{"id":120438,"date":"2021-11-19T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T23:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120438"},"modified":"2021-11-19T16:30:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T23:30:20","slug":"combining-anti-discrimination-laws-in-the-proposed-new-constitution-as-a-successful-solution-to-ethnic-and-religious-problems-in-sri-lanka-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/11\/19\/combining-anti-discrimination-laws-in-the-proposed-new-constitution-as-a-successful-solution-to-ethnic-and-religious-problems-in-sri-lanka-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"COMBINING ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS IN THE PROPOSED NEW CONSTITUTION AS A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION TO ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS IN SRI LANKA PART 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The\nbasis for ethnic problems in the world appears to be no other reason than minority\nethnic communities feel they are discriminated against by ethnic or religious\ndifferences by the majority. The government doesn\u2019t purposely discriminate\nagainst people providing education, employment, various economic benefits, and\nmany things as they relate to different ethnic or religious groups. Human being\nhas feelings, and when compared to animals, humans are always provoked by\ndiscrimination feelings, which motivates people to act against discrimination.\nThe nature of minorities to react against discrimination may be peaceful or\nviolent or in both forms. In many countries, it shows that conflicts are based\non complicated reasons and burdensome in finding a proper solution for the\nethnic and religious problems. When there are economic, social, cultural, and\nethnic differences in society, discrimination feelings have an upward trend and\nreligious discrimination could not be eradicated unless making a society that\nhas no religions and ethnic groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nmodern society, discrimination feelings are vigorously influenced by colour\nbars, language differences, religious differences, provincial differences,\ncaste dictions, and many others. Since the manifestation of the human being to\nthis world, diversity has been a part of our world. Diversity exists not only among\nhumans but also in other areas such as animals. Weather, soil structure; water,\nforest, and many other areas in our world. The diversity in the environment is\nbeing treated as an asset to humans. However, the diversity among humans shows\na negative factor. Violence in the world is bred by a diversity that promotes\nprovocation against other ethnic or religious groups. In this situation, the\nmajor question is how can diversity become an asset as interpreted by\nacademics? The answer to this question would be an assortment of skills that\nwill be helpful to individuals and the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\neconomists are of opinion that Japan has achieved rapid economic progress after\nWorld War 2, and the major contributing factor for the progress in Japan was\nexisting a single ethnic group in the country. A single ethnic base motivated\npeople to live together. A single ethnic group supports developing trust among\npeople and did not support promoting discrimination feelings among citizens. One\nlanguage and one ethnic base maintained harmony among the Japanese nation. This\ntruth also can be seen to a reasonable extent in Korean, Vietnam, and Chinese\nsocieties. The rapid economic growth in those Asian societies was supported by\nthe uniformity of the ethnic base of citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nWestern societies, the uniformity in skin colour of people has contributed to\neconomic and social progress because it was a factor to a reasonable extent in\nmaintaining ethnic harmony. This may be a critical point because there were\nserious wars such as the Norman invasion and Nazism between white people in the\nWestern society, so the uniformity in skin colour would have not contributed to\navoiding wars or social problems. Even in the modern world, there are conflicts\nbetween the West and the Middle East despite both groups having the same skin\ncolour. However, when there was a shortage of labour for economic development,\nWestern society allowed black or brown-skinned people to enter their countries\nas the white majority needed the black and brown skin\u2019s labour for their\neconomic growth and prosperity. Because of promoting ethnic mix in Western\nsociety, discrimination mentality in the Western society was supported growing\ndiscrimination feelings, but the government policy process supported to control\nsuch negative feelings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nsuch a situation, Western countries introduced anti-discrimination laws to\ntackle the problem rather than dividing their countries by power-sharing by\nconstitutional reforms. White people positively tolerated ethnic entrance as it\nsupported their economic well-being. The Western example proves that, when\npeople are economically in a better position, they are ready to ignore ethnic\nor religious differences and intolerance for justice. The best examples from\nAsia for this argument are Singapore and Malaysia, where most Chinese and\nMalays tolerate