed, but this requires electricity or gas. And people will soon have neither.

“If cholera breaks out, it will spread like wildfire in a population so densely packed and lacking fuel or water for sanitation.” Over a million people, – yes, people like you and me, – are trapped in that Gaza that the Zionists salivate for. “They are hunkered in their homes listening to Israeli shells, while facing the awful prospect, within days or weeks, of having to give toxic water to their children that may consign them to quick but agonizing deaths.”

That is the Israel that has the effrontery to demand its “right to defend itself”.

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Features

The significance of “Control” in foreign relations

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/3

Thilina Walpola

US Assistant Secretary of State South and Central Asian Affairs, Paul Kapur, Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayaskera, and Navy Commande Vice Admiral Kanchana Banagoda and others aboard SLNS Gajabahu.

Foreign Relations are all about “Control” particularly in the context of Relations between Major Powers such as the USA, China and India and small sovereign States such as Sri Lanka. While in the case of such relations, benefits to both parties are inevitable, the need to do so is invariably driven by the national interests of the Major Powers because their interests far outweigh those of small States. This mismatch of interests is what calls for “Control” of relations by Major Powers

The advice to Sri Lanka by Foreign Relations experts thus far has been to balance challenges arising from such Relations, not realising that the compulsions driven by the interests of Major Powers are such that balancing by itself does not have the needed capabilities to overcome the consequences arising from Major Power Rivalries; a fact evidenced by the recent Middle East war.

For instance, the need for the USA to strengthen the capabilities of the Sri Lankan Navy is driven by the strategic location of Sri Lanka since it is the gateway to the Indo-Pacific. Notwithstanding such motivations, it cannot be denied that the infrastructure provided to Sri Lanka’s Navy was handy to meet internal challenges as it was during the final stages of the Armed Conflict to destroy arsenals of the LTTE out at sea and the capacity to meet both external and internal threats to and within Sri Lanka.

Similarly, one of China’s primary interests is its Belt and Road Initiative. Towards this end, China has established a solid foot print in Sri Lanka by building and owning solid infrastructure projects for 99 years and more, if it is in China’s interest. However, although benefits from such projects cannot be denied, the open question is whether their scale was established to suit China’s interests or sought by Sri Lanka to suit Sri Lanka’s interests. For instance, the offer to build a 200,000 barrels a day Refinery by Sinopec of China has more to do with serving China’s interests, in view of the decision by the Sri Lankan Government to expand the Refinery at Sapugaskanda to 100,000 barrels a day.

In the case of India, the issues are more complex arising from Sri Lanka’s proximity to India, the cultural and historical heritage shared by both and the presence of the Tamil community in both countries. Consequently, India is extremely conscious of the need to keep a sharp eye and “Control” developments taking place in Sri Lanka in respect of Sri Lanka’s relations with Major Powers. This concern is driven by the notion that the territorial security of India is dependent on Sri Lanka’s Relations with Major Powers; a concern that arises from India’s past territorial history where the territory of India was transformed from a motley group of Princely States into one unified sub-continent and then partitioned into two Nation States under the British Raj. Consequently, the present territory of India has been in existence only since its independence from Colonial Rule in 1947. Hence, the fear of history repeating itself is driven by internal compulsions and by external interventions.

US – SRI LANKA RELATIONS

Against the background of Geopolitical interests presented above, Sri Lanka adopted the Policy of Neutrality in 2019 and this Government continues to exercise and live by its Internationally recognised principles, as it did when Sri Lanka denied landing rights to US Aircraft during the Middle East conflict. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister stated that Sri Lanka was “always neutral” when he met the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs to convey Sri Lanka’s appreciation for the assistance rendered to procure fuel during the Middle East crisis and for the maritime vessels and aircraft gifted to Sri Lanka (Daily News, June 23, 2026).

