Word: ethnic
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...Just two days earlier, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.), which is fighting for a separate Tamil state, had killed 17 Sri Lankan navymen in a suicide attack. So the murder of the Ketheeswarans, who were ethnic Tamils living near a naval base, was viewed by some as revenge by wayward sailors. Others saw it differently: some supporters of the Tigers blamed rival Tamils; an aide to President Mahinda Rajapakse spoke of unspecified forces "trying to discredit the President"; and Sinhalese nationalists even suggested the Tigers had killed their own to justify future attacks. To make sense...
...FIGHT? The island's two main ethnic groups are the majority Sinhalese (who number 14 million, are Buddhist, and live mainly in the south) and the Tamils (who number 2 million, are Hindu, and are concentrated in the north and east). The roots of discord go back to colonial times. The British favored the Tamils in the civil service in what Neil DeVotta, author of Blowback, a book about the origins of the conflict, says was "classic divide and rule." After independence in 1948, the Sinhalese took revenge. They made Sinhala the official language, discriminated against Tamils in areas like...
...INEVITABLE? Both sides agree that war offers no solution to Sri Lanka's problems, but they increasingly see little alternative. Balasingham told TIME: "Sri Lanka will inevitably plunge into an ethnic war with disastrous consequences if the escalating violence is not contained and normalcy restored." Rajapakse told a Colombo newspaper last week: "If they insist on continuing their attacks, I will have to defend my country." Hawks are ascendant on both sides. DeVotta says elements in the government believe the split within the L.T.T.E. has weakened the rebels to a point where they can be beaten in war. Chalk...
...Haas described the sense of "feeling like the hyphen in between" Asian and American in Asian-American. It's really hard for the current generation of Asian Americans to cherish their roots and seek their fortunes at the same time. Older immigrants' dilemma of whether to embrace their ethnic culture and community or be carried away by the American environment is like dealing with oil and water, and nowhere is that incompatibility more deeply felt than in romance. As Bob Ragasa, a Filipino-American teacher said, "Maybe we are like our parents. We are going to be pioneers...
...received around 1,500 marriage proposals). Baker was active in the French resistance in World War II?often smuggling coded messages on sheet music?and remained a lifelong fighter against racism. She even prefigured the multiracial family of Hollywood star Angelina Jolie by adopting 12 children from varying ethnic backgrounds, affectionately dubbing them her "Rainbow Tribe...