19 March, 2024

Blog

Jewish (And Sri Lankan) Identity

By Charles Sarvan

Charles Sarvan

Charles Sarvan

The title of Shlomo Sand’s book, How I Stopped Being A Jew (2014), intrigued me. Isn’t it as impossible for a Jew to cease to be a Jew as it is difficult and unusual for a man to become a woman or vice versa? Isn’t identity in these terms inscribed at birth and, in most cases, unalterable? A Jew is a Jew, and there is no way a person can escape an identity given at birth. It is not within the range of free choice (Sand, pages 1-2.) However, Tamils can become Sinhalese; often it is as simple as changing the consonant ending of the surname into a vowel, Rajaratnam becoming Rajasinghe; Gunaratnam becoming Gunaratne. I quote from my Public Writings on Sri Lanka, Volume 2:

“Professor Yasmine Gooneratne (born Bandaranaike; a niece of SWRD Bandaranaike) suggests in her Relative Merits: A Personal Memoir of the Bandaranaike Family of Sri Lanka that the family name may have come from a Tamil officer, Neela Perumal, made high priest of the Temple of the god Saman, and in 1454 ordered to take the name of Nayaka Pandaram, that is, Chief Record Keeper. With time, the name changed to Pandara Nayaka, and thence to the present Bandaranaike. Similarly, there is evidence that the Salagama, Durava and Karava castes were originally Tamil, from South India, and that ‘Hettiarachige’ derives from ‘chief of the Chettis’. (The chettis are described as “a Tamil trading caste”.) End of quote.

Shlomo Sand, born in a displaced-persons’ camp in Austria in 1946 to parents who had survived the Shoah, is now Professor of History at the University of Tel Aviv and the author, among other works, of The Invention of the Jewish People: see, Sarvan, ‘Groundviews’, Colombo, 3 July 2013. Professor Sand is an atheist and holds that human beings created god or the gods, and not vice versa. But, as he observes, a Christian who gave up her religion would not be classified as a Christian – so too, in the Sri Lankan context, a Buddhist who gave up Buddhism – but a Jewish atheist still remains a Jew.

SWRD BandaranaikeIdentity is multiple: a woman can be a medical doctor, a mother, a daughter, member of a religious group and supporter of a certain sports-team. Identity is related to our different roles, and the different roles we are permitted or debarred from enacting help to form our identity. If identity is multiple rather than single, it is also not fixed but subject to change, be it voluntary or enforced. However, what the individual sees as her identity may be quite different to what others see her as being, and the two perspectives and valuations can be very different. For example, in the Sri Lankan context, a woman may hold that what is essential to her being, and therefore to her identity, is her Christian belief but others may see her, first and most significantly, as a Tamil. (As Jean Paul Satre wrote, it is anti-Semites who create the Jew. The Jew represents much that the anti-Semite hates and if the Jews did not exist, they would have to be created: ‘Anti-Semite and Jew’, 1944.) Individual identity feeds into a collective identity; in turn, group-identity influences (sometimes determines) the former. Finally, it is very difficult to fashion and hold on to a sense of self-identity that is immune from the opinion and identity that others project at us of ourselves, even impose and enforce.

I read this particular book as a symbolic gesture of protest and rejection; one whose title perhaps should have been, ‘Why I Stopped Being A Jew’. What is it that Sand rejects about Jewishness today? The simple and simplified answer would be its ethnoreligious nationalism. Israel today is made ugly by “brutal racism, a frenetic desire for territory” and a crying failure to take others into consideration (page 76). There is no Semitic race and yet any criticism of Israeli policy and action is taken to be an expression of anti-Semitism: Jewishness is taken to be an eternal, mysterious and ahistorical essence (page 7). Israel defines itself as a Jewish state but is unable to define who a Jew is: there is no Jewish DNA (page 79). In effect, the main feature of being a Jew today is not being Arab: so too, it can be that the main point of being Sinhalese now is that one is not Tamil. To define oneself as a Jew within the State of Israel is “an act of affiliation to a privilege caste which creates intolerable injustices around itself (page 87). Racism exists deep in the country’s fabric; is taught in schools, spread in the media, reinforced by religion (page 98). Regarding the last, many Sinhalese choose to believe that the Buddha visited the Island thrice (though there is no objective evidence whatsoever that he ever wandered far out of his region) and decreed the land should preserve his teaching of compassion, moderation and self-discipline in its purest form – “purest” in actual, daily, practise and not in empty protestation. Similarly, religion is exploited by Israel and words in The Bible are taken to constitute “a legal property-title to the land” (page 48). Religion provides justification for the “cruel military colonization” (page 99) of a defenceless people largely ignored and abandoned by the world. Religious texts and commentary validate a double morality, one for Jews and a very different one for non-Jews (pages 70 – 72): compare the reassurance given to grieving Dutugemmunu in The Mahavamsa that the thousands of non-Buddhists he had killed were not human; they were beasts and therefore don’t count. Inhumanity is given divine sanction.