In the meantime, The Island has reported that the “US declares SLN its Indo-Pacific Partner” (June 25, 2026). A statement issued by the US Embassy in Colombo quotes the Assistant Secretary of State as having stated: “Today, we announced the delivery of US satellite communication technology to the Sri Lankan Navy, our Indo-Pacific partner: This secure, real-time connection—representing a transformational upgrade for the Sri Lankan Navy-– will be available aboard their entire fleet of offshore patrol vessels…” (Ibid).

There is no doubt whatsoever that these assets would collectively boost the capabilities of the SL Navy to “strengthen maritime domain awareness, improve operational coordination, support emergency response, help interdict vessels engaged in illicit trafficking etc.” (Ibid). However, the unilateral declaration by US that the SL Navy is a “Indo-Pacific Partner” of the US has NO validity unless such a declaration has the approval of the SL Government. Furthermore, such an approval by the SL Government would compromise its Policy of Neutrality to which the country has pledged.

Therefore, the declaration should be accompanied with a caveat, that being, that the partnership should NOT extend to the entirety of the Indo-Pacific but be limited to Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEC). It is only then that the SL Government is Internationally entitled to exercise its rights as a Neutral State, namely, to protect its territory under the UN Law of the Sea. Furthermore, considering the extent of Sri Lanka’s EEC in relation to the extent of the Indian Ocean, the Partnership would be proportionate.

CHINA – SRI LANKA RELATIONS

China’s interest is to consolidate its interests in its Belt and Road Initiative. Towards this end it has attempted to exercise “Control” over Sri Lanka by offering infrastructure projects of a scale that benefits China rather than Sri Lanka as evidenced by the example of the offer by Sinopec Refinery cited above. This example demonstrate that Sri Lanka should be faulted for accepting projects offered without question and when questioned, based on local evaluations of scale to meet Sri Lankan needs as in the case of the existing Refinery at Sapugaskanda, the scale of projects become significantly less. The lesson to be learnt from this experience is that no project offered should be accepted without question in respect of its suitability to Sri Lanka in all respects, if Sri Lanka is not to become a victim of self-inflicted debt traps.

INDIA –SRI LANKA RELATIONS

How India “Controls” Sri Lanka is by making Sri Lanka politically and economically vulnerable and dependent on India, not only through physical connectivity, but also by being a handmaiden in internal political arrangements where power is devolved to Provinces that are a threat to Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity (13^th Amendment) and also by focusing development that benefit the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. The end result is to keep relations between communities in Sri Lanka on the “boil”, much against the interests of Sri Lanka to function as a united Nation State.

The proposal to connect Sri Lanka with India with under-water pipelines to transfer petroleum products from the Middle East and Power Grids would make Sri Lanka vulnerable and dependent on India as Germany was with Natural Gas from Russia when Nord-Stream I and II were sabotaged. Similarly, the road access through a Land Bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka would legalize access between the two countries that today takes place illegally because of the disparity in wages and livelihoods.

Despite such possible outcomes, there is a concerted effort by individuals and a body of NGOs who are of the opinion that it is in the best interests of Sri Lanka for Sri Lanka to hitch its wagons to the rising star of India. Others are grateful to India as the first responder to Sri Lanka at times of need, mindless of the weekly destruction of Sri Lanka’s marine resources etc. caused by thousands of fishing boats from India resorting to illegal fishing practices whose value over the years are beyond assessment.

CONCLUSIION

The reason for the recent conflict in the Middle East is all about “Control” of Nation States by Major Powers in pursuit of their Geopolitical interests. The need to “Control” Sri Lanka by the US is because of Sri Lanka’s location to the Indo-Pacific and by China because Sri Lanka is a vital link to its Belt and Road Initiative. On the other hand, Relations with India are influenced and guided by India’s obsession with the sustainability of its territorial integrity because that is what makes India a Major Power. The survival of Sri Lanka in such a complex background depends on how astutely Sri Lanka protects its Policy of Neutrality.

By Neville Ladduwahetty

Features

“Sir”: A prefix or a suffix in Sri Lanka?

