Language and Minorities

If the many conflicts worldwide over minority rights, one of the most enduring, intractable, and lethal is the struggle in Sri Lanka between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority. In thirteen years of civil war, a country with no external enemies, a prosperous, literate population, and a long history of peaceful relations between different ethnic groups has become a symbol of uncontrollable violence. These days, one hardly ever reads of Sri Lanka in the world press except when there ha...