29 November, 2023

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Sri Lankan Muslims At The Cross Roads – XVIII – Muslim Population Problem

By Izeth Hussain

Izeth Hussain

Izeth Hussain

I will now substantiate the point I made earlier: the expectation that the Muslims will outnumber all the others and come to dominate the globe within decades is no more than an expression of Islamophobia, which is really a form of racism. That apocalyptic projection is made on the basis of distortions, blatant lies, and zany logic. I have at hand an outrageous example of that zany logic, but before providing it I must make a necessary clarification. Populations usually grow for two reasons: through natural increase, that is the difference between births and deaths, and migration. However a religious group can also grow, sometimes on a massive scale, through conversions. The important point for my present purpose is that we have to be wary in drawing conclusions about population increase through migration. When say a hundred thousand Muslims migrate to Canada, it certainly means that Canada’s Muslim population increases by a hundred thousand. It certainly does not mean that the world’s Muslim population has increased by a hundred thousand. All that has happened is that a hundred thousand Muslims have moved from one place to another.

Those simple facts have eluded one of my readers who is stuck with the notion that there will be huge increases In Sri Lanka’s Muslim population in forthcoming years, which he sees as part of a global process. In support of that apocalyptic vision he has produced the following UN statistics. Since 1989 Islam in North America increased by 25%. During the same period Islam in Africa increased by 2.15%; in Asia by 12.57%; in Europe by 142.35%; in Latin America it decreased by 4.73%; in Australia and Oceana Pacific it increased by 257.01%. The reader will note that the figures for increases in Islam in different parts of the world are wildly disparate. There has actually been a decrease, not increase, in Latin America, while there has been a very modest increase in Africa of just over 2%, in Asia by just over 12%, and in North America by double that figure. It should be obvious that we can draw no valid conclusions about the increases in global Muslim population from those disparate figures. Next, we must note that Islam increased by over 142% in Europe, and by over 257% in Australia and Oceana Pacific. We have therefore a decrease in Islam at one end and an increase of over 257% at the other end. The explanation of course is that there was massive migration of Muslims to Europe, Australia and other countries, which as I have explained in the preceding paragraph merely meant that huge numbers of Muslims went from one place to another, and not that global Muslim population increased by those huge numbers. But my reader speaks of a “phenomenal increase” which he explains by Islamic polygamy, conversion and higher fecundity. He doesn’t mention migration at all, probably because his mind has been blocked by Islamophobic prejudice. In the process he has provided a striking example of the zany logic behind Islamophobic projections of the Muslims becoming the dominant majorities in Sri Lanka and the rest of the globe within a few decades.

I will now provide a few details from Rajan Philips’ two-part article Politics are getting nuttier in the Sunday Island of August 3 and 10. I must make two points before I provide those details, the first of which is that I prefer to cite others on Islamophobia because anything I say on that subject tends to be taken both by Sinhalese and Tamil Islamophobes as highly suspect because I am a Muslim. My second point is that we Sri Lankan Muslims should acknowledge a deep debt of gratitude to RP for his superb demolition job on Islamophobic idiocy regarding Muslim demography. He writes that paranoia about Muslim population growth began with a 2009 You Tube on Muslim Demographics. The seven and a half minute video was designed to rouse fears among Europeans about an impending takeover of their continent within decades by hordes of Muslim immigrants. “The chimera of Eurabia was born and the myth of Islamic fecundity was implanted in racially receptive minds.” The You Tube received 10 million hits in a matter of months and plateaued later at around 15 million hits. A Vatican Cardinal was brought to order after he showed the scurrilous video at a synod of Catholic bishops in Rome. The ripples set off by that video eventually reached Sri Lanka where a lecture was given at Jaffna University on supposedly alarming Muslim population increase.