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/3

Thilina Walpola

A file picture of King Charles making Sir Stephen Hough a Knight Bachelor at Windsor Castle.

The word “Sir” is classically and linguistically associated with Great Britain and His Majesty’s English Language. As an esteemed prefix, it generally refers to a Knight, but very strictly speaking, that is perhaps a rather narrow and restricted synonym. While a Knight of the British Empire is the most common type of knight people encounter today, Great Britain actually has several different orders of knighthood, as well as an ancient rank that does not belong to any such order at all.

When someone is dubbed a knight in Britain and referred to as “Sir” X, Y or Z, they generally fall into one of three categories. The first is a Knight Bachelor, undoubtedly the oldest rank. This is the most common form of knighthood awarded for public service, arts, or science. In that context, one should think of Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, or Sir Ian McKellen. It is not a part of an explicit “Order”, like that of the British Empire. It is the oldest mechanical form of knighthood, dating back to the 13th century under King Henry III. The recipients are simply styled as Sir, followed by the first name, such as Sir Ian, without any post-nominal letters like KBE or OBE attached to the end of their name.

The second is a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). This is a specific group, established relatively recently in 1917 by King George V, to fill a gap for rewarding civilian and military effort during World War I. To qualify to be called “Sir” within this specific order, a man must be appointed as a Knight Commander (KBE) or a Knight Grand Cross (GBE).

The third is a group of Chivalric Orders, the so-called Elite and Ancient Orders. Several highly exclusive, ancient orders of knighthood sit much higher in precedence than the Order of the British Empire. These include the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the pinnacle of British honours founded in 1348, and scrupulously limited to the Monarch, the Prince of Wales, and only 24 other companion members. Then there is the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, the highest chivalric honour in Scotland. The last of this group is the Most Honourable Order of the Bath; typically awarded to high-ranking military officers and senior civil servants.

The Summary Rule of this entire scenario is that every Knight of the British Empire (KBE) is a British Knight, but not every British Knight is a Knight of the British Empire. If you see a modern British knight who does not have military or diplomatic ties, odds are high that they are actually a Knight Bachelor.

With reference to the title of this presentation, now for the flip side of this, as we see things in our region of the globe. In Great Britain, it is the standard form of address to refer to a Knight as Sir John, Sir Ian etc. However, in Sri Lanka, as well as in the Indian sub-continent, very often people use the word “Sir” as a suffix or a postfix to honour someone and frequently use “X Sir”; the name followed by the word “Sir” as a suffix or postfix.

It is a fascinating linguistic oddity, and Sri Lanka is definitely not alone in this, and most definitely, we are second to none in that outlook. While using “Sir” as a suffix or postfix (e. g., De Silva Sir, Nihal Sir) completely cartwheels over the standard British etiquette, where “Sir” must strictly prefix a first name. This charming practice of using it as a suffix is actually widespread across South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. It is a classic example of dialectal crossbreeding, where local grammatical structures and cultural norms go to the extent of rewriting even the rules of the standard English as a language.

In a very broad sense, this phenomenon is very definitely seen in the Indian Subcontinent (E.g. Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan). This is arguably where the “Name + Sir” phenomenon is largest and perhaps even the strongest. Across Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, you will constantly hear people refer to superiors, teachers, or public figures as Karu Sir, Vijay Sir, Sachin Sir, Shahrukh Sir, or Ahmad Sir, etc.

Then there is the Indian “Ji” Factor: In Indian languages like Hindi or Punjabi, it is a strict cultural taboo to call an elder or a superior by their bare name. People naturally append the respectful suffix “Ji” (e. g., Gandhi-ji, Sharma-ji). It is then no surprise at all that when switching to English, the Indian mind seamlessly swaps the local suffix Ji for the English honorific Sir, thereby turning Vijay-ji into Vijay Sir.