The other structure supporting this ‘racist’ nationalism is History. Islam today is associated by many, if not identified with, mindless and extreme violence, and the cruelty, destruction and tragedy which this violence leaves in its wake. But it was not always so, and few pause ponder and to probe for underlying causes. “The fate of Jewish communities in the shadow of Islam was very different from the often dark fate they experienced in Europe” (page 29). “By the end of the Middle Ages, not a single Muslim community remained in Europe, whereas Christian communities continued their existence in the lands of Islam” (ibid).

History can be suppressed or falsified: it is the politics of memory (page 56). “How many people did the Nazis murder, either in concentration and extermination camps or in the other massacres they perpetrated?” The answer is six million Jews but, states Sand (ibid), the real figure is between ten and eleven million: the other five to six million, not being Jews, are not mentioned. Of the five million Poles murdered by the Nazis, two and a half million were Jews, and two and half million Catholic (page 59). The proportion of Roma murdered in relation to the size of their community is very close to that of the Jews (ibid) but this fact is ignored. On somewhat similar lines, the killings by the Tigers is held in the forefront of memory while the far larger number killed by the state of civilians, combatants and surrendering combatants is denied, minimised or simply consigned to the dustbin of forgetfulness.

Israel defines nationality by ‘race’ and not, as is many other places, by citizenship. Every Jew, even though s/he has never even visited Israel, is counted as a national with the right of entry, settlement and citizenship. “If the United States of America decided tomorrow that it was not the state of all American citizens, but rather the state of those persons around the whole world who identify as Anglo-Saxon Protestants, it would bear a striking resemblance to the Jewish State of Israel” (page 82). Similarly, those who claim that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese-Buddhist island must ask what would happen to Sinhalese abroad if each Western country (disregarding geography, I here include Australia and New Zealand) were to suddenly declare that it belonged only to those originating from a specific group. A Palestinian in Israel should be as free as a Jew living in America (page 99).

Sand rejects such a narrow and intolerant attitude. I can’t be free unless others are also free (page 74). “My own place is among those who try to discern and root out, or at least reduce, the excessive injustices of the here-and-now” (page 27).

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Latest comments

  • 9
    65

    A Jew can hide in any skin and still work for the devil 666 who is supposed to arrive to annihilate the entire world according to their Talmudic/Kabbalistic/Thelema driven philosophy. They will not stop until they do the final mass murder of Billions of people on the face of the earth…

    The British Monarchy is a Crypto Jewish family. They are the most criminal minded set of evil men and women who actually owns half of the World’s wealth, lands and properties.

    To know more watch these videos:

    The Evil King Zion
    http://youtu.be/ZAnUS3GHfMk

    Ken O Keefe on 911
    http://youtu.be/e8__64mFVes

    Texx Marrs Khazar Fake Jews And The Coming Destruction Of Israel
    http://youtu.be/qsbSVtxS83c

    The Coverup of Zionist Organized Crime!
    http://youtu.be/y3GMDcFOq0g

    • 19
      3

      The Islamist Jihadist are not far behind the Jews. They are trying to marginalize and destroy every other culture and expand their clutches, overtly or covertly.

      • 2
        29

        Sammy, you can’t take the truth can you..? so, hard.

        I challenge you….if you are true to your belief then watch the videos above and you will come to know who created the so called JIHADISTS….

        Remember, the CIA created so many Jihadists for their benefit.

