2024 June 22 - Our Wishes for a Happy 75th Birthday to comrade Hendry Wickramasinghe

 

OUR WISHES FOR A HAPPY 75 TH BIRTHDAY

Dear Comrade Wickramasinghe,

Our association started towards the end of the 1970s and in that long passage of time we became comrades and friends. It is with immense pleasure that we are sending our best wishes on the occasion of your 75th birthday, three-quarters of a century of a life filled with incredible memories and experiences.

We went through a lot when we were young and survived many perilous moments. Our unforgettable political journey, started during days of communal living, spent at the JVP Head Office; located in a single small room at the Weerasinghe Sawmills in K Cyril Perera Mawatha, Colombo–13. All of us were holding on to a firm belief in progressive politics that we believed was and is essential for building a better Sri Lanka for all communities, where justice and fairness will prevail. It remains a dream yet to be achieved, even though we have no assurance whether we would be able to realise that dream during our lifetimes.

In the 1970s, you joined the movement that campaigned for the release of political prisoners led by comrade Prins Gunasekera and others. I vividly remember the days you spent at the Virakesari Newspapers working long hours and then coming to the party office to spend the rest of the day with us discussing the socio-economic and political issues that were prevailing at the time. We knew you then as Matale Chelva and you assisted in many of the media matters at the JVP’s Shakthi Printing Press in Kohilawatta, Angoda.

I recollect your involvement in matters such as proof-reading Tamil articles published in the JVP’s Tamil organ, ‘Sen Shakthi’, and the Tamil translation of “A Marxist Analysis of the National Question”, which I had written while in Magazine Prison in 1973. Most of the prominent leaders of the JVP stopped by at your parent’s house in Matale and enjoyed your late mother’s hospitality.

The Black July pogrom and the proscription of the JVP in July 1983, changed everything. I had to bid farewell to the JVP due to many factors, the main one being the position the JVP adopted towards the national question in Sri Lankan since mid-1983. Afterwards, we had to fight for our own survival and to do it in our own ways. Despite this situation you continued to assist comrades of the JVP such as Ragama Some and Somawansa Amerasinghe, who sought your financial and material help. Comrades Ranjitham Gunaratnam of Kegalle and Periyakarippu Thangarajah of Matale would have survived, if they listened to your advice not to go to the farm in Piliyandala they maintained. They went there without heeding your advice and on the same day they were killed.

You risked your life in 1990, to secure the lives of the Somawansa Amerasinghe family, by making arrangements to send them to India so that they could escape certain death that awaited them in Sri Lanka. An army captain drove Somawansa to Kochchikade and then he had been taken to Subramaniya Swamy Temple in Tiruchendur, Tamil Nadu, India by boat. Meanwhile comrade Amerasinghe’s wife and son flew to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) from Katunayake and caught a local flight to Thiruvananthapuram (formerly Trivandrum), Kerala.

Meanwhile you flew Katunayake to India and brought Somawansa from Tiruchendur to Thiruvananthapuram, where you rented a house from one of your friends and made arrangements for the Amerasinghe family to stay there. Afterwards the Amerasinghe family flew from Trivandrum to London. All travel expenses were borne by a comrade called Ranasinghe from Dubai.

You personally managed many of the arrangements, even travelling to India and then arranging for them to leave India safely. This was an indicator of the strength of your commitment, your personality, your character, and your devotion to a cause to which you had been committed to. Both of us survived threats to our lives that were posed towards the end of the 1980s. You were taken into custody in October 1990 and released sometime in 1992.

In search of survival during and after those difficult days, we have moved in different pathways. Despite the difficulties you had to overcome, you served your community and the people of Sri Lanka in the best way you possibly could. I am grateful for the trust you had placed in me, when you discussed very personal aspects of your life and in choosing ways of surviving at a challenging time, when none of us were able to help.

However, since we left Sri Lanka in 1989, we made it a habit to visit each other whenever we visited Sri Lanka, or when you visited Australia. Since those days, the children of our families whom we met, have grown up to become professionals, with their own families, with several grandchildren. It is a pleasure to see them doing well. They may not have exactly followed our footsteps in life, not that we expected them to. They are endeavouring to find their own ways of adopting and surviving in this complex world. We need to be appreciative of the fact that they are contributing to building a better world in their own ways.

