Nationalist framing presents the island as exclusively Sinhala Buddhist

Evidence

Get this straight and quote me. Sri Lanka is a Buddhist Sinhala country. Let no one make a mistake. Seventy percent of the country consists of Buddhists and Sinhala people. Also make this clear that Sri Lanka is the only Buddhist Sinhala country in the world. If we don’t live here, are the LTTE and some of the Tamil Parties asking us to jump in to the sea? … I got angry with [former Sri Lankan president] Premadasa because he chose to call Sri Lanka a multi-national and multi-religious state. No. It is a Buddhist Sinhala State. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 196

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for reader’s question of whether professed conviction underlies bias: the ‘seventy percent’ and ‘only Buddhist Sinhala country’ slides from demographic fact into exclusive ownership claim. — connects to: Sinhalese nationalist identity is constructed as inseparable from Buddhism — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 193; Extremist Sinhalese parties weaponized Buddhism against Tamil devolution — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 157; Sinhalese Buddhist identity was antiquarian but its modern nationalist ideology is reinterpreted and manipulated — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 85

Broader Connections

• Sinhalese nationalist identity is constructed as inseparable from Buddhism #corroborates (0.92) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 193
• Extremist Sinhalese parties weaponized Buddhism against Tamil devolution #exemplifies (0.80) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 157
• Sinhalese Buddhist identity was antiquarian but its modern nationalist ideology is reinterpreted and manipulated #qualifies (0.72) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 85