the entrance of other ethnic people such policy created jobs\nand business for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nSri Lanka didn\u2019t develop a homegrown solution to ethnic and religious problems\nrather than listen to the ill advice of Western countries? The Sri Lankan\ngovernment needs to analyse the historical background of ethnic and religious\nissues without bias. Written historical evidence of Sri Lankan society provides\ninformation that, in spite of Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim names they have a\nuniform ethnic base and three differences are not related to biological or\nanthropological factors but they are based on languages or religions, which\nwere created as a result of adaption to the environment after the birth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nhistory, Sinhala people were discriminated against and abused by invaders such\nas Indian and Western. That is how discrimination and hate began between the\ncommunities. Regrettably, many Sri Lankans believe that religious differences,\nsocial discrimination, and physical abuses of South Indian invaders massively\ncontributed to ethnic problems in the country. It is a belief; we have not seen\nsuch abuses or discrimination. According to historical evidence, administrators\nin history were dictators who haven\u2019t had mental abilities or lateral thinking\npower to manipulate effective solutions and a positive approach for\nproblem-solving. They tried to control the society in iron pits. Religious\nleaders and administrators in history fuelled the issue and ignorance of them\nwithout skills for problem-solving, ethnic and religious issues expanded from\ngeneration to generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nMahavamsa attempted to interpret those ethnic issues in Sri Lanka began with\nSouth Indian invaders, before the embarkation of Vijaya, Sri Lanka\u2019s society\nwas divided as an ethnic or religious basis as Yakka, Naga, and Devas in the\nhistory before Vijaya embarked on the country. The differences in that society\nwere based on religious or ethnic reasons, which were unknown to the present. We\nhave no written historical evidence on the society before Vijaya, but the story\nof Lord Buddha\u2019s visit to Sri Lanka reasonably proves that Sri Lanka had\nviolence between communities and got outside mediation before the embarkation\nof Vijaya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nother significant point concerning history is that Sri Lanka was under Western\nrules for about 500 years and the western rulers did not challenge the\ncountry\u2019s unitary status and Portuguese supported King Senerat to crush\nso-called the Jaffna Kingdom and unite Sri Lanka in a unitary status.  They never allowed annexing Sri Lanka to\nIndia.  In Sri Lanka 75% of people are\nSinhala and only 25% consist of all other ethnic groups.  The responsibility of the government is to\nprotect all ethnic groups not only minority groups looking for their votes to\nbe in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis historical background, Sri Lanka’s government requires to identifying root\ncauses for ethnic problems.  Many\nindependent thinkers look at this problem from the point of view of\ndiscriminatory feelings of people among minority and lack of economic\nopportunities to them in the current society. \nUsually, the government\u2019s analytical point of view is based on policies\nof political parties, which are quite biased towards the majority because their\nexistence is determined by the votes of the majority. The government should\nlook at the independent point of view because the ethnic issue is not like\nshort-term politics; it is an issue that is moving forward from generation to generation,\nmaking massive destruction to the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does the minority have discriminatory\nfeelings? In the past, political administrators introduced laws discouraging\ndiscrimination of minorities for purely own political advantages. When compared\nto Western society, Sri Lanka\u2019s political system always was not concerned about\nthe discrimination of minorities. The laws and religious leaders always fuelled\nthe issue supporting discrimination, which is against their religious\nphilosophy. For example, Buddhism is against the discrimination of minority and\nLord Buddha stated that nobody gains the status of highness or lowness by\nbirth. Politicians wanted to create power bases rather than build ethnic harmony.\nReligious leaders wanted to take revenge rather than achieve Nirvana by the\npractice of good things. Tamil and Muslim political parties in Sri Lanka are\nequally racists like Sinhala people and they are promoting racism to attract votes.\nTherefore, racism-related problems, especially current problems, are created\nwith the participation of the minority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By EDWARD THEOPHILUS The basis for ethnic problems in the world appears to be no other reason than minority ethnic communities feel they are discriminated against by ethnic or religious differences by the majority. The government doesn\u2019t purposely discriminate against people providing education, employment, various economic benefits, and many things as they relate to different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}