        Here are the masters of the Jihad…:
        (Don’t blame anyone else after this……you Sammy boy!!!)

        Al-Qaeda Created by USA AND ISRAEL ::says Ex-CIA Agent
        http://youtu.be/U868d5oJrFc

        isis leader is Simon Elliot. a JEWISH Born Zionist
        http://youtu.be/Ivl3DHwbMyA

        911 False Flag – American Traitors & Mossad – Where are the Oath Keepers? – Ken O’Keefe
        http://youtu.be/S10Aotp_tvo

        The Monetary Axis of Evil – The Federal Reserve, Rothschild, and Vatican Banking Cartels
        http://youtu.be/0JIgCNIUbRo

  • 12
    58

    @acutally now that you raised the point that karave, salagama and durave are of tamil origin. This is corect. but it is not only they that are of south indian origin. In my opinion a lot of the govigama are probably of south indian origin aswell. The reason why I say this is because of many of the govigama surnames are quite similar to south indian names

  • 31
    5

    The sinhala tamil problem started with the nonsense assumption that the sinhalese were somehow aryan. This obviously not true the aryan in sinhalese is not that big.

    A similar nonsense theory was adopted in india. Where north indians were proclaimed as aryans and south indians as dravidians.

    The stronghold of the aryans was in afghanistan. Form afgahnistan the aryans would have conquered many parts of north india. But this does not mean to say that the north indians are totally aryan. As there were dravidians living in the north and they could not have just disappeared. In the very extreme parts of north india like punjab there would have been some displacement of the dravidians by the aryans. But in most parts of north india like bihar and UP the dravidians stayed. So most parts of north india have people of both dravidian and aryan origin

    • 6
      1

      ABCD,

      Has any one thought or written on the Politics of Preservation of Theravada Buddhism when Brahmanism and Jainism was taking over in India and Theravada Buddhism had to move to Burma and Sri Lanka where Both Brahmanism and Jainism was not a challenge but Mahayana Buddhism ( From South India – mainly Tamils ) would have been. Could this have been the root for the writing of the Mahavamsa with the fictitious origin of a race.

      May be the Problem began not as racial (Tamil/Sinhalese) but as a mode for preservation of Theravada Buddhism. ( If one may reminiscence back to the late 80’s when there was big protest against a Sri Lankan monk who returned from Japan as Mahayana monk and setup a temple and school.)

      The point to note is that Presently there is no Challenge from Mahayana Buddhism or from Brahmanism but the conflict still continues. As Dr. Adhikaram would say “It is the dualism of what the mind wants and what reality is, that is the conflict” May all see beyond the conflict within themselves to bring an end to it

      • 19
        2

        Hindia knows its poodles than any offshot across the straits or borders.

        Don’t you still kiss the webbed feet of schedul;e class at Hindia and also your skin heads live with the begging bowl in Hindia too in large numbers??

        Don’t you beg worldwide for your rolly’s royces using the influence Dalai Lama created for his folk who are trying to defend their language being wiped out??

        Seeker rump sihala.

    • 5
      50

      No it did not start with SInhala calling themselves Aryan. If so if Sinhala called themselves dravidian would solve it for tamils.

      The issue started as a debate on history. whether Tamil is a separate nation with a separate history and a boundary….
      That is the only question!

      • 19
        3

        [Edited out],

        fortunately you are a paid servant not the authority to set the pace.

        Dal(eat) IT control freak Preeek preek preeeeeeK Ho, ho

        You need to be canned like sardin yoour B.O> Phew!!

        • 4
          46

          didnt you check with the vet machan? I hope he will find a cure..my dog got well.

          • 15
            3

            Sac_et holdall from the lankan army terror harem,
            non seeker of truth, judgmental about the magnificent idler??

            Read enough about animals like you as a kid at the British Council (Yorkshire is a great place to learn that before any colony ) that I have spotted you as the spotted hyena who makes tea in his pajamas.

            you are a mercenary and having tasted blood with gold you are still at it before you get thrown into the incinerator at kannata like wijeweera one day soon because we know who you are from pay check.

          • 17
            2

            “”I hope he will find a cure..my dog got well.”