In Hong Kong, a very specific variation of this exists within the police force and civil service. Influenced by decades of British administration, mixed with Cantonese naming customs, junior officers and the public address superiors by their surname followed by “Sir”, such as “Wong-Sir” or “Chan-Sir“. There is even a universal colloquial generic term, “Ah-Sir“, used commonly to address male police officers or teachers.

In the Philippines, while the syntax is slightly different, the sheer density of “Sir/Madam, Ma’am” usage matches that of Sri Lanka. Filipinos deeply value hierarchical courtesy. While they might say “Sir Jason“, it is incredibly common to use “Sir” almost like a pronoun or a mid-sentence suffix punctuation mark when addressing superiors, bosses, or clients, to ensure that respect is suitably maintained conscientiously.

The mismatch between British English and South/Southeast Asian English comes down to how different native cultures view status and intimacy. In South Asia, especially in Sri Lanka, there is the Linguistic Tradition of the suffix, where an extension in the nation’s own language is inserted into a word to enhance its status. In languages like Sinhala (-thuma / –mahathmaya), in Tamil (-ayyah / –avargal), and in Hindi (-ji), respect is always attached to the end of a name. It simply means that forcefully bringing a sleek word that implies social deference to the front, like Sir John, feels syntactically peculiar or even inappropriate to a native speaker of these local languages.

The “First Name Dilemma” is another type of rather quaint occurrence. In the West, calling your boss simply “John” is seen as a gesture that is egalitarian, free and open. In South Asia, calling an elder or superior by their first name feels somewhat jarringly rude. Conversely, using just “Mr Perera” can also feel too cold, official and even distant. “Perera Sir” or “Silva Sir” strikes the perfect culturally mitigatory concession, as it maintains a warm, personal connection by using the surname while also overtly and safely conveying a layer of professional public respect by adding the word “Sir” as a suffix or a postfix.

Yet for all that, it is worth noting that fundamentally, all languages are symbolic expressions of human thought and human intelligence. Whether expressed as spoken, written or sign language, all dialects are means of human communication. The type of words like “Sir” that we use in the English Language and the real context in which they are used indicate our thoughts in our human intellect. When they are used appropriately, they reflect our commitment to uninhibited respect and even admiration. While the British people and even their Monarch might feel quite a bit confused to hear someone called “Perera Sir”, right across Sri Lanka and its neighbouring nations. Yet for all that, it is simply the most natural and fusion technique to bridge and integrate traditional deference and admiration with modern expressive English.

by Dr B. J. C. Perera
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow,
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
An independent freelance correspondent.

Features

The Murder Room

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/3

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense – 8

The Murder Room gets its title from a room of that name in a museum dedicated to Victorian memorabilia, including famous murders, which are featured in that room. But the first murder in the story occurs outside, when one of the trustees, who had been against renewing the lease of the building – which would have meant the museum having to close – is set on fire when he comes to the museum late one evening to pick up the car in which he went away for weekends. This was a regular habit, and the murderer had obviously lain in wait, with a can of petrol, and set him on fire.

James

I took several books with me when I went to England earlier this year, but as usual I read hardly any of them, finding enough and more of interest in the shelves of those I stayed with. My first stop was at New College, where, as on several previous occasions I stayed in what is known as the Bishop’s Room, on the topmost storey of the Warden’s Lodgings. Sadly, I shall not stay there again, for my friend who has been Warden there for a decade now, Miles Young, retires this year.

The bookshelves there have much of interest though on the last couple of occasions I have concentrated on the detective stories, which Miles says are not his, but came with the house. The second I read this time was by the generally workmanlike P. D. James, whose Adam Dalgliesh is in the long line of whimsical but efficient detectives that has Hercule Poirot at its head. Though I had not been impressed by the one novel I read, featuring James’ female detective, Dalgliesh, I liked it, and this novel confirmed my affection.

