The flight from the Maldives to Ceylon, the beautiful Island south of India, was under two hours flying time. But it was hot and I had plenty of time to work up a good sweat before landing at Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka (Ceylon.)
Until recently, the Sri Lankans had a problem with terrorists/freedom fighters, depending which side you were on, the Tamil Tigers, who had set up a separate state in the north of the island. Just so you know, Jefferson and Adams would have been terrorists under the way governments now toss the term around. Anyone who actively opposes the status quo is a terrorist. So if you have a visceral emotional reaction to the word terrorist, remember that the politicos are carefully using the term to make you react the way they want you to react about the opposition.
The Sri Lankan government built up their military until it was strong enough to capture the northern territory and kill all of the Tamil leaders. There are bitches and gripes on both sides of the Tamil - Sri Lanka divide. But for me, the biggest lesson is one that occurs again and again, the problem of coherently governing peoples who speak two separate languages and therefore consider themselves different. Look at the problems Canada has had to this day with the French speakers in Quebec. Bosnia is another perfect example. Iraq blew up along ‘ethnic’ lines after the fall of Saddam.
As far as I can see, there is only one place a multiplicity of languages works: Switzerland. But there, it isn’t that each group speaks a different language, German, French, and Italian, and considers themselves different. There, everyone speaks all of the languages and they consider themselves all the same.
For me, the lesson is important in how we in the western US treat the growing Hispanic population. If we allow them to constitute a separate ethnic population, we are headed for the same sort of conflicts that happen every time you have separate groups politically who also consider that they are different from all others in the polity. The US has always been successful by being a melting pot, the individual elements joining the group alloy. This whole strength through diversity doesn’t bear up under historical analysis. Oh, it sounds nice, but such ‘diversity’ inevitably grows into ethnic tensions when ‘different’ populations live together. The strength of the US has always been the assimilation of the immigrant populations. They become Americans with American values and beliefs. Today, we have a population that wants to stay separate, speak a foreign language and maintain different values. That can’t work except as guest workers: Come, work, go home.
The Sri Lankans have briefly ‘solved’ their problem with the military killing off the leaders of their diverse population. I don’t like that particular solution and Americans will hopefully never go for ethnic cleansing, i.e. genocide. Assimilation is the only way to long term success that I see.
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Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2009, 2011