            Hey peeky pinky it obivious you have just eaten a Chinese Dog and are going to the dogs with your relatives the Crocuta’s/Hyenas.

            Any elephant can tell me that its solar eclipse 2 weeks after full moon in foe/4 days.

            Enjoy your stay in seepage island shit bucket.

            • 2
              29

              Did nt you go and see Rajasingham? HE is a good vet. If that did not help, please see a harak veda.

              • 11
                1

                TRy your very own Dr White – he is great on Heynas

                • 1
                  13

                  Oh Couldn’t white cure you? paavam

                  • 0
                    0

                    Passa & Malinga the spotted one Heynas Sihala Urumaya,

                    Karwadu sach quite a smell Dr Whit your very own there and we are here in the richness of the west west end london town. How Dare you reverses ?? bum as usual in your bun.

                    sach,,[Edited out]

                    scabie sach,
                    just like viet cong according to Xi & wife Peng the nightingale of folk

  • 2
    48

    I don’t know what you have written about. May be you know so many things and I know only little. But I would like to say For the human Identity there is no relation of DNA in social context.

    Social Science and Biological Science are two different things.

    Jew has jews identity on their culture. That is what they used to maintain. Even though others, non jews think it is wrong they need it for existence of Jews Race.

    Karava People are not only tamil they were both Sinhalese and Tamils.

    Not being tamil is not the only fact to being Sinhalese. To be a Sinhalese they must support Sinhalese Buddhist culture.
    Even Christians cannot be considered as Sinhalese as they hate many things that are used to protect Sinhalese Buddhism which is core of the Sinhalese people.

    This country has no development due to inapplicable plans of all governments. For example we need to be a Singapore. We can’t consider Singapore as a model for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has a long history and nationalism. We must follow a model Similar to Israel. A country which is with culture and nationalism.

    We used to say we couldn’t develop ourselves due to war but how Israel did that with a war against terrorism which was funded by Many Muslims according to reports.

    We must change the idea of being secularism which has been failed for years now if we want to develop as a country. Then Government must give priority for Sinhalese Buddhism and have perfect plans to improve economy while fostering Sinhalese Buddhism. Governments should have good relations with China while considering other Powerful countries too. We should not keep India to get help which is more harmful than others.

    • 0
      1

      My family didn’t lose its Sinhala identity the moment it became Christian. Buddhism came to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BC, but the Sinhala people had a different religion before then. Just because someone doesn’t follow the same religion as the majority doesn’t mean they lose their ethnicity. Genetically, I am still mostly Sinhala.
      And the government’s “fostering Sinhala Buddhism” has just led to attacks against religious minorities and fused Buddhism with a hateful strand of Sinhala nationalism.

  • 31
    3

    Charles Sarvan,
    deconstruct??? nothing like El Bulli- Ferran Adrià i Acosta- cooking as deconstructivist. Yummy yummy my tummy. 6 months waiting time ++.

    That Israel opted, at its inception, to define itself as “Jewish” rather than just “Israeli” was down to demographics – anything less would have meant putting the settlers on an equal footing with the Arabs. But who counts as a Jew? In the absence of a Jewish DNA genotype, or shared common language or culture, secular legislators had to fall back on religious criteria: one is a Jew either by being born of a Jewish mother, or by converting according to religious law. Thus the curious paradox that ethno-religious markers became integral to the construction of a secular national identity, in a state founded by socialists and modernisers. And therein lies the problem: any critical enquiry into secular Jewishness leads inexorably to the thorny question of Israel’s ethnocentrism.

    https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4791/shlomo-sand-how-i-stopped-being-a-jew

    rewiew,

    `While Sand’s argument in this slim volume rests in part on his personal experience, it is the corollary of his previous work as a historian. A Professor at Tel Aviv University, he has in recent years received considerable notoriety for his books The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel…

    `…There is an ironic echo here of orthodox Jewish dismissals of secular Jewishness. Sand similarly dismisses the lingering involvement in Jewish “religious” rituals by many secular Jews as mere nostalgia. But the book is on stronger ground in his critique of Israeli Jewish identity. He yearns for a civil Israeli identity that can encompass the country’s substantial non-Jewish minority. Sand retains an affection for Israeli/Hebrew culture but rejects Zionist efforts to treat it as intrinsically Jewish. There are many in Israel – including Jews – who would agree with him.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/how-i-stopped-being-a-jew-by-shlomo-sand-book-review-9799100.html

