By Chanaka Gajanayake –

The Paranoia of Extinction; do we need a more Sensible Professional and a realistic approach without Fanaticism, Power Politics and Hysteria?

Our ancestor/s Vijaya and his entourage of 700 were not ‘Sinhalese’ but Bengali. It is more a myth to romanticize on rather than a legend that says he is a product of Bestiality between his grandfather Sinha and a woman. Mythology indicates his father was guilty of Patricide by killing the Grandfather. I sincerely hope as a Sinhalese that is a myth rather than a legend since it reflects badly on our roots! It is scientifically and genetically clear that such unions will not produce viable progeny. Vijaya was expelled from Sinhapura because of his evil deeds. Again a heritage not to be proud of! They were Indians from Bengal. There were no ‘Sinhalese’ in existence at the time! Those indigenous people who “owned'” Lanka were Yakshas and Nagas aborigines and possible Davidians. Vijaya’s marriage’ to Yaksha Kuveni did not entitle him to be a King. He then brought 100 Pandyan Princesses from the ancient Tamil dynasty of South India in order to make himself King. Of course, he did not have children from ‘them’, but his officers and ministers most likely produced children 50% Bengali and 50% Tamil. At the same time soldiers and Ministers would have partnered offspring with the indigenous Yakshas’ and Nagas’, thus a New race ‘Sinhalese’ was born and thus eliminating the indigenous population to become the presumed ‘rightful owners’ of Lanka! a Hotchpotch of multiple genetic mixes but of course Homo sapiens or so-called human beings!

This animal Homo sapiens is capable of violence for survival whether it be physical, social or economic which revolves around POWER. The human mind is so sophisticated that it can devise ways and means to manipulate, direct or indirect violence through coercion or using proxies. Today we find technological sophistication of Media, Internet, modern arms that could be controlled and manipulated remotely, specifically by less sophisticated minds of the masses (of Homo sapiens), who may not think beyond the primitive thought processes, that facilitates this violence. In the mind and action of an average person boils down to insecurity, threats, past experience of violence, emotion, anger and vengeance controlled by the the hippocampus in the brain. We have had this reptilian portion of the brain” for 100,000 years, Which is important FOR SURVIVAL: OR FIGHT OR FLIGHT INSTINCT activated through chemical mediators Dopamine, Serotonin and Adrenaline. It is also known to be the area that stores attitudes including, to ETHNICITY or RELIGION, and VIOLENCE and POWER . The reptilian brain and addiction to power go hand in hand. These are personalities who are ruled by emotions that are primitive, aggressive, and have a lack of empathy. The only thing that exists is the pleasure of domination and concern for self. In their minds self-control does not exist and have much less concern for anyone else. The Principles of Buddhism promotes the opposite of this using mind control and mindfulness. Although some profess to be Buddhists and show that they are knowledgeable, in practice are the opposite. Therefore, manipulators whether it be Local or International ‘populist’ power seekers use the elements people react to i.e. threat to the survival of a race or religion. What we are seeing today in Sri Lanka is exactly the same with power seekers counting the days to the next election! The International players have their own agendas including arms sales, proxy wars and economic destabilization etc. Some International players may be more interested in simpler things such as wooing our tourists!

Now getting back to simpler things an average person understands: let’s look at Australia a land which was ‘owned’ by the aboriginal people genetically similar to the Veddas in Sri Lanka who were gradually eliminated and craftily manipulated to near extinction by a new group of white invaders. This is quite similar to what the Bengali/Tamil invaders of Lanka did. Today we have forgotten history, and are clinging on to a ‘race’ that is hypothetical and hardly pure. The Australian Mass killer in New Zealand was harping on the ‘Muslim Invaders’ taking over their land! Of course, he used a soft proxy target since he could not do it in Australia the very reason why ISIS chose Sri Lanka! How can Australia or New Zealand be white countries? and in the same context is Sri Lanka a Sinhala country or an Aborigine (Vedda) country? Vijaya the invader was neither a Sinhalese nor a Buddhist! The same arguments stand for USA a land belonging to ‘Red’ Indians invaded by British and now according to Trump and others it is a White Supremist country. South America was invaded by Spanish and Portuguese, replaced the Incas, (black slaves introduced later)!!

