History and Culture

Factum Perspective: Recovering the Lost Paradise – Utopianism in Modern Sri Lankan Architecture and Landscaping

History and CultureAugust 13, 20231KViews 1Like 1Comment

By Dhanuka Bandara "It is necessary to cultivate our garden.” Voltaire, “Candide” On an artificial island surrounded by the Diyavanna Oya at Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte, Sri Lanka, stands the country’s most infamous building, the Parliament Complex. The Complex was designed by arguably Sri Lanka’s most renowned architect of the 20th century, Geoffrey Bawa, built during…

Factum Perspective: An American in Kandy – Julia Child and Sri Lanka

History and CultureJuly 30, 2023738Views 0Likes 0Comments

By Chandani Kirinde Before Julia Child became the world-renowned chef, she had a less glamorous job working for the US government which brought her to Sri Lanka, to serve at the Headquarters of the Southeast Asia Command of the Allied Forces in Kandy in 1944. Then she was Julia McWilliams, a lanky young woman of…

Factum Special Perspective: Kataragama and its multiple meanings

History and CultureJuly 12, 2023757Views 0Likes 0Comments

By Vinod Moonesinghe Historically, Sri Lankans have tended, whatever their faith, to tolerate other faiths. Indeed, to some extent every religion on the island has been influenced by the others. This mystical assimilation is reinforced by the existence of a syncretic system of folk belief underlying the major religions, incorporating a gamut of myths and…

Factum Perspective: A Sri Lankan Huck Finn – Martin Wickramasinghe’s “Madol Doova”

History and CultureJune 18, 20231KViews 1Like 0Comments

Martin Wickramasinghe By Christine Hill Smith With a human history going back to 500 BCE, Sri Lanka has endured and occasionally benefited from over 450 years of European colonization, starting in 1505 with the Portuguese, the Dutch East India Company in 1640, and finally the British in the 1790s. It was colonized for its gemstones, cinnamon,…

Factum Special Perspective: Reflections on Republic Day

History and CultureMay 22, 2023932Views 0Likes 0Comments

Declaration of the 1972 Constitution / Courtesy: Sirimavo Bandaranaike Museum By Chandani Kirinde In an article published in the Ceylon Daily News of Monday, May 22, 1972, titled “The making of the Constitution”, Dr Colvin R. de Silva, Minister of Constitutional Affairs, wrote the following words. “Today, Ceylon will once more become to the world…

Factum Perspective: “Gaadi” and the Utopianism of “The Doomed King”

History and CultureMay 21, 20231KViews 0Likes 0Comments

By Dhanuka Bandara Gaadi, the latest film by the veteran Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage, has renewed general interest in the twilight years of the Kandyan kingdom. Gaadi – which means “Children of the Sun” – is a historical film set against the backdrop of the fall of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815. It is…

Factum Perspective: The impact of Vesak on international relations

History and Culture, Peace and Conflict, Regional Geopolitics, UncategorizedMay 7, 2023844Views 1Like 1Comment

By Vinod Moonesinghe The festival of Vesak celebrates the birth, enlightenment (nibbana), and demise (Parinibbana) of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, also known as Sakyamuni Buddha. It may be compared to a combined festival of Christmas, the Theophany, and Easter for Christians, or the Prophet's birthday, Hajj, and Ramazan for Muslims. Also known as Buddha Day,…

Factum Perspective: Rethinking US-Sri Lanka ties

Belt Road Initiative and Indo-Pacific Policy, History and Culture, Regional GeopoliticsApril 24, 2023666Views 0Likes 0Comments

By Uditha Devapriya During a visit to Sri Lanka on December 14, 2015, then US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Designate Thomas Shannon announced the launch of the first US-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue. The Dialogue, held in February the following year at Washington , sought to enhance cooperation between the two…

Factum Special Perspective: The troubled history of Sri Lanka – DPRK relations

History and Culture, Peace and Conflict, Regional GeopoliticsApril 5, 2023577Views 0Likes 1Comment

By Chandani Kirinde The emphasis of the United Front (UF) government of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, which took office in May 1970, was to forge a new foreign policy that would move away from the pro-West policies of the UNP government, replacing them with a policy of non-alignment. While, theoretically, the focus was on non-alignment, in…

Factum Perspective: A new dawn for the Middle East

Health and Economic Cooperation, History and Culture, International Development, UncategorizedApril 3, 20231KViews 0Likes 2Comments

By Deshani Samaragunarathna ألا هو لا دان (Ala ho la dan) Look who we are, we are the dreamers - We make it happen 'cause we believe it Look who we are, we are the dreamers - We make it happen 'cause we can see it Here's to the ones that keep the passion…

Factum Perspective: Mission Accomplished? – The War in Iraq at 20

History and Culture, Peace and Conflict, UncategorizedMarch 21, 2023756Views 0Likes 0Comments

Vinod Moonesinghe At the beginning of 2003, the United States seemed on top of the world. The sole superpower, its ideologues spoke openly of America as the “global policeman”, fighting multiple major wars enforcing a “Pax Americana.” That March, the US invaded Iraq, setting in motion a sequence of events which resulted in today’s increasingly…

Factum Perspective: Janissaries and Reluctant Fundamentalists

History and CultureMarch 5, 2023985Views 0Likes 0Comments

A comparative review and reading of Nayomi Munaweera's Island of a Thousand Mirrors and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. By Dhanuka Bandara It is becoming increasingly clear to the more astute observers that the historical process has entered a paradigm shift. The “black swan” event of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of…