    Okay he is chubby for the now disillusioned old left: The Invention…. on both

    Rewiew by another Professor (ofcourse that is if you have read the invention)

    is equally powerpacked by Professor Michael Berkowitz
    University College London,

    Had Sand read more carefully Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s classic, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (1982), he would not have been surprised.(3)) One of the themes of the book is the ongoing, profound rift, and continuing tension, between ‘Jewish history’ as seen by scholars and ‘Jewish memory’. To write the book Sand professes to write, and to note Zakhor only fleetingly, by citing it as support for ‘the lack of Jewish historiography’ (p. 66, n. 4), indicates something seriously amiss in the author’s preparation for his task. But while he may lack knowledge there is no shortage of bravado, as he laments that

    few of my colleagues – the teachers of history in Israel – feel it their duty to

    undertake the dangerous pedagogical mission of exposing conventional lies

    about the past. I could not go on living without writing this book (p. xi).

    Of all of the sins of modern Israel, putting their historians in intellectual straight-jackets and censoring their writing is not high on the list.(4)

    http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/973

  • 34
    3

    Neat. Is it possible for a Tamil to stop being a Tamil?

  • 10
    6

    Identity is a concept in the minds of people.

    A person can choose an identity he or she wants:

    A European Tamil scholar came over to Tamil Nadu centuries ago and settled there; He was later referred to as Veeramamunivar, and he is credited with the introduction of modern Tamil where words are made into distinct entities from the string writing that existed before.

    Tamils study his work in their language classes but most don’t know that he was a European.

    In history he has taken Tamil identity. Identity is not etched in stone:

    It is definitely in the mind, and people are free to change their identity, the only hitch is that other people might not accept it: If I identify myself as an Englishmen and speak perfect English, and call myself an Englishman people say – hey you are brown!

    There is a true story of a native Englishman (white) married to an English lady (white also) in the Sixties, and due to some kidney problem the man turned brown like us. Then life became miserable when they went out together: Some white people started taunting them – telling Packie go home to the man – to the embarrassment to both!

    Nature didn’t identify him a Packie but the people did – if I saw them going down the road, I would have thought the same – Packie married to a white woman!

    • 0
      0

      Veeramamunivar was none other than Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi, an Italian Catholic Jesuit-priest missionary. I don’t think he stopped identifying as an ethnic Italian, but rather tried to immerse himself into the culture of the area he was working in.

  • 11
    2

    Thank you Dr Charles Sarwan for this excellent article which should be an eye opener for all Sri Lankans, particularly those who consider this land to belong only to Sinhala Buddhists and others as settlers. On the other hand it should also serve as an eye opener for all those types who consider the Palestinians as villains and support Israel in its cruel deprivation of the rights of the former mainly because of their anti-Muslim hatred. They don’t even know Palestinian Arabs include a significant proportion of Christians as well. Despite this fact the Western countries continue to treat the Palestinians as the villains. No one cares to understand that this conflict is the root cause of present day confrontation between Islamic movements and the west. The sheer injustice perpetrated on the Palestinians for so many decades cannot be allowed to go on forever. The current brutal tactics of some of the Islamic movements need to be condemned outright as it cannot be justified by the very religion they claim to represent, but have to be understood in the context of the massive injustice the western countries have perpetrated on the Muslim nations. You have rightly quoted Shlomo Sand how Christians and Jews lived happily in the Islamic empires of the Middle ages before the 20th century’s injustices poisoned attitudes.

    • 0
      11

      Palestinians’s situation in Palestine and Sinhalese in SL are similar. Please learn history. And Sinhalese dont say this country belongs only to Sinhalese. This is a modern country. It is the plagiarizing of SL history that Sinhalese find unacceptable for political aims.

  • 5
    35

    Thanks Charles. I hope our people will learn to perceive a national identity by our birth and citizenry as Sri Lankans like Indians and Chinese, rather than the racist Jews of Israel.