Our personal as well as political friendship have survived almost close to five decades and will survive for the rest of our lives. Almost always, our birthday wishes to friends have had something in common, being appreciative of the contributions they made during their lives without harming broader conceptualisations of a fair go and social justice. We have always wished them a happy, healthy, peaceful, and constructive lives. Yet, each person with whom we have associated with are different, and have their own special characteristics associated with their personalities and politics. Still, our wishes to the people we love, should not only be resonant, but also true.

In that context, we wish you good health, happiness, success, and in anything else that you wish to do. We have proven through our actions and conversations, and whatever the difficulties we confront in our lives, that we will always try to help and care for others who are in need, in our lives and society.

So, we sincerely wish you all the best in all your future endeavours and that you will achieve everything that you wished to achieve in your lifetime.

May your day be adorned with the sweet memories of seventy-five remarkable years well spent! In life, there are beautiful moments yet to arrive.

Happy 75th Birthday, dear comrade!

Lionel and Chitra Bopage

Melbourne, Australia

22 June 2024

2024 August 6 - My Thoughts on the Video Clip - Veil in between - by Mahesh Haris

 The film - “Veil in between”

The first thought that came to my mind while watching the movie clip “Veil in between” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHIPz3Z_qdM) by Mahesh Haris, was the song that I had very fondly listened to in the sixties and still fond of singing. It is the famously popular song - “Sannaliyane” (The Weaver) that Mahagama Sekara had written, and Maestro Amaradeva had sung. The theme of the song is a “saluwa” (a shawl) and had been based on a poem “Indian Weavers” written by the famous Indian poet Sarojinee Naidoo.

The song “Sannaliyane” and the film the “Veil in between” is an artistic expression and an adaptation of the general concept of life, its reality, its emptiness, and the journey through its diverse phases, using the artistic media of music and film. The song “Sannaliyane” focuses on different periods of the day, while asking the weaver for whom the shawl is stitched, the film “Veil in between” focuses on different epochs of life itself. The movie starts with a dress a young child wears, and a sewing machine used for stitching that dress, both being brand new. It denotes the charm and the joyfulness of a new life, a new day.

The film depicts life in its distinct phases passing through infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, late childhood, becoming a youth, the search for a shared life, and finally passing away. The film signifies these divergent phases skilfully and in an extremely artistic style, but in a very sophisticated way. The first veil, a brand-new dress of a child and the new sewing machine represents the beginning (birth) of life. Those items become a dress of a youngster, and a machine used over time, but represent the youthfulness and joyfulness of life.

Then appear a dress of a more matured person and a slightly worn-out machine, symbolising the end of the youthfulness of life. Before the end, the dilapidated dress with no life wearing it and a corroded and rusty machine denote the end of life and of the machine both. Finally, both end up being in a cemetery like environment. With the passing of life, the movie reminds us of the demise of life, its gloominess and distress and the sadness that remains within the minds of those living. Throughout the film, Javier Navarrete reinforces the message of the movie through his melancholic music, by providing an intense feeling of gloom, sadness, loss, and despair, very appropriate for the content the film depicts.

The song “Sannaliyane” illustrates this phenomenon by its lyrics about the smiling faces and the passion with which the weaver stitches the dress, but that does not last long. Their mood turns sour, with faces having become withered with hands trembling to find it difficult to weave the dress further. Beautiful lyrics illustrate the birth, marriage, and death of a life, though ironically by telling us about the impermanence of life. The three main characteristics of everything in universe, the coming into being, the existence and the destruction.

It is about change that is irreversible, ending up with death and destruction. Is not that the reality that we are experiencing in so many places in the world including Gaza, Ukraine, Bangladesh etc. etc. Destruction and death are unavoidable and constants in life.

