{"id":87953,"date":"2019-04-30T00:48:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T06:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87953"},"modified":"2019-04-29T17:44:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T00:44:42","slug":"sri-lanka-must-constitutionally-be-unitary-and-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/30\/sri-lanka-must-constitutionally-be-unitary-and-united\/","title":{"rendered":"SRI LANKA MUST CONSTITUTIONALLY BE UNITARY AND UNITED"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Many\npeople talk that under the constitutional reforms, a Muslim administration unit\nshould be established in the Eastern Province and what is the logical base for\nthis idea is a question when current experience in Sri Lanka is analysed and\nwho created this idea is needed to discuss broadly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nthe election of yahapalana regime in 2015, the existing constitutional\nstructure of the country wanted to change converting to a federal system in\nwhich the hidden motive of the yahapalana advocates was to disunite the country\nand with a hidden objective of creating a Muslim administration unit in the\nEastern province.  The aim of the proponents\nmight have expanding IS terrorism to the South and South East Asia.   The hidden motive of the yahapalana\nadvocates was strongly opposed by the Sinhala community in Sri Lanka without a\nreligious difference. The yahapalana advocates attempted to define the vote base\nof the country using dubious points and arguments using unrealistic assumptions\nthat Sinhala votes might divide basically Buddhists and Christians, then UNP\nand SLFP.  Mr. Mangala Samaraweera and Mr.\nRajitha Senaratne in the yahapalana coalition pushed to achieve the objective\neye washing of the president of Sri Lanka as well as prominent members of UNP.\nIn fact, the secret agenda of Mr. Mangala Samaraweera was to achieve a UN\nposition and Mr. Rajaitha Senarathne was to find a place for his son, who\nbecame an unpopular politician in Sri Lanka mainly because he is a popular\nfigure, who lies to the public.  Mr.\nMangala Samaraweera attempted to get a UN position before, but his\nqualifications for a UN position (A Tailoring Certificate) was not a foundation\nqualification for a senior UN position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically,\nSri Lanka had been governed by Kings, who treated the country as a unitary\nstate with provincial administrative units like Municipal style governing\nbodies (Rata) at district levels. The district administrative units (Korala or\npattu) was not entirely based on religions, ethnical races or castes. There was\nsome historical evidence that Kings mentioned Demala Pattutu and Vedi Pattuwa\nas Tamil and Indigenous people lived in those areas, but they were not federal\nstyle constitutional units.  At present majority\nresidents in those area are Sinhala people. There were not administrative\ndivisions based on religions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current\npopulation of the country according to the census of 2012, 74.9% Sinhala, 11.2%\nLanka Tamil, 4.1% Indian Tamil, 9.3% Muslim and 0.5% others.  This ethnic mixture of population assumes to\nbe changed during the past ten years period, the major contributing factor\ncould be considered as migration of Tamil and Christian population overseas and\nthe current Sinhala population, could be assumed that has increased to 77% and\nMuslim Population also increased to 10% as the women fertility of Muslim women\nis higher than the average. The national average of women fertility in Sri\nLanka is 2.3 (Sinhala 2.3, Sri Lanka Tamil 2.3, Indian Tamil 2.9 and Muslim\n3.3), but Muslim women\u2019s fertility is comparatively higher (3.3) than the\nnational average (2.3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nthe government had a policy agreement to change the women fertility, it has not\nbeen successfully implemented by the government and there is an informal view\nthat Muslim women are given encouragement to have more babies.  Compared to other races in the country most\nMuslim women do not willing to go out of houses and work.  Muslim women stay at home and look after\nkids, when they go out wear burqa and walk on the road, no one can recognize\nthem and maintain any relationship and association. Only few Muslim women\nmarried with Sinhala or Tamil men and the usual practice is when a Muslim\nfemale married to a Sinhala or Tamil person she would be expelled from the\nfamily.  It seems that Muslims want to\nincrease their population, despite the government policy to control women\nfertility in the country.  The culture of\nMuslim people in Sri Lanka encourages women to stay in the house and live in a\nstatic society without an employment in outside and the purpose of the culture\nis to look after kids at home.  For\neducation, marriage and divorce, Muslim people have more flexible legal\nprovisions in Sri Lanka, which are not available to other ethnic communities in\nthe country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the census of 2012, 70.1% of population in Sri Lanka counts as Buddhist in\nreligion, 12.6% Hindus, 9.7% Islam and 7.6 % Christian and others. It is quite\neasy to assume that 75% of current population is Buddhist and Islam has\nincreased to more than 10% of population. \nWithin these religions there are sects and accurate statistics of\nsectoral population of each religion are not available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfirst official census of Sri Lanka was taken place in 1881 and the\nclassification of population included Muslims as an Ethnic race in the country\nwithout clear anthropologic or biological evidence.  All other ethnic groups were identified based\non language they speak. In other countries we cannot see that population is\nclassified by religious basis and in the Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi\nArabia, UAE, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran do not classify on religious basis and\nwhy Sri Lanka did adapt such a fallacious classification system and it needs to\nbe corrected as soon as possible. According to historical information, Sinhala\nspeaking people converted to Islam in Upcountry and Sothern area and Tamil\nspeaking people in the North, North Central and East, in fact, they should have\nclassified as Sinhala Muslim and Tamil Muslim. \nThe Muslim religious people should have included to Sinhala and Tamil\nethnic groups. Why this problem is not corrected by the government?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nhistorical information indicates that the major reason to Sinhala and Tamil\npeople convert to Muslim was the flexible marriage and divorce legal provisions\nin the Muslim culture.  This reason\ncaused to massively convert people in Indonesia and Malaysia.  In the history people in those countries were\nBuddhist and Hindus.  In a society where\nallowed to polygamy, Muslim religion did not expand rapidly.  For example, it can give Papua New Guinea and\nmany South Pacific Countries.  In Sri\nLanka, when men wanted to divorce and remarry, they converted Muslim as it was\neasier. When I was a law student in Sri Lanka, I read a new law report that a\nfamous Sinhala political figure, Mr Anil Moonasinghe converted to Muslim to\ndivorce his wife and marry another woman.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmajor concentration of this article is to consider the constitutional style of\nthe country and uniting the country with different divisions.  As the ambassador of the United States in Sri\nLanka it is correct that the unity of people in the country is a key factor to\ndefeat terrorism whether it originated within the country or imported from\noverseas. The other important factor is that the unity of Sinhala people is\nvital factor to overcome terrorism issue in the country and to defeat\nfabricated constitutional reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nSinhala people are united without political deviations, majority of the\nparliament would be Sinhala, and Muslim and Hindus will be a minority, which\nneed the consent of majority Sinhala community to make constitutional reforms.  Sinhala people divided on political party\nbasis since the era of the State Council. \nLater it was appeared that Sinhala people was divided by economic policy\nand it was changed after 1978. Now all Sinhala people agree with the market\neconomic policy and why they have differences now is a question. The most\nconspicuous answer to the question is power and motive to be unduly enriched\nachieving political power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka is a small country and the most appropriate constitutional style to the\ncountry is a unitary system with the unity of people. Any other style of a\nconstitution will create never ending political, social and economic problems\nto the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncurrent problems clearly indicated that Sri Lanka needs anti-discrimination\nlaws to control hate speeches and Muslim women are discriminated by male and\nthe caste system among Tamil discriminate lower caste Tamils <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Many people talk that under the constitutional reforms, a Muslim administration unit should be established in the Eastern Province and what is the logical base for this idea is a question when current experience in Sri Lanka is analysed and who created this idea is needed to discuss broadly. Since the election […]<\/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-87953","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\/87953","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=87953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}