    Dr jayawick

    • 20
      2

      ” the racist Jews of Israel.”

      stupid you seem to have webbed feet- wars are between governments not individuals!
      Anyone scum can start a war if he thinks he can win it- just like VP Bin Larden or the steam roller of Israel- all dead & we hope they are not reviewed.

  • 2
    27

    Mr Sarvan, you ask: “Isn’t it as impossible for a Jew to cease to be a Jew as it is difficult and unusual for a man to become a woman or vice versa? Isn’t identity in these terms inscribed at birth and, in most cases, unalterable? A Jew is a Jew, and there is no way a person can escape an identity given at birth.”

    Surely if it is possible for a non-Jew to become Jewish by conversion (a more recent case would be that of Elizabeth Taylor), it must be possible for a Jew to become a Christian (or convert to any other religion. Doesnt Shlomo Sands’ own book THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, narrate the conversions to Judaism over the centuries, which underlines the fact that not so very many Jews today could trace back their ancestry to that orginally tiny Jewish community in West Asia. Moreover, to be considered Jewish, normally one’s mother has to be Jewish, so wouldn’t the child of a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father, brought up as a Christian, be a Christian.

    In Germany where the Jews were to suffer terribly, the Jewish community was one fo the most assimilated in Europe and not a few of them had converted to Christianity. It was not they themselves then who still considered themselves Jewish, but the so-called “Aryan” German who went in search of their parents and grandparents and insisted on the Jewishness of people someone who had been Christians for even several generation. It was the anti-Semite who identified a person as a Jew.

    I really wonder how long ago the notion of a Jewish race came about — as opposed to adherents of the Jewish religion. Shlomo Sand’s “Invention of the JP” says a good deal about this. Probably his “INVENTION OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL: From holy land to homeland” expands on his thesis that the all Jews per se cannot claim even a historical right to that land, but have evolved the myth over centuries — more especially the late 19th and 20th century — in order to stake their claim to another people’s homeland.

    Sand is a brave man, living as he still does, I believe, in Israel, while holding and broadcasting views that are anathema to that state. I wish his books were available in shops here (I have managed to buy the two I cite here but only from abroad). I think he has much to tell us about our own situation — “debunking nationalist mythology” as he does.

    • 22
      2

      Buddha – is it a myth??
      Buddha – is it a history??
      Buddha is it Opium??

      Between the Indian and Chinese it is known as an Opium as much as Science has proved that god does not exist and morals are for humans.

      Stupidity of the Lankan Johnny Walker imports to bribe the south block and re sculpture some of the Asoka regalia and also at Taxila and about Chinese traveler has not gone unnoticed by the cultural departments of both India and China- when the time is right- Déjà vu
      Passas historian in the netherlands is another freak of civilization for VOC- to belch and fart after world bank one night stands.
      Holland is smiling too- religion has become anathema- shrouded like Mystic Muslim traders and rulers of southern europe for 700 years.

    • 17
      2

      manel fonseka,
      another aleman- talaban,
      “Moreover, to be considered Jewish, normally one’s mother has to be Jewish, so wouldn’t the child of a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father, brought up as a Christian, be a Christian. “
      you are the conceited malu folk seated on ice cream who definitely voted for sihala and out with the british but you dont have portugese genes Now you are uttering poppycock.

      Most of your hypothesis are invalid from reality.
      If they marry out like the Zoroastrians they get excommunicated from the synagogue and that has created single mums who are more red than the reds in the west.
      There are many sects & Judaism And Zionism Are Not The Same Thing.

      Madonna joined the Kabbala a sect- talk of the living.

      ” I wish his books were available in shops here (I have managed to buy the two I cite here but only from abroad). “

      Amazon is 5 times bigger than UK’s biggest bank HSBC in value.

      I got 5 books hard cover inclusive of both the above for $5 + postage 3 years ago.

      but most of our purchases today are in the form of e books to save the storage space and maintenance.

      Because you are one of those conceited (thinking only you are educated like most arty farty who cant draw but come up with crap like valli) you get old while we get younger and have enough to enjoy- from the richest person to the poor man on the street.