Rajan Philips provides absolutely convincing data showing up the alarmist nonsense on Muslim population increase. I am not going to reproduce any of that data partly because that will take up much space and more importantly because the facts about the population problem are so well-known. It was thought for several decades after the Second World War that very high population increase in the third world would set off pressures on scarce resources and continue to seriously retard economic development, unless rigorous population control measures are imposed. That bit of conventional wisdom came increasingly under challenge and by the ‘eighties a new commonsensical wisdom on the population problem was established: population control may be necessary or advisable under certain conditions, but as a rule the population growth rate starts declining once an economy reaches a certain level. I recall reading, sometime in the first half of the ’eighties, an excellent essay on that subject by that iconoclastic economist Peter Baur. I have pointed out earlier that the average Muslim family used to have well over five children, but after 1945 the average was between two to four children. That demographic transition among the Muslims took place automatically without any birth control measures being put in place.

Evidently since the ‘eighties of the last century much work has been done on demography and hence we have the more sophisticated theory of Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd in their 2007 book  Le rendez-vous des civilisations. Their focus in explaining the dynamics of population is not on the level of economic development but on literacy – as the main factor though not the only one. More specifically their focus is on female literacy, after the advent of which the number of children per family starts reducing. They are able to show, after scrupulous statistical study, that that dynamic applies to Muslims just as much as to adherents of other religions.

Their book is really on the rendez-vous, that is the coming together, of civilisations and is meant to refute the famous thesis of Samuel Huntington on the clash of civilisations. They begin their book with the statement, “Presenting Islam as a religion that is refractory to modernity has become a banal exercise”. They continue a couple of paragraphs later – to demonstrate their point about the rendez-vous of civilisations – as follows: “To demonstrate it, we have mobilized the tools of demographic analysis on a grand scale. That reveals in effect, not a divergence, but an ample and rapid convergence of models”. After that come two crucially important sentences: “The Muslim world has entered into the demographic revolution, cultural and mental that earlier allowed the development of regions that are today the most advanced. It proceeds in its own way to the point of rendez-vous of a historic process that is far more universal than we have been prepared to admit”.

Why is it that after so many decades of expertise on demography, and so much information available on the Islamic world, Islamophobic idiocy on the supposed Islamic time-bomb has come to prevail to the extent that it has? It seems to me that the most probable answer is to be found in racism. The factor of racism in international relations needs serious study. I propose to devote a few paragraphs to the racism that is behind Islamophobia and thereafter deal briskly with the other less important issues that have been bedeviling Sinhalese-Muslim relations.

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  • 2
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    I doubt that anyone will pass so many crossroads going from Dondra to Point Perdo !

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      The simple answer is found here:
      Check these videos for the obvious answer….

      Mahinda and his entire family and gooks are playing very dangerous game that will endanger all of our lives. If the Sinhalas are cobcern about their future progeny…then must first be educated with the world politics as played and enacted by the Zionists.

      Mahinda is the local agent of the Zionist evils which is going to engulf the entire world with nuclear war.

      Because its a well known fact that Mahinda thw criminal AH play a double game.

      Example:
      Mahinda plays the game of pseudo friendly with sone western, chinese-Russian, ME/Muslim nations. For which he gets sipport from the very same Muslim countries mostly which are held under the heavy grips of Zionists with stooges are put in place as Arab and Muslim rulers. It is because if this that the Muslims are being persecuted every where jusy because their leadership is pinned by the Zionists.

      While his mass murder brother plays full time with the Zionists. For which he displays the anti Muslim stance to get their approval. He is already been supplied with men and material plus technical know how on how to handle Islamophobic attacks with thier Mossad expertise by Israel for the job.

      By doing this Rajapakses are expecting to play a master game too fool everyone. In the meantime, the Russian front is boiling with the WW3 prepatation.

      If you really want to know the 100% truth in all this, and also what might be the fate of Rajapakses is, then yoy have to watch all of these videos for sure….

      If thats too much…then just look up and watch Rupavahini, Swatnavahini, TNL, Derana…ets (racist local media) plus Zionist medias CNN,BBC,Fox,Cnbc,…etc and get ready for the nukes which is going to fall on your roof tops.

