ABSTRACT
In addition, it should be stressed, Mauritians have chosen to give high priority to resolution and prevention of ethnic conflicts. The reader should in this context remember that Mauritius very nearly anticipated the breakdown of Lebanese national society in the late 1960s, when interethnic relations were tense and occasionally violent. It would therefore be simplistic to state either that ethnicity is well and thriving in Mauritius, or that it is going to disappear because of economic and cultural changes, or that it is coming back with a vengeance. So far, Mauritian politics of common denominators and avoidance have been successful in dealing with the 'plural society'. The case of Mauritius might finally lead the reader to rethink our categories of ethnicity and nationalism. It has become sufficiently clear, hopefully, that Mauritians are not saints. If Mauritius is going to succeed in the future as well, it must find ways of acknowledging the non-ethnic identities as well as the ethnic ones.