  • 14
    2

    Oh my my my the Islamic extremist comments on Jews is amazing. However, then in Sri lanka how come tamil speaking muslims are considered a race by identity? They are tamil are they not or moors by ethnicity? so why do we have a category called muslim in the census. I’d take jewish person anyday over a Saudi Salafist rabid extremists. It is the TAMILS who want racial exclusivity based on a dubious history not based on facts. There were Tamil Buddhists in the North too. So it is only the Tamils who demand that there be a Tamil Eelam for tamils in that tiny island of poor people where most Tamils live amongst Sinhalese but Tamil Tigers and people like Sarvan want a separate state for Tamils. Think in these terms too Sarvan as opposed to your position: WHAT IF the Sinhalese demand a Sinhala Eelam and want All Tamils out of historically factually Sinhala Areas like the Hill Country and Colombo, Kandy, Galle etc? What will happen then? A sinhala eelam and a tamil eelam and 55% of our tamil brothers to move out? Both are nonesensical arguments. Tamils and Sinhalese both have a right to live anywhere they please inside Sri Lanka and should have A RIGHT to BUY land, OWN houses, DO business in Jaffna, or Mullaitivu or Galle or Matara or Hambantota.

  • 6
    42

    Charles Sarvan,
    Tamils became Sinhalese very easily and also Buddhists in many cases, and yet you talk about ancient fables about Buddha’s reaction towards warring tribes. The evidence of Sinhala-Buddhist egalitarianism doesn’t fit your verdict. Are you trying to encourage the Sinhalese to become Tamils again(that’s ok….we can learn Tamil and Hinduism also, and incorporate the culture)? Or are you trying to demean the Sinhalese in some way by saying they are not really Sinhalese. Won’t work! Because Sinhalese (according to Wiki, I read), contain about 20-40% Thamil genes), and therefore, 12% extra of Jaffna genes won’t really matter to egalitarian Buddhists. Furthermore, the Bengali gene they possess is of the modern Bengali mix, and Modern Bengalis are part Dravidian anyway.

    • 3
      37

      Without doubt some tamils had been sinhalised in SL. that is a natural process. As SL is the land of sinhala civilisation it is the natural way.

      But these tamils find it very difficult to stomack this. They are very unhappy of the fact that some tamils from TN are actually sinhalese today. So they point at their tamil origins hoping they can realise their GGP dream of making SL tamil..

      • 3
        0

        sach, sach hatching, S`cabies A**hole C`oconut H`ead!! (^o^)

        (^o^)Pol Pot nothing to say signifying grey matter according
        to commentator :D Blacker Sarema Shaker Lansi Tattoo,

        (^o^)Beetle_Juice Buffoon eating from the rear wet smells and
        goes ba-bump, ba-bump like skunk in a spin dryer.

        ~k゜・_・k~ || ~k゜・_・k~

      • 2
        32

        Taking Dr Sarabjit Mastanain’s genetic analysis of Sinhalese in 2007, it would show that the Sinhalese are about 54.46% South Indian or Tamil.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Sinhalese

        From Dr. Sarabjit Mastanain’s Chart of Sinhalese DNA:

        Bengali= 72% ; Tamil= 16% ; Gujarati = 12%

        Harrapa Ancestry Project shows the following :

        For Bengalis : http://www.harappadna.org/2013/08/bengalis/

        For Gujaratis : http://www.harappadna.org/2013/07/gujaratis-harappaworld-admixture/

        As the Bengali genes pool is about 46.5% South Indian, the likelihood of Tamil genes in the Bengali-part of the Sinhalese in the Genetic admixture of Sinhalese is 33.48%.

        As the S. Indian component of the Gujarati gene pool is around 41.5%,the likelihood of Sinhala-Gujarati genes having S. Indian genes is 4.98%.

        Total South Indian(Tamil) Genes in Sinhalese is therefore about 16%+33.48%+4.98%= 54.46%

        My perceptions of the Sinhalese is that Sinhalese are very affable with the South Indian component within themselves.

        • 12
          1

          My perceptions of the Sinhalese is that Sinhalese are very affable with the South Indian component within themselves. Preek preeek paripu dal(eat)it.
          Quite a Phew & B.O.!!!

          simply put India’s royal seepage is what you eat and breathe.

          night school night soil- neuron bourgeois after the blood gore and thieving of the innocent.