Muslims are not really a race! Again, a hotchpotch of multiple genetic material like the Sinhalese. The Southern Muslims may have originated from Arab trader fathers marrying Sinhala women. Therefore, they too are 50% Sinhala by race. There are also more recent Sinhala coverts who still hold on to fragments of their earlier names. The Eastern Province Muslims may have originated from migrant South Indian Muslims who are probably mainly Dravidian!

Some of our ‘Sinhala Supremists’ may start to believe that Maldives Belong to the Sinhala Race, since Genetic and other historical evidence show a link with Sinhalese, while another legend describes one of the ships that came with Vijaya landed in Maldives. Traders and fishermen also landed not only from Lanka (but also India and Africa). Other legends describe emissaries By King Ashoka landing in Maldives while a Princess from Lanka was sent to Marry a Prince. Buddhist temples existed and spoke a modified language ‘Divehi‘ akin to the Sinhala Language!! Of course, when the rulers converted to Islam, with influence from Arab traders, the population too converted similar to Devanampiyatiisa who converted the Lankan population to Buddhists. Please don’t get ideas of invading the Maldives.

Some of our great patriots from the Southern coast may be originally from South India?? Towns like Panadura is said to have originated from Panna-thurai or the famous Pallimulla or SarikkaMulla are likely Palli-Mullai and Sarikka-Mullai. Anevilundawa North of Chillaw when translated from Tamil to Sinhala is (Aliaya-wetuna-thena – Where the elephant fell). Some of the LTTE terrorists were Appuhamy by name. Some of the population From Negombo to Puttalam Many speak in Tamil although claiming to be Sinhalese! There is still a Portuguese speaking African Colony in that area that is getting integrated into society. What ‘Purity’ can we talk about? What happened to the Portuguese soldiers who were left behind the ‘Kalu Lansi’ (‘Black’ Burghers)? Although small segments are still exists, others have integrated with the ‘Sinhalese’! Of course, the Portuguese did not bring their women and they mixed with the ‘Kalu’ Sinhalese to become ‘Kalu Lansi’!

I am not arguing that the ‘Sinhala race’ should be eliminated by any means! They should survive and so should everyone including minorities who have a right to survival!

If we the Sinhalese, maintain a fertility rate of more than 2.1 children per woman we could stabilize our population. We started our population control campaign long ago maybe 50 years ago with ‘Preethi’ and ‘Mithuri’ and Interval LRTs and ‘Loops’ with incentives paid to doctors mostly Sinhalese, for LRT. One also has to realize that the fertility rate comes down with literacy and increased standards of living. In all countries there has been a progressive reduction and a fertility rate of 2.06 is below the 2.1 threshold. Therefore, the population decline among Sinhalese started long ago and no one forced contraception. Remember some of our couples married or living together often decide not to have children, while with a higher age of marriage some cannot find partners and with age the fertility rates go down (Fig. 1), while the number of children a woman can safely have before menopause will be reduced. Others may be homosexual. It is important to realize that smaller the family, the higher the economic and social attainments! Ironically; mostly those who are paranoid of extinction are either not married, not have children or have 2 or less children! Women when they get an education, marry late. Our age of marriage for women is almost 30 years at a time the fertility rate naturally falls drastically (Fig 1). They also want economic stability before having children. When they go for work, who will look after the kids? Most want one or 2 kids the most! They are also the same people screaming out about extinction! These people are so selfish trying to keep their own family small for social and economic reasons but want the other Sinhala women to reproduce! In addition, they want the other ethnic Every Sinhala woman then must produce more than 2.1 per woman to alleviate this fear! Remember Catholics too are against family planning! Don’t blame others! In addition paradoxically more the a million Sri Lankans, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim work in the Middle East away from the wife and husband or sometimes not married. How can a woman conceive when they are not with the husbands, while some don’t want to conceive since they will lose their job? The men come on holiday for a few weeks during the Holy month and expect their wives to get pregnant with the grace of god! Some women are on contraceptives for long period, with or without the knowledge of husbands and or are over 30 years and the chance of conception is not too high.

When you look at global statistics, Ironically, Muslim Countries like Islamic Republic of Iran (1.6), UAE (1.7), Lebanon (1.7) Bahrain (2) have lower fertility rates than Sri Lanka, while in Bangladesh it is 2.1, and in China it is 1.6, Hong Kong 1.1. US and UK is at 1.8. The higher fertility rates can be seen in African countries both Muslim and Christian with high Morbidity and Mortality rates and or in the Midst of conflict again with higher death rates and lower life expectancy. Of course, there are some Middle Eastern countries with high fertility where some are in the middle of conflicts (eg. Iraq 4.3) while it is interesting to note that a highly developed country like Israel has a fertility rate of 3.1, probably in the context of a threat to the population, they want a higher population to settle in the new territories!