The Murder Room

gets its title from a room of that name in a museum dedicated to Victorian memorabilia, including famous murders, which are featured in that room. But the first murder in the story occurs outside, when one of the trustees, who had been against renewing the lease of the building – which would have meant the museum having to close – is set on fire when he comes to the museum late one evening to pick up the car in which he went away for weekends. This was a regular habit, and the murderer had obviously lain in wait, with a can of petrol, and set him on fire.

The other two trustees, his brother and his sister, obviously benefited from his death, for they promptly renewed the lease. The employees of the museum also clearly benefited, for they had all found some sort of refuge here. These included the caretaker/cleaner, who lived in a cottage on the premises, a manager who was unpaid but used the place for his research, the receptionist, who also looked after the flat at the museum which was used by the sister, and two volunteers plus a gardener’s boy.

The caretaker, Tally, came across the fire before discovery had been intended, for an evening class everyone knew she went to on Fridays had been cancelled. On her way in she was knocked off her bicycle by a speeding car, the driver of which stopped to make sure she was safe, before speeding off again. She manages then to summon everyone else, including Dalgliesh, who had visited the museum for the first time a few days earlier, brought by a friend who relished its strange attractions.

The museum has to be closed for a few days while investigations are carried out, but in the course of them the friend brings some transatlantic visitors, and when they are in the Murder Room a chest (in which a body had been supposed to have been hidden in Victorian times) is opened, and a body found there. That murder, the autopsy indicated, had taken place around the time of the first murder.

The body was that of a girl who had attended a finishing school part-owned by the Dupayne sister. When Tally, by chance, sees the man who had knocked her down, and identifies him as a Lord who was known for his philanthropy, Dalgliesh realises that there are wheels within wheels here. The Lord confesses that he belonged to a group that met for promiscuous sex in the flat, and that he had planned to meet the girl there but she had not turned up.

Lord Martlesham, when the girl failed to appear, thought he should get away after the fire broke out. It was then that he had bumped into Tally, and his stopping to make sure she was all right indicated that he could not have been the murderer. Dalgliesh then deduced that the murderer had seen the girl at the window of the murder room, from which she must have seen the preparations for the murder. That was why she too had been killed.

Dalgliesh then has a fair idea of who the murderer was, but in waiting for proof, he leaves room for yet another murder to happen. For Tally, who had been mulling over something said on the night of the murder, asking about the petrol that caused the fire, realized that she had not mentioned petrol herself. This happened on her way back to her cottage, and not having a phone herself she goes into the museum to call, and then gets back to her cottage and locks herself in.

But then she hears her cat howling and goes out to find him strung up. She cuts him down, but when she goes back to the cottage the murderer is waiting and knocks her down. That happens in the section called The Third Victim, but this is in fact a boy on a motorbike knocked down by the speeding car of the escaping murderer. So Dalgliesh is able to effect an arrest when he turns up as summoned, and fortunately is in time to resuscitate Tally and send her to hospital.

The reason for the murder and the identity of its perpetrator are then fairly straightforward, though the background to the second murder introduces an element of loose living that contrasts with the Victorian age, or at least the image it projected – undercut though that is by the murders highlighted in the Murder Room with their sexual overtones.

And there is another louche element in the adventures of the gardener’s boy, who lives with a Major who is homosexual, though he declares, truthfully it seems, that he was not attracted at all to the boy but had given him shelter because of his vulnerability. He is generally charming, but capable of rages, in one of which he knocked down the major, though he was forgiven. He had taken shelter with Tally, who was fond of him but decided she preferred to live alone, which was why she had sent him away the day before she was attacked.

The murdered brother was a psychiatrist, and it turns out that the mysterious weekends he spent away from his London home were spent at country inns, where he took long walks to clear his mind of the demons his practice kept bringing into it. His profession also contributed to his death, in addition to his standing in the way of the museum continuing to exist, for one of his patients, connected to the murderer, had set fire to herself.

Solid plotting, with all the loose ends tied up, of incidents and the bizarre cast of characters.