          B.O. and what makes you think you are right, you disgusting, fish smelly malodorous, foul, little elfish woman with holes underwear??

          • 0
            21

            Javi sweetheart,….seems that the Sinhalese are of a superior caste to you, honey……even coastal ones…..especially coastal ones. So, go suck your thumb and rock yourself……then howl at the moon.

            • 5
              0

              sinhala you are bestiality beast with a passport that is not fit as toilet paper. frenando is smelly smelly durava B.O. shunned by in ANC classified.
              a flag with a heyna that is fit to wipe the toilet.
              keep sucking the working class brits and the kippers will shit more bo trees there.

              • 0
                0

                Says the jealous Tamilian.

                • 0
                  0

                  Gannd pee lath RSS maratha martial force shaoling praying mantis and
                  Javi the spanish marine established over 50 years ago- that completes the cast javi.

                  You are looking for tam`ill in you honey bunny -[Edited out]?

                  • 0
                    0

                    Specimen of long evolutionary trends of Tamil Eelam?…..missed the Thamil-Eugenic’s cleansing-pot didn’t you, Javi baby?

    • 8
      0

      Bored single woman the Chinese are immune to lactose lets see those tits bits honey_bunny?? Page 3 version for ct please it sells kisses for you and them – harem harami!!

      Reddha kakula pennagena is better for your latrine- smelly pyjama dress pungabi- it carries a stigma even in india or china- no potty poop everywhere.

  • 2
    9

    There are then the Malabar or the Cochin Jews having lived in Kerala, India for more than thousand years. They are black in complexion.. The Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, referring to the Malabar coast, writes in his Itinerary: “…throughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha.”[8] These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Kerala beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries.They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of Malayalam language.Bensen

    • 12
      1

      fool the jewish race (4th one many a strand)is very much at mizoram north east india hymalayas they came from the stepps.

      There is a known exodus and the first batch have joined the tel aviv forces fought in the ongoing crisis.- go fetch

  • 5
    32

    Seeker

    I think you are on the right track with your hypothesis that the reason our historical chronicles are so mired in defending a Buddhist identity could be the fact that as Buddhism, especially the Theravadins, died out in India it survived and thrived in Sri Lanka.

    In fact Thailand, perhaps the most populous theravadin nation today, imported it from Sri Lanka during the Sukhothai kingdom and gave it royal patronage to directly compete with the Khmer kingdom which was primarily Mahayana and Hindu.

    It’s interesting that Tamils of Sri Lanka can be seen as a diaspora, similar to Jews; but one can also see the Sinhalese in a similar vein, considering the fact that both their religion and language are a minority in a region predominated by Hinduism and non-indoAryan languages. Perhaps the reason that independent Sri Lanka has generated some rabidly racist politicians is the same phenomenon as in Israel – fear of annihilation by the regional majority. I think Dr. Dayan Jayatileke often alludes to this idea.

    For those of us who believe that extremist ethnocentrism of any kind(Sinhala or Tamil)is foul and has no place in the modern world, the key is to promote the idea that both our groups can co-prosper, and need not compete, but cooperate within the island and across the Palk strait.

    • 12
      0

      sinhalese buddhist

      “In fact Thailand, perhaps the most populous theravadin nation today, imported it from Sri Lanka during the Sukhothai kingdom “

      Is that why Thailand’s estimated number of sex workers is as high as
      2 million which includes men, women and children out of 67 million total population?

      Theravada imported from Sri Lanka has done a great service to the Thai people.

      Another achievement in this Sinhala/Buddhist thrice blessed land:

      “According to Unicef and ILO [International Labour Organisation] there are 40,000 child prostitutes in Sri Lanka and 6.4% of the country’s child population gets pregnant,” said United National Party MP Rosy Senanayake.

      • 0
        1

        Yes, you’re correct. Rosy Senanayaka is a [Edited out]

Leave A Comment

Comments should not exceed 200 words. Embedding external links and writing in capital letters are discouraged. Commenting is automatically disabled after 5 days and approval may take up to 24 hours. Please read our Comments Policy for further details. Your email address will not be published.