Ram Manikkalingam

Reopen Strait of Hormuz by reframing Iran’s tolls as reconstruction scmp.com/opinion/world-… #Hormuz #Iran

Maiden speech by NPP MP from Jaffna. Raising prisoners, disappearances, land, jobs and drugs. Real problems faced by the people. It is a hood sign that NPP MPs are raising these issues. youtu.be/IQ0S3bEAVRw

Boat with #RohingyaRefugees on seas off Mullaitheevu #lka. Heartening to hear doctors went to meet them in sea & local residents sent water, food. Refugees fleeing persecution on arduous boats journeys must be welcomed & cared humanely. NOT detained as criminals @anuradisanayake

Why we need ⁦⁦⁦@MASumanthiran⁩. An editorial about the key role he played in parliament.

Mr. @MASumanthiran's contributions as a parliamentarian are deeply commendable. Your work for justice, equality, and reconciliation remains a benchmark in Sri Lankan politics. Although you're not in parliament today, your legacy continues to inspire. Thank you, Sir.

The NPP invited me to speak at their seminar on the topic “Abolish PTA” on 10.12.2022 at the SLFI under chairmanship of Mr Wijebandara AAL. Now they seem to have lost direction (compass notwithstanding) and are saying that PTA need not be repealed! youtu.be/87Vwj1V77pM?si…

Today is the birth anniversary of one of my heroes, the multi faceted, very talented #BahadurShahZafar He was a Crack shot- could hit a target from a moving sedan, an ace calligrapher, unparalleled in one arm combat, had no equal in horse riding and sword play in his era, a sensitive poet, a mystic, an ordained Sufi and an upholder of justice- everyone be they of aNY religion, caste or Creed got equal justice from him ( read Dastaan e ghadar translated by me) The Uprising of 1857 was fought under his banner: be it Hazrat Mahal, or Tantia Tope, Azimullah or Babu Kunwar Singh. We see him only as that toothless, helpless man lying in captivity. That was a propaganda photo. There's much more to him. Do read S Mahdi Hasan's book Bahadur Shah Zafar Dastan e Ghadar And William Dalrymple' 's The Last Mughal for a fuller picture #LastMughal #Zafar #birthanniversary #LastMughal

MIT Nobel Economists #daronacemoğlu and Simon Johnson argue that political equality and clean institutions matter for growth. Can #SriLanka #anurakumaradissanayaka #hariniamarasuriya draw on their ideas. youtube.com/live/CHmckvMKC… via @YouTube

Put the (revised) bond restructuring terms for Sri Lanka into a spreadsheet -- Sure looks like the bond holders out-negotiated Sri Lanka's previous government, and gamed the IMF and the official creditors ... 1/

p.s. the market access debt sustainability framework was designed for surveillance, not debt restructurings -- & it is new/ untested. Sri Lanka got unlucky there, but it also wasn't willing to hold the line and reject the proposed contingent instrument cfr.org/blog/sri-lanka…

The international community should support Sri Lanka 🇱🇰! It’s only two weeks since Sri Lanka elected Anura Kumara Dissanayaka President. He has used the time well. * He got the diplomacy exactly right. First meeting with the Indian high commissioner, then the Chinese ambassador, signaling that India is most important for Sri Lanka, then comes China next. Later he met ambassadors from everywhere else, the West, Russia and more. This is a clear signal of a “Sri Lanka first” foreign policy. * Immediately upon swearing in he visited the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy and was blessed by the mahanayakes. Later he met with Tamil and Muslim political and religious leaders. His insistence on creating a Sri Lanka for all ethnic communities is strong. * He has reached out to the business community underlining that only working closely with business, can he create a prosperous Sri Lanka and bring the resources needed to improve education, health and opportunities for the poor. * He brings a non-corrupt core of people to state power. By reducing luxury car allowances for ministers, he signals a more modest life style for leaders. * Dressing in khaki he signals a leadership close to people. None of of this will by itself solve all problems in Sri Lanka. It will not calm all skepticism to a left wing leader among diplomats. But it is for sure a good start. Everyone should now roll up their sleeves and help him build a peaceful, multi ethnic, green and prosperous Sri Lanka.