In short, the film symbolically and sensitively depicts the impermanence and shortness of life, the phenomenon that everything in the universe comes to an end. Nothing lasts forever. Impermanence constantly continues over time, from the beginning into the ever-distant future. Something that we all need to be aware of and kept in our thoughts always in a world where everyone is prepared and made to compete for survival without thinking of the other, the planet and the universe.

We always knew you are such a clever and talented artist when we came to see your arts exhibition, a long time ago. We are incredibly proud to have you as a family friend. You have set an amazing example that will be difficult for any filmmaker to follow.

Congratulations on your incredible effort, skilfulness, and the artistic success!

Lionel Bopage

Community united in prayer for peace The Canberra Times – P2 - 27 Nov 1995

 

Community united in prayer for peace
The Canberra Times – 27 Nov 1995 - P.2

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130573278?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1995%2F11%2F27%2Fpage%2F14746587%2Farticle%2F130573278

 

Picture: ANDREW CAMPBELL

Lionel Bopage, left, and Joe Motha after a gathering held in Manuka yesterday to pray for peace in Sri Lanka.

Rv ANDREW KAZAR

So tense is the state of the war be- tween Sri Lankan Government forces and the Tamil Tigers that a member of Canberra's Tamil community, Joe Motha, of Kaleen, found it difficult to talk about it.

Of Sinhalese origin, Lionel Bopage, of Farrer, said the ethnic conflict was a disaster not only for the Sin- halese and for Tamils, but for Sri Lanka as a whole.

Yesterday, the two were united when more than 100 members of Canberra's Sri Lankan community came together for a gathering of peace and racial harmony in St Paul's community hall in Manuka. The event involved families from Canberra's Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher communities.

Members of the organising group were Australian residents in Can- berra but of different community origins.

Mr Motha, an organiser, said the event was a meeting of Sri Lankans and well-wishers of different faiths to come together to pray for peace. "It is part of a reconciliatory pro- cess and there's a huge number of Sri Lankans in different countries which is a huge untapped resource in terms of trying to bring about peace," he said.

"I think that the hearts have got to meet first before the minds can meet, and Sri Lanka is fortunate in that we have four if not more of all the great religions of the world: Buddhism, Christianity, Hindu and Islam.

"And each of those religions with out exception teach tolerance, com- passion and love ... and I feel that it's a process that we have began here today."

Mr Bopage, another organiser, said the main aim of the event was to ex- press the organising group's concern about the situation in Sri Lanka and the group's desire for peace.

"I see this is a moment of reflec- tion, a time to think of what really happened, whether we have done something wrong because we are not trying to apply the basic guidelines of conflict resolution."

"What's happening in Sri Lanka is that the Sinhalese and the Tamils don't talk to each other, there is no communication and there is a big barrier between them, a mistrust which cannot be taken away all at once.

"May be what we are doing may not have a very big impact on the whole scene, but if we start doing this and spread the word around then probably this will create some influence."

Responding to Mr Dasarath Jayasuriya’s comments - 29 August 1999

 

Re: Mr Dasarath Jayasuriya’s comments over this radio program on Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka on 14 August 1999

This statement is from Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka of which I am an executive member. Lionel Bopage is my name. We wish to thank the management of 3ZZZ radio station and Dr Olga Mendis for providing this opportunity to present our side of the story regarding several allegations raised in this radio program against Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka on 14 and 21 August 1999.

The remarks made were that the Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka is “funded by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” and is pro-LTTE. These allegations are baseless and untrue.

We are an association convened by a concerned group of Australian Sinhalese and Tamil professionals. We strive to provide a forum for meaningful and constructive dialogue to overcome the conflicting perceptions the Australian residents of Sri Lankan decent have about the conflict in Sri Lanka in order to achieve reconciliation. Our main objective, however, is to promote a durable and peaceful settlement of the ethnic conflict within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, which recognises the security needs, addresses the grievances, and the rights and legitimate aspirations of the 'peoples' of Sri Lanka, based on the principles defined in the International Covenants of the United Nations Charter, as ratified by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Since 1995 many allegations and rumours have been spread against us saying that we are supporting the LTTE and terrorism.  This is despite our unequivocal condemnation of violence, use of terror and human rights violations attributed to the state security forces, the LTTE, and other armed groups. The issue basing these allegations appears to be that on 25 November 1995, we, the alleged LTTE agents, organised a Bodhi Pooja (Buddhist offering) to mark Mr Pirabhakaran's birthday.

