Category: blog

Currently there are so many eye-watering stories of the desperate plight of refugees from chronic instabilty and conflict in North Africa, the Middle East and beyond attempting to reach ‘Fortress Europe’ by any and every means possible. This one, a BBC News report on Syrian and Iraqi refugees attempting – and often failing – to reach Greece by boat from the Turkish coastal city of Izmir, is particularly poignant: not least for anyone who’s ever used a life-jacket for themselves, or their loved ones. ————– The city of Izmir on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast has long been known as a tourist… More

Not content with denying any responsibility for the continuing carnage in Iraq and beyond, and still dogged by acusations – notably from Desmond Tutu – of responsibility for war crimes, Tony Blair is now going the whole hog: he’s offering his services to the new Sri Lankan government. And exactly what are the ‘misconceptions about the country’ he’s offering to help the Sri Lankan authorities negate? Yes, like me you’ve probably guessed it folks: it’ll be all about war crimes allegations, chiefly those stemming from the final stages of the country’s civil war in 2009. Well at least our former… More

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe I have an op article assessing the post-electoral political landscape in Sri Lanka  in today’s Hindustan Times. It’s written jointly with Erik Solheim, lead Norwegian peace negotiator in Sri Lanka and a key interview source for my forthcoming book To End A Civil War: Norway’s Peace Engagement in Sri Lanka. The piece is below, and you’ll find it online here. HINDUSTAN TIMES Roadmap to reconciliation: 4 challenges for Sri Lanka after polls Erik Solheim and Mark Salter 20 August 2015 These are critical times for Sri Lanka. This week the country completed its second… More

Today, 17 August 2015 is parliamentary election day in Sri Lanka. As I write in fact, the polls have just closed (16.00 Colombo time)  and we will probvably have the first results by around midnight local time (c. 18.30 CET). Plenty more to say on the subject later, but for now here are two thought-provoking offerings: The first, the aptly titled ‘No Way, Mr. Rajapaksa’, which is the best of the eve-of-elections local media commentaries I’ve seen – not least for managing to corral T.S. Elliot into the service of a passionate argument for why the Mahinda Rajapaksa worldview belongs,… More

So the man has passed on. Not sure how I managed to miss the news of Ornette Coleman’s death at the time six weeks back, but I did. Now it’s reached me I find myself locked in a bittersweet combination of sadness-at-the-passing and recollection of the joy and inspiration his music has so often provided me. Above all it was thanks to Ornette that at the age of 16 I discovered the world of free jazz, of boundless improvisational freedom bound together with collective emphathy and  responsiveness in a musical embrace that – for me at least – opened up… More

Here is a thoughtful review of Sri Lankan Tamil intellectual and human rights activist Rajan Hoole’s new book: Palmyra Fallen; From Rajani to War’s End. Having made my way through a fair bit of the book – which could certainly have used a decent editor – I find myself firmly in agreement with this reviewer’s main conclusions, reproduced below: Former Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa meets with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo in 2013. “Hoole does not exonerate the Sri Lankan military and indeed, at considerable personal risk, he has meticulously reported on their war crimes and human rights… More

In the aftermath of the murderous attacks on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo at the beginning of 2015, calls to rally to the defence of French ‘republican values’ have resounded throughout the country and indeed, much of the rest of the world. Beyond a simple enumeration of the fundamental human rights these values are supposed to represent, what does the historical record look likes when it comes to the actual application of those rights to citizens of la patrie? The answer to that question, it turns out, very much depended on who you were. Simply put, from 1881, all… More

The cartoon sequence below,  a visual adaptation of passages from Neil Postman’s seminal Amusing Ourselves to Death by artist Stuart McMillan, is featured in a stimulating openDemocracy article just published  under the title ‘Are you cultivating knowledge – or just consuming information?’ I’m reproducing it here because I think it speaks to some fundamental concerns of our times. While highlighting the main thrust of the cartoon’s warnings regarding the dangers of ‘amusing ourselves to death’, article author Gregory Ciotti nonetheless argues that it, along with much contemporary discussion of the internet’s impact on human behaviour and consciousness, is in danger… More

I have several eminently worthy recipients for this cartoon lined up. You?