      The Zionist War on Islam & The Next False Flag In…: http://youtu.be/CYBN15ePLkQ

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

      ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi is a Jewish Moss…: http://youtu.be/TaH9LyYGjbk

      Putin: Soviet Government Was Mostly Jewish 80-85 %: http://youtu.be/hu-GTj4slWw

      Ex-CIA Agent: America creates its own enemies: http://youtu.be/cLjZoA3GaVE

      Shocking -The Jewish Grudge on Jesus Christ !: http://youtu.be/xCPF3mSloBk

      Dollar Collapse and WW3 HAS BEGUN !!! WATCH THIS !: http://youtu.be/byHOT7v-CXo

      The Jewish War On Vladimir Putin
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTT9TOZ3ihY

      The Difference Between Putin & Obama
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybEA3axS5Y

      BRICS…Breaking The Jewish Money Power
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPKymVF57Mg

      Sheikh Imran Hosein 2014 Islam, Russia, Ukraine and Alliance with Rum Rome
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUzHQy54DdM

    • 0
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      All these crossroads are in his mind. There is just one big roundabout (at a fairground).

    • 2
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      If VP and Wijeweera were terrorists, what theories does anyone have to prove Rajapakshes are not ?

      Today, is the day they let TERROR monks get in to the island nation. This has reached to the levels as North korean leader – multi murderer barbaric man to have reacted against his folks. They talk palatably, in order to brainwash the majoirity poor folks. Majority means over 70% of the nation are living under poverty. They dont earn even 1 dollar a day WHILE 2% are abusing the state funds purchasing lamboginies for their children – running car races even on sacred premises like Kandya Tooth temple areas, the man in power should have become like a free runner to this – to totally neglect the respect and dignity of the folks that previous leaders safeguarded. I had a nice childhood 3 decadeds ago, we respected police their duties, we respected monks for their dignity and respect way of approaching us as buddhist adherents, but today, them to be fallen facists and facist supporting thugs like BBS lead – is a curse to all of us.

    • 0
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      Izeth Hussain –

      RE: Sri Lankan Muslims At The Cross Roads – XVIII – Muslim Population Problem

      Yes, Sri Lankan Muslims and Muslims in General are at the Cross-Roads. Need Road signs.

      On the Right side are the True Muslims, Good Muslims, who wants to worship the creator and not harm others, the so-called pious and true Muslims. They follow the pillars of Islam, and not harm others, just because they do not follow their pious version of Islam.

      Then the Left side of the Cross roads are the The Devil Following, Satan Following, Shaytan Following, Iblees Following, The Iblis Following “Muslims” called Satanis or Iblisees.

      The are the Wahhsabis and their clones: Saudi Wahhabi, ISIS ( Iblisi< not islamic), Talibans, Salafis, Tauheed, Deobandi, Boko Haram and many others. They all follow Satan, Iblis, Devil.

      So Put up signs on the cross- roads.

      Take Left to Follow the Devil, Satan and Iblis, Iblees.

      Take right to Follow God, Allah and Righteous Muslims.

  • 2
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    Dear Izeth Hussain –

    “I will now substantiate the point I made earlier: the expectation that the Muslims will outnumber all the others and come to dominate the globe within decades is no more than an expression of Islamophobia, which is really a form of racism. That apocalyptic projection is made on the basis of distortions, blatant lies, and zany logic. I have at hand an outrageous example of that zany logic, but before providing it I must make a necessary clarification. Populations usually grow for two reasons: through natural increase, that is the difference between births and deaths, and migration. However a religious group can also grow, sometimes on a massive scale, through conversions.”

    Thanks for the succinct analysis. However, what you say is factual, those who wants to believe otherwise, in the face of good analysis, reason and observations, will always do so based on their beliefs, misrepresentations by interested parities and simple inability to think and reason.

    The best example of that is the Geocentric model and the Heliocentric Model of the solar system. Still 26% of the Americans and Europeans and up to 40% of the others STILL believe, the sun goes around the stationary Earth Every Day, based on the Sun rising from the East and settling in the West.