A MOST VALUABLE PRIZE Splashing through a soaked west London on a moped, a middle-aged man is carrying in his satchel a most valuable prize: a new book. I am in a wheelchair in my kitchen, being fed coffee through a straw by a pugnacious African woman. I am shouting at my computer screen – scroll up, scroll down, click 59 – which is how I read the newspapers. Isabella sits across the table, rolling a cigarette, telling me to keep my voice down. Simon, my editor at Hamish Hamilton, charges in, grinning all over. For weeks, Carlo and I have been anticipating this moment: to actually hold the finished copy of Shattered, an account of my year spent in hospital with a spinal cord injury. We pass the hardback around between us. It is thicker than I’d imagined; the sleeve is cream, and my name and the title are emblazoned on shards of coloured paper; blue, red and yellow. Of course I can’t handle the book myself, my fingers are still unresponsive, but Carlo turns the pages for me, and we examine the font and margins, afraid to look at any particular line too closely, for fear of spotting mistakes which are too late to revise. I have published many books over the years, and I remember the excitement of holding my first novel, with its brilliant cover by the great Peter Blake. Naturally, as you publish more regularly, the thrill diminishes. But this time it is different. Shattered, written in close collaboration with my family, was created in almost unbearable circumstances, across five hospitals and under the strain of a near-death experience. Some of it I barely remember writing, I was so drugged-up and traumatised. But this finished copy stands for what opportunities trauma may offer. Literature converts suffering into art. Most of the patients in the Hospital of Accidents - as I called the ward in which I stayed - are unable to resume the lives they previously led. If you are a ski instructor, a policeman or a teacher, it is almost impossible for you to work with an injury like mine, although some people continue to lead useful and productive lives. I am one of the lucky ones. It takes many people to make a book: the cover designer, printer, editor, the friends who read it through, numerous publicists and journalists, as well as the booksellers, who actually get it to the public. All these people believe in books as an inherent good; that thought, intelligence, and articulation are important to democracy and the quality of our lives. Tonight, a good friend visits, and we sit around my kitchen table drinking wine and chatting about movies. This friend and I met in the nineties, after he published a book on psychoanalysis, about which, at the time, I was insatiably curious. There was something I wanted to be cured of. He and I would go to Paris for the weekend, where he’d been a student. We would walk along the Seine talking about psychoanalysis and its relation to popular culture.  This was a man who was fascinated by modern hip-hop and Lacan in equal measure. Before these conversations, it hadn’t occurred to me that low-brow commercial culture could be interrogated by sophisticated ideas. The more pulpy and trashy, the more the structure of the contemporary imagination was exposed. After my accident, he proved to be one of my most loyal and steadfast friends. This is a man who listens to people for a living, from early in the morning, until six o’clock in the evening; complaints, failure, death, impotence, catastrophe. But with me, he remained attentive and concerned. He would say, ‘If you are not helping people, what are you doing with your life?’ After half an hour of good talk, a carer knocks on my front door, and they, with my live-in carer, haul me off to bed, where they check that I am clean, change my clothes and settle me down. It is 7pm. My dear friend moves from the kitchen to my bedside, feeding me wine and talking about how Freud travelled second class, and Jung first, when they went to the US together in 1909, and how enraged this made Freud. Receiving friends in bed has become my new normal, and it is beautiful in its ordinariness. A long way from the terrors and fears of the hospital. But not far enough. The next day, in a private hospital on Harley Street, a urologist jams a thick black stick with a camera on its tip down the end of my penis. He shows me the source of my catheter blockages on a monitor.  Never mind that I am crying out in pain and blood is now dripping from my penis, he tells me I will need an operation to eliminate some stones and debris. I am trying my best to move on from the suffering of last year, but I am locked into the medical system, and each time I return to it, I am reminded of how alienated and anonymous it makes me feel, that I am a hostage of my body. But then I return home. I ask Isabella to show me the book again. It is dedicated to her, For Isabella, and she kisses me on the forehead. The first chapter is titled The Fall, and I read the opening line; On Boxing Day, in Rome, after taking a comfortable walk to the Piazza del Popolo, followed by a stroll through the Villa Borghese, and then back to the apartment, I had a fall… ---- If you wish to preorder my forthcoming memoir, Shattered, you can do so by following the links provided here: linktr.ee/shatteredH

So far, the signs are good. There was no violence before or after the election. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this will be the same for the parliamentary elections and we will see some positive political and economic changes.

If the JVP manages this badly, they may turn inwards, lashing out at domestic enemies because they struggle to deliver economically or fail to meet any of the high expectations. This would lead to ethnic and social polarisation, and the deterioration of democracy.

The JVP/NPP victory was a remarkable result. Lankans elected the first president from outside the mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties that had dominated our politics since independence. #AnuraKumaraDissanayake #SriLankaElections @MASumanthiran @ShanakiyanR