Rajpal's Column

10th May 1998

The last stand of the Sinhala nation?

By Rajpal Abeynayake

What is the greatest threat to humanity in the next millennium? The lack of re- sources, overpopulation, global warming ? The answer would be none of the above. New research (the results of which were published in some of the local newspapers recently – details later) shows conclusive evidence that the issue of the next millennium will be underpopulation. Signs of underpopulation have emerged already in the developed world, as it is obvious from the demographics in Australia for instance.

Though the reaction to underpopulation may be "who is complaining?" the gravest threat of the demographic trend is the lack of a workforce.

Lack of manpower is an issue that shows up better on the ground than in the statistical surveys, as the commander of the Sri Lanka Army Major General Daluwatte was able to tell the media at a press conference held on Friday at army headquarters. Daluwatte, Sandhurst General to his fingertips, doesn't trip easily unlike his civilian high command. He is not given to hyperbole or flourish, and when he reached the podium for the press conference, one was left wondering whether this was the Army commander, or just one of his hands.

Look at it this way. The Army commander acknowledges that the response to the call for recruits to join the army has been less than successful.

The army has no alternative to announcing an amnesty to deserters, which the Army commander himself acknowledges is a reprehensible practise under normal circumstances. Hence, the campaign for enlistment, which seeks the support of the clergy and grassroot level village leadership.

It is interesting how a Sandhurst level military problem intersects with the basic thrust of the slogan and shibboleth of the leadership of the Sinhala nation. From the late Gamani Jayasuriya to the Ven monk (apologies for not knowing his name) who makes regular appearances on a private television station, the core Sinhala leadership has been alerting the Sinhala nation to the fact that the Sinhalese are a threatened race.

Paranoia apart, an anthropological survey which was carried out recently by some scholars in the West has established that the Sinhalese are among the three most endangered races in the world. The dubious honour is shared with the Eskimos, plus one other race.

If the Sinhalese are a sinking race, the corollary of the argument is that the Sinhala nation will drown in an ocean of Pan Tamilism and Islamic expansion. Therefore, the refrain of the Arakshaka Sanvidahanaya's and the Buddhist clergy in particular that an early warning signal needs be sent to the Sinhala man that the preservation of the Sinhala state hangs directly on his libido.

Excuse me for that foray from the sublime to the ridiculous, but to be serious, the question of manpower and numbers is paramount in the fundamental Sinhala argument.

For example, it is tied to the fear that Islamic expansion has already accounted for the usurpation of Sinhala owned territory or at least a wide swathe of it, in the commercial capital of Colombo.

The philosophy of the argument aside, this of course is factually correct because there is every indication to show that the Muslim commercial community has been rapidly buying up real estate in the commercial capital, mostly purchasing such property from the Sinhalese.

If the factual position is this, question that is moot and which automatically follows is whether this factual trend justifies the position articulated eloquently by a Tamil scholar in the recent past. Said he that the "Sinhalese are a majority with a minority complex."

Among the adjuncts of this argument are the fact that the Sinhalese are confined to Sri Lanka, and that there is no significant Sinhala diaspora either in the West or in any other part of the world.

Hence the Sinhalese, at least on the face of the facts, are an endangered race on the offensive, making a last ditch stand against being overrun by larger more aggressive races.

If that is true, the lack of manpower in the forces may be an interesting manifestation of the fact that the Sinhala race has reached the stage where it is substantially dependent on the numbers.

All this would bring us to the crude core of the what the Sinhala preservationists have been voicing, almost without an audience, for the considerable past.

For instance, you could find at least one teacher in any village school or Maha Vidyalaya who would propound the belief that the Sinhalese practise birth control while the Muslims and the Tamil procreated almost as a part of their cultural orientation in the ethnic scheme of things.

If that is the psyche of the Sinhala nation, what of the arguments that the Sinhalese are the oppressive majority that keeps the minority Tamils suppressed? If the Sinhalese are the genocidal maniacs, what then is this new image of the head of the Sinhala army lamenting that he doesn't have the numbers to carry on the campaign to save the territory of his nation ?

By all reckoning, that would have the Sinhala people terribly confused. Confused is probably what they are right now. On the one hand the Sinhalese have almost, at least at a stage, earned notoriety as a genocidal oppressive race, circa 83 riots etc., but, on the other hand, the Sinhalese are an emasculated race without any heroes and without any warriors except those who are paid and almost conscripted to go and fight.

In that backdrop, the Army commander making his appeal on Friday was the most poignant manifestation of the state of the Sinhala nation. The Sinhalese sound more now like the dodo's at their last supper than the ruthless lions roaring in their domain. How come?

Commentary

Editorial/Opinion Contents