    So, a fraction of the Sinhala Buddhists will believe what they are fed. just like the religions beliefs of Rebirth, Nirvana, Hell, Heaven, Limbo and purgatory.

    However, this is a constant battle, needed to be repeatedly emphasized.

    Please. do expose the lies and keep writing.

    Copernicus wrote in 1543 about the heliocentric Model.

    Galileo showed in around 1,600 that there are moons of Jupiter and phases of Venus.

    Kepler gave the 3 Laws and elliptical movement.

    Newton completed it with the Newtonian Mechanics and the theory of gravitation, in 1687., a span of 124 years!

    So, please do keep on writing. You have, many, many years ahead of you. please do recruit some youngsters and good help.

  • 3
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    According to these people every great leader is a bad person.

    Look at all the GREAT world leaders today. MOST of them are butchers of Muslims!

    President Obama
    President Putin
    President Xi
    President Hollande
    PM Modi
    PM Nethnyahu
    PM Abbot
    PM Cameron
    Even PM Nawaz Sherif

    • 1
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      They all know that ‘if Islam wins, then civilization loses.’

  • 3
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    If Izeth Hussein is right, all the talks by every other muslim are lies.

  • 0
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    There has to be a limit to the crafty fabrications of Izeth Hussain. I mentioned earlier he juggles and confuses the ordinary readership with
    statistics from here, there and everywhere. Like a drunkard leaning on a lamp post for support more than enlightenment, he brings in the Tamil commentator Rajan Phillips to dilute his Muslim stance. Why go far. Take the case of Batticaloa District and the EP here. Tamils were by far the largest community in the District until lately when the Muslim population explosion was let loose in the area. Tamils do not even control the Eastern Province anymore. The population figures in the Colombo District also shows an explosion of Muslims births in the past few decades.

    The matter is now assuming global proportions. In an unprecedented move the UN has unanimously decided to destroy the Islamic State. Out of sheer pressure Saudi Arabia and most countries in the Middle East are now part of the alliance OPENLY and are taking part in the bombing. But surreptitiously what they do is another story.
    This baby boom is also considered as dangerous as the ISIS savagery.
    The world is taking notice and will concentrate on the latter factor in due course.

    Horikadey

  • 1
    1

    Thanks for the article, Izeth.

    “It was thought for several decades after the Second World War that very high population increase in the third world would set off pressures on scarce resources and continue to seriously retard economic development, unless rigorous population control measures are imposed.”

    In 1959 Sir Charles Darwin, the nuclear physicist grandson of the famous biologist, gave a lecture at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) predicting that in the year 2000 the world would have 6 billion hungry “have-nots” and 2 billion “haves”. He saw this as a threat to humanity greater than that of war, and urged that his audience come up with a “tremendous solution”, “more brutal than warfare” to counter this threat of overpopulation. Sir Charles argued that traditional birth control measures were destined to fail. Even nuclear warfare, Sir Charles said, would only set back the problem a few years – the solution they needed must be more “brutal” than even nuclear war.

    Paranoia about Third World overpopulation has always been coloured by racism. This was the case since the 1880s when Francis Galton founded the eugenics movement, after writing ‘Hereditary Genius” (1869) that argued that blacks were two grades less intelligent than whites and the whites should protect their superiority through discriminatory immigration policies and the implementation of positive (inducements for large families of upper class whites) and negative eugenics programs (sterilization and extinction of inferior races and classes).

    The countries that were said to be “overpopulated” in the 1960s and 1970s were all populated by dark-skinned people, despite the fact that most of the pollution and consumption of resources was by the First World. Africa, which has a low population density compared to Europe, was named as the continent with the fastest growing populations and targeted for aggressive population-reduction measures, along with India and South-East Asia. This was centred on the promotion of condoms, which was intensified with the spread of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The AIDS epidemic resulted in the UN revising its population predictions for sub-Saharan Africa (downwards).