In my mind, this issue raises four main concerns:

§  whether or not we organised a Bodhi Pooja

§  who were the people in the organising committee?

§  Was it held on Pirabhakaran’s birthday, and

§  Even if it was his birthday as alleged, was it wrong to have a peace gathering on that day, anyway?

 

Firstly, the event we organised was an interreligious devotional gathering for peace, and not a Bodhi Pooja as alleged.  The event was organised to reduce tensions within the communities in Canberra, by nineteen individuals representing the Sri Lankan ethnic, religious and political diversity.  Among them were conservatives and radicals representing the spectrum of political views of Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher communities such as Mrs Badra Karunaratne, wife of the SPUR representative in Canberra, Mr Kulasiri Tenuwara, President of the Australia Sri Lanka Buddhist Association in Canberra, Dr Willie Senanayake and Lionel Bopage and Dr Thevianathan, Dr Ravi Durasingham, Mr Gabriel Joseph, Mr K Ravichandra, Late Mr Terry Wilson and Mr Collin Kish.  Many of them are well known in Canberra and in Melbourne as holding non-LTTE views.

Devotional Gathering was performed by Anglican Bishop George Browning, Ven. Tapodhana Thero of Katoomba Buddhist Temple in Sydney and many other religious dignitaries from Canberra. We have publicly posed the following questions about Mr Pirabhakaran’s birthday:

(a)    Could anyone provide any factual evidence as to what his real birthday is?

(b)   Why was it that those who previously raised allegations against us published on 7 August 1998 that his birthday is 01 April 1995?

(c)    Or does Mr Pirabhakaran have two birthdays?

If peace is the greatest threat to Mr Pirabhakaran personally and to his political ambitions as alleged, then was it wrong anyway to have had a peace gathering on that day wishing peace for Sri Lanka?

With regard to allegations that our members are in the LTTE payroll, travel expenses of their visits being picked up by the LTTE; money being carried to Tiger offices in Sri Lanka and that we organise workshops and seminars in Canberra, we wish to present some facts for listeners to think.

We have publicly challenged to provide the names of those Sinhalese in Canberra that are paid by the LTTE and any evidence to prove their allegations.  On our part, we demanded that those who raise such allegations should initiate an official investigation by any Australian government agency, and that we will open up to the investigation our accounts. So far the response has been a dead silence.

We have conducted public activities on various facets of the current conflict, addressed by many individuals of different political affiliations. Our endeavour is to build closer relationships, which we believe will lead to a higher level of understanding of each other's problems and a genuine desire to overcome prejudices. We have used solely our own resources to develop this dialogue within the Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher communities and other well-wishers.

Our platform represents the interests of those who wish to safeguard and protect the fundamental right of people to freedom of expression, the right to express their views in the open without being subject to harassment, fear, intimidation and persecution. We believe that the ultimate solution to the conflict lies in developing a sensible dialogue and a meaningful negotiation between the parties to the conflict. We acknowledge that in order to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil-speaking people radical constitutional reform will be necessary and that such reforms must recognise the cultural diversity and the right of ‘peoples’ to determine their political destiny and at the same time must safeguard the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.

I entrust intelligent listeners to conclude whether or not arms merchants and their beneficiaries pay warmongers for their propaganda and other services. Such dealers and those in their pay-lists have crucified and will continue to crucify peace-makers who campaign against their long-term business interests and opportunities.

It is unfortunate that having lived in Australia’s multicultural society and expecting the members of the Australian community to treat all migrants without any discrimination, there are some Sri Lankans who still advocate hatred and racism against members of their country of origin. I need not add any more than to say that all their allegations against Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka are unsubstantiated, baseless pack of lies. We request listeners to look for facts rather than emotions.  If you have any questions, we request to post them via our webpage at www.fpsl.org.au.