Suchergebnisse

Sri Lanka's Sunni Muslims or 'Moors', who make up eight percent of the population, are the country's third largest ethnic group, after the Buddhist Sinhalese (seventy-four per cent) and the Hindu Tamils (eighteen per cent). Although the armed LTTE (Tamil Tiger) rebel movement was defeated militarily by government forces in May 2009, the island's Muslims still face the long-standing external threats of ethno-linguistic Tamil nationalism and pro-Sinhala Buddhist government land and resettlement policies. In addition, during the past decade a sharp internal conflict has arisen within the Sri Lankan Muslim community between locally popular Sufi sheiks and the followers of hostile Islamic reformist movements energised by ideas and resources from the global ummah, or world community of Muslims. This simultaneous combination of 'external' ethno-nationalist rivalries and 'internal' Islamic doctrinal conflict has placed Sri Lanka's Muslims in a double bind: how to defend against Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic hegemonies while not appearing to embrace an Islamist or jihadist agenda. This article first traces the historical development of Sri Lankan Muslim identity in the context of twentieth-century Sri Lankan nationalism and the south Indian Dravidian movement, then examines the recent anti-Sufi violence that threatens to divide the Sri Lankan Muslim community today. Adapted from the source document.

Fully-formed nationalisms do not emerge from nothing. Nor are they inextinguishable expressions of pre-modern forms of identity and political aspirations. The argument in this paper is that if they are fully formed, they have to emerge from ethno-nationalism. (...) The argument is made in relation to the Karen nationalist movement in Burma. Karen nationalism emerged out of ethno-nationalism that was fostered by Christian missionary interest and ethnological attempts to set out a Karen ethno-history. Missionary writings offered Christian-educated Karen, in colonial times, the basis for a "narration of nation" and for viewing themselves not merely as an ethnic group but a "nation". This paper sets out the ceaseless unfolding of this "narration of nation" that began in the nineteenth century and now tragically occurs in refugee camps in Thailand because of drastically altered politico-military conditions in Burma since the late 1980s. These narrations can only be understood in terms of their discursive history and how this history has been shaped. These narrations are are examined with a view to addressing some key theoretical issues contained in more recent studies of nationalism and nation-state-making as modern phenomena and how ethno-nationalism is transformed into nationalism. (Pac Rev/DÜI)

A view of the past is an important element of ethnic identity in the contemporary world. Nowadays, it plays also a crucial instrumental role in a struggle for political, financial, territorial and cultural resources and benefits. This struggle is especially intensive under unstable political environment which is used by various ethnic elites in order to upgrade their status and to get an access to some privileges. The myths of the past are often forged and disseminated as an important part of the ethno-national ideologies which are aimed at ethnic solidarity. An image of the enemy is an integral element of the ideologies in question which have xenophobic connotations as a result. A place of these sort of myths and ideologies in the contemporary Russian education system is analysed. It is demonstrated how they manifest ethnic strifes and conflicts in various regions of the Russian Federation, and how they infuse students with intolerance, chauvinism and racial moods which seems alarming.