    In 1996 I began an investigation into the theory that the AIDS epidemic was intentionally engineered to reduce Third World overpopulation, using the model of “negative eugenics” that underpinned the racially-based genocide of the Nazis during the Second World War. This investigation looked at the history of the USA’s biological warfare programs and related Cold War research programs in the UK, Belgium and Australia. My investigations indicated that if AIDS is man-made, Australian scientists played a key role in its development:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/71007453/Eugenics-and-Genocide-in-the-Modern-World-the-cause-of-the-AIDS-epidemic-by-Dr-Romesh-Senewiratne-Alagaratnam

    The fact that improving education for women reduces the size of families was known in the 1970s when I studied medicine (before the AIDS epidemic).

    • 1
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      LOL -nothing else captures this paranoia !

    • 1
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      Dr Romesh – thank you very much for your informative and enlightening comment. I am unable to access the document you sent – IH

    • 2
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      Your research is no different to mumbo jumbo from the dark ages, won’t stand up to scientific scrutiny

    • 0
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      Analysts in France, Germany, Netherlands, the UK, Australia are greatly alarmed while the birth rate of their populations are on the decline in the past few decades and presently that of the immigrant population – specially those of Islamic origin – are on the rise. The more worrying factor is this is not accidental. This is by deliberate pre-planning. One recalls what Gaddaffi said years ago that within the next fifty years Islam will take over Europe without guns, bombs and warfare. This is why extreme Muslim radicals in these countries are on the war path. They can hardly wait for the day Islam takes over the entire world.

      Global Islam uses educated but dangerous men like Izeth Hussain to cushion the oncoming disaster with misleading articles and cooked up statistics. Let Sri Lanka do its own studies and protect itself or the fate that took Maldives, Indonesia, Bangladesh and other countries will be ours.

      Backlash

    • 0
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      Surely this is just another conspiracy theory. The US backed by the religious right in the South has had a policy of curtailing aid to any country that has any policies to control its population. Reagan or was it Papa Bush controversially cut of aid to all countries guilty of promoting contraception. So I think they are more worried about propagating their anti contraception/anti abortion ethos than the black men of the earth coming to grab what they believe is their. They have that base covered with the most lethal armed forces the world ever knew.

      The cop out answer to distribute the worlds weath equally is very good. But very theoritical. Uderstand that the human being is a naturally selfish animal and loathe to share what he believes his with others. So you need to first consider if this is ever implementable and if so by whom and with what level of lethal force? The poor cant rise up because they dont have the guns and planes that the rich do.

      So rather than come up with unrealistic solutions we need to see how we can solve these problems at at least a national level. Even then this is not easy. Anyone who promises to nationalise everything and reditribute it equally amongst all has absolutly no chance of winning even a Provincial Council seat even in Sri Lanka where the people are overwhelmingly poor.

      Whether it is desease or warfare I believe the population correction will come. And it will come to the detrement of all. There are many systems in the natural world that increases exponentially before collapsing totally. And looking at the Human population increase profile and seeing the underlying problems with such an exponential increase one can only guess at the outcome.

      An Analogy is a ballon that is connected to an air pump. It will increase in size rapidly and burst. However if there are a few holes it will eventually reach a steady state where the amount of air going in will be equal to the air escaping through the holes. But if these holes are then closed off one by one the result is inevitable.

      -The air inside the baloon is the human population.
      -The air flow through the pump is the birth rate.
      -The holes are analogous to the deseases which naturally reduce the population but which we have plugged so well that life expectancy is in the high 80s and rising.
      -The rubber that is getting thinner and thiner while the baloon expands are the resources we depend on, land, water, fish, minerals, oil that is fast running out fast.

      So what is the answer? Open up more holes so people die early or reducing the air flow of the pump?

      If one removes oneself from ethnicity and religion and looks just at the population dynamics in Sri Lanka and the world in general one will see that almost all conflicts have overpopulation at its root. Basically too many people chasing too few resources. The response of human kind has been band together under various banners and vie with each over the control and use of these resources. This is what is happening and it will ultimately boil over in another world war which is guaranteed to remove a billion or so people from the world population. It does not to be the direct results of warfare. Imagine if overnight the flow of Oil, Gas, Food, Medicines or even the internet is halted? What would be its effect on the world population?

