{"id":83864,"date":"2018-12-02T15:57:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T22:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=83864"},"modified":"2018-12-02T15:57:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T22:57:53","slug":"sri-lanka-will-only-survive-if-we-see-ourselves-as-sri-lankans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/12\/02\/sri-lanka-will-only-survive-if-we-see-ourselves-as-sri-lankans\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka will only survive if we see ourselves as Sri Lankans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nirmala de Soyza\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It is very sad to read some of the comments people post and realize that there are still people out there who think they are patriots solely because they label themselves as ‘Sinhala Buddhists’. \u00a0They insult and make ungrounded allegations against Sri Lankans of other religions and other communities as if they alone are the guardians of this country.<\/p>\n

I would like to ask these people on what facts they base their prejudices. \u00a0Can they claim that Sinhala Buddhists never desecrate their country by –<\/p>\n

Throwing their garbage in the oceans and rivers, in he wilderness or on the roadside?<\/p>\n

Encroaching into wildlife reserves?<\/p>\n

Misbehaving and disrupting the habitat of wildlife when they visit nature reserves?<\/p>\n

Engaging in illicit sand mining?<\/p>\n

Killing or entrapping protected species for sport or gain?<\/p>\n

Cutting down forests for personal gain?<\/p>\n

Circumventing the laws of the land, for personal gain?<\/p>\n

I could go on, but this should suffice to make my meaning clear.<\/p>\n

These activities all physically destroy our country, so if Sinhala Buddhists also engage in such vandalism, they are no better than anyone else. \u00a0They can have no greater claims on the country.<\/p>\n

We should all just try to understand that we are nothing more and nothing less than citizens of this country called Sri Lanka, and be proud to call ourselves ‘Sri Lankans<\/em><\/strong>‘. \u00a0The actions of those who call themselves ‘Sinhala Buddhists’ only serve to alienate our brothers and sisters of other communities. \u00a0They weaken our Sri Lankan family. \u00a0They destroy our Sri Lankan home.<\/p>\n

It should not be of any importance to you or to anyone else that you belong historically to the Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim community<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0Keep your Sinhala Buddhist -ness, your Tamil Hindu -ness or your Muslim or Christian -ness for your festivals and weddings and funerals. \u00a0Keep that part of your identity for your private life alone.<\/p>\n

Do not put the accent on these minor differences – they are tearing our country apart. \u00a0All of us are the losers when we start fighting among ourselves.<\/p>\n

When we highlight our differences we invite foreigners to once again plunder and pillage our country, our sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Be clever, Sri Lankans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nirmala de Soyza\u00a0 It is very sad to read some of the comments people post and realize that there are still people out there who think they are patriots solely because they label themselves as ‘Sinhala Buddhists’. \u00a0They insult and make ungrounded allegations against Sri Lankans of other religions and other communities as if they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83864","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=83864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}