The solution would be for Health Policy Makers to keep fertility above 2.1 percent but not astronomical, but at some social and economic costs. This strategy has to be planned out by non-fanatical demographers, fertility experts, economists and other relevant persons without involvement of clergy of any religion. Genocide is not the answer!

In fact, the fertility rate was only 1.9 in 1998, but has risen since then settling to 2.06 recently.

There certainly is a higher fertility rate amongst minorities due to many reasons. Their own fear of being threatened of extinction, Non-working women, younger age of marriage, feeling of economic possibility of having larger families etc.

Abortion in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, where abortion is only permitted if the mother’s life is at risk, as per Section 303 of the Penal Code of 1883. The punishment for causing an abortion is a fine and/or up to 3 years imprisonment.

Despite these laws, the number of abortions carried out in Sri Lanka remain high, with the Ministry of Health reporting in 2016 that 658 abortions are carried out daily. This works out to approximately 240,170 abortions take place annually. A majority of women seeking abortions in Sri Lanka are married. The reasons given by married women for needing an abortion were that their pregnancy was too soon after the last delivery, poverty and foreign employment. Women as well as men who leave for foreign employment are in effect ‘celibate’ leading to lower fertility rate!

These alarming figures from not so long ago are probably similar today! Who are these women, undoubtably, a majority are Sinhala Buddhist Women!! Approximately 250,000 children are removed every year! No wonder why the population is dwindling! Who is doing this? Is it done against the consent of these women? NO! I won’t be surprised if some of those Sinhala extremists’ obstetricians, screaming their heads off on ‘Sinhala extinction’ are guilty of these illegal abortions for a quick buck!

Another reason why our population is disappearing is due to deaths of prime child bearing women: 12.5% of all maternal deaths are attributed to illegal abortions due to sepsis or bleeding, making it the third most common reason for such deaths in Sri Lanka. With a high rate of illegal abortions, many done under septic conditions result in infection of the fallopian tubes or salpingitis which is an important cause of infertility (and ectopic pregnancy).

A large population of ours migrate to other countries for personal selfish reasons. Of course, they would have less than 2.1 fertility rates. At the same time their progeny would move away and be alienated from Race and Religion! They will be in a different environment in diverse social settings. They will also marry from other races and religions thus diluting ‘our Sinhala race’! Unfortunately, some of the vociferous activists are actually people who migrated with children married to varying races and religions! Aren’t they guilty of a crime they are accusing others of??

Our ancestor Neanderthal became extinct within 10,000 years. The effects of decreased survival on the extinction probability and time to extinction are considerable as expected for long-living organisms: a decline of less than 1.5% in survival for the youngest children leads to rapid extinction (less than 2,000 yrs), while a reduction of survival rate as small as 0.4% provokes an extinction time of 10,000 years. Leave alone Sinhalese, but the whole human race would be extinct in less than that time EVEN IF NO natural calamity strikes!

(Degioanni A, Bonenfant C, Cabut S, Condemi S (2019) Living on the edge: Was demographic weakness the cause of Neanderthal demise? PLoS ONE 14(5): e0216742. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216742)

The United Nations Population Division recently released updates to its projections of the future world population.

In short, we should be more rational as a population, with leaders not trying to gain power based on fear of extinction leading to racism. Unfortunately, many power-hungry leaders don’t use their Left prefrontal cortex to think rationally but use only their primitive brain for short term quest for power, often backed by pseudo-professionals who are equally power hungry. Our leadership lacks trust in independent intellectuals with neutral thinking or think tanks, but depend on people with partiality. They know that the base of the population pyramid can be mobilized through a cry of ‘extinction’, fear of ‘territory’ being lost again aiming at the primitive brain of the vote bearing majority! The leadership has unfortunately gone in the direction of personal power in contrast to the strength of the state, illustrating the difference between a politician and statesman! My belief is that the on the eve of elections, Fanatic Racism and Extremism would be the main tool used by leadership through proxies such as minor parties in order to get votes from the wider Sinhala and Buddhists and the wheels are already in motion. Unfortunately, some So called intellectuals and religious leaders are also being used or they have their own private agendas! It is the people, society and the country that would suffer at the end of the day!