      The one solution which will engender co-existance, reduce carbon emissions, reduce deforestation, restore fish stocks and allay a host of other evils is population control.

      We can impose a strict two child policy now or risk losing everything. Those facing cripling hardship in their later years is today’s generation and Not tomorrow’s.

  • 1
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    Saudi Arabia cut the head off 30 -40 , mainly poor migreant workers every month.

    The Same Saudis are now bombing Syrian Muslims because ISIL be headed two Americans(?)

    British Givt and the French bombed the crap out of Syria first, and provided money and weapons to create the ISIL.

    Most Western countries first encouraged their Muslim citizens to go there and join the ISIL aother liberation groups hoping that Syria can be toppled without putting White Boots on the ground.

    Now the big General of Obama says he want 15,000 pairs of boots soon , as the US Saudi Air attacks are doing nothing.

    Is ISIL stronger than Sadam, Gadaffi, and Osama..

    What it the aim of this monstrous aggression by the West towards the Muslim World?.

    And Mr Sally is trying to tell us our Muslim brethren have problems…

  • 2
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    It is always fruitless to extrapolate population growth from present trends. Rev. Malthus in 1798 made the same mistake and predicted the catastrophe mankind would face when he runs out of space to grow his food, based on the trend then of the population growth. He clearly did not envisage wars, fatal diseases or the advance in technologies and more. Muslim population growth need not be a worry as they are adept at killing each other more than they kill others. We should be more concerned with the abuse of humans in respectable countries and otherwise. E.g. The Muslims in Burma, Blacks in USA, Arabs in Israel, Catholics in Ireland, indigenous Indians in South America, Aborigines in Australia and more.

  • 1
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    Islamophobia is a growing trend in the world, regardless of whether the muslim population is in fact increasing (as propaganda would have you believe) or in fact declining (given the wholesale massacres, primarily committed by muslims on muslims).

    My fear is not about muslims becoming the major religious group in the world, but rather WHOSE version of islam becomes the predominant one. For the sake of the whole world, and for pluralism’s sake, I do not want extremists like ISIS/Wahabbis/Al Qaeda/Khorasan etc. etc. from spreading their brand of violent islam across the world.

    As even the oil-rich sultans have realized, these versions of islam threaten not just non-muslims, but also anyone who stands in their way of creating a utopia where plurarism is eliminated and autocracy rules with an iron and violent fist.

    I would like to see Sri Lankan muslims -who thus far have been quite moderate- take a strong stand against extremists in their own ranks. The intra-muslim violence witnessed between the Wahabbis and sufis do not bode well for Sri Lankan muslims. The involvement of Pakistani muslim factions in diplomatic and intelligence circles within Sri Lanka and South India does is also a harbinger of troubles.

    Have the various civil and religious societies within muslims in Sri Lanka, made a clear stand against intra-muslim violence in Sri Lanka? That is something I would like to see.

    We non-muslims in Sri Lanka also have work to do to prevent muslim extremism from raising its ugly head in this island. We need to point out islamophobia where and when it occurs, such as the irrational fears of population expansion-theories, riots, etc. We have to help the muslim elders keep the muslim youngsters from becoming disillusioned of living in a multiethnic/religious democracy. Their reaction to anti-muslim riots and vitrolic rhetoric ala BBS, should not be allowed to foment radicalization of muslim youth.

    Level-headed young people from across ethnic/religious lines would be the best ambassadors of peace and inter ethnic harmony in Sri Lanka. Perhaps it’s time we dump the old dinosaurs that parade as seasoned politicians in Sri Lanka, hoarding millions in family coffers and subordinating the country to one international bully or another. Their rhetoric is like broken records and their tactics (regardless of SLFP/UNP/JVP) are corrupt and racist.

    Let’s empower a younger, fresher generation that is not shackled by post-colonial psychoses, to redefine what it means to be Sri Lankan!

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