In an increasingly secular world nationalism has come to replace many aspects of personal belief, especially concerning mortality, in the past an exclusive realm of religion. It is the case that the pre-nationalist sentiment of ethnic identity and of religion have, historically, been closely linked: “for the greater part of human history the twin circles of religious and then ethnic identity have been very close, if not identical.” Many observers view nationalism as some form of surrogate family or extended kinship. This is perceived to be a central feature of its power to attract. In the notion of an unbroken national heritage, ranging back to time immorial and forward to a glorious future. Reproduction within the ethnonational group biologically perpetuates the group assuaging the finality of death. Thus: “So the promise of life immortal in our posterity seems genetically vindicated.”. This overwhelming power and attraction of nationalistic sentiment directly contributes to ethnic warfare. A.D. Smith goes on to argue that on a spiritual plane nationalism assuages the fears of personal extinction, by incorporating the individual into a seeming continuity of national existence, which perpetuates forever. He says nationalism is able to:
…provide a satisfying answer to the personal oblivion. Identification with the ‘nation’ in a secular era is the surest way to surmount the finality of death and ensure a measure of personal immortality.
Mazzini, an Italian nationalist in pursuit of Italian unification believed that God had given all men duties incorporating nationalist sentiment:
Mans duties, which are prescribed by God, are threefold: to Humanity, to his Country, and to his family. The duty to Humanity comes first. But, for Italians, given their political situation, the most pressing duty is to secure the freedom and unity of their country
The revolutionary nationalism espoused by Mazzini challenged the legitimacy of imperial rule over ‘natural nations’ aswell as reinforcing the religious aspect via duties to God. The power of ethnonationalism also derives from its ability to enable the ascendancy toward unification, statehood and betterment; “nationalism promises a ‘status reversal’, where the last shall be first and the world will recognise the chosen people and their sacred values. This is where ethno-history is vital”. In creating myths of common descent and often merging the edges between historical fact and myth/legend nationalism gains a potent hold over members of an ethnonational group. Mussolini said:
We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, it is a passion. It is not necessary that it be a reality. It is a reality by the fact that it is a good, a hope, a faith, that it is courage. Our myth is the Nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation! And to this myth, to this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we subordinate all the rest
The idea of self-determination emanated from nationalist ideology and was legitimised by the precedence of the revolutions in France and America. In U.S president Wilson’s 14 points at Versailles self-determination was legitimised. From Versailles the right to self-determination was incorporated into the international political system and has become virtually universally recognised. It provides an established and internationally recognised doctrine which ethnonational groups can call upon to legitimise their claims to nationhood.
What was originally intended as a means of enabling fluid interactions between sovereign states has led to secessionist desires among smaller, arguably economically unviable groups.
The inter-war years had seen the emergence of new nation-states in Europe following the collapse of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and German empires. Due to the difficulties of identifying ‘nations’ the national question became a “running sore” and led to the incorporation of sizeable ethnic minorities in these new states. This problem ultimately enabled Hitler’s rise to power and the outbreak of WWII. Hitler had been opportunistic in his seizing upon ethnic differences/similarities and utilising a heightened sense of nationality and superiority triggered war resulting in the fatal weakening of the remaining colonial empires. Another contradiction that appeared was the attitude of colonial powers to self-determination. Whilst these principles were espoused, particularly in the aftermath of WWI in Europe, elsewhere in the colonies the notion was violently suppressed. The ethnocentrism of the colonial powers blinded them to the possibility of allowing their colonies such a right. Expansionism and, what Rudyard Kipling, called the “white mans burden”made thorough hypocrites of the imperial powers. In denying such a measure the imperial powers had sown the seeds of anti-colonial nationalism aiming at independence.
As already mentioned the anti-colonial nationalist movements of the colonies were a direct response to imperialist policies. The alignment of colonial powers with the notion of self-determination did not extend to the colonised regions. Instead, systematic divide and rule policies were instigated (this has to be seen in terms of racial and ethnic superiority which the imperialists regarded themselves to have over colonised peoples). While oppressing natives, the colonial powers institutionalised ethnic divisions, whilst at the same time systematically promoting rivalry between differing groups. By co-opting native elites to aid their imperial policies deep-seated animosities were created. Another problem, which has led to the exacerbation of recent ethnic tensions, was the colonial practice of making arbitrary borders. In the colonial scramble for territory borders were drawn that encompassed many disparate ethnic groups. It has been argued by Kedourie that colonial nationalisms had lost the “profundity” of their earlier European counterparts, therefore the idea that these new nationalisms were all encompassing is rejected by a majority of writers on the subject. Unfortunately:
The only conclusion the history of Twentieth century southern Asia prompts is that nationalism has been an effective weapon for liberation from colonial rule; but in most cases has been powerless to build and sustain a solid political order.
A failure to maintain political order has affected many former colonial possessions. In Africa, Nigeria is perceived by the ethnic groups within it, to be a “child of colonialism”. ‘Tribalism’ has arisen “based on natural identities that have survived the colonial era.” This has led to intractable conflicts whereby ethnic groups are fighting each other or the ruling governments due to past colonial injustices. The drawing of colonial boundaries has led Cameroon to the immense problem of “creating a nation from some 200 tribes, 124 languages and dialects and four different religions.” The results of colonial injury can be attributed in part to horrific crimes against humanity such as the Rwandan genocide, whereby Belgian colonialists deliberately entrenched ethnic difference and favoured one ethnic group over the other. This inability of anti-colonial movements to marry ethnic differences increases the propensity toward ethnic conflict. Colonialism, is then, a major contributor to ethnonational conflict in the contemporary world
A factor that has definitely increased the potential for and existence of ethnic violence was the collapse of the former Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe. This break –up affected two distinct areas: the ethnonationalism of the developing world and that of the former Soviet Republics and Eastern European territories themselves. If ethnic warfare is rife in the former colonies owing to imperial practice, the disintegration of the USSR caused further instability and discord. During the Cold War nationalism in the developing world was hijacked by the policies of the antagonistic superpowers. Under their patronage unelected, unrepresentative dictators ruled or tried to rule the nation states. With the collapse of the USSR the situation was exacerbated by the power struggle created in the void left by receding communist influence and power. Superpower sponsored nationalist conflict had occurred in Sudan, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, Somalia and Eritrea to name but a few. With the Soviet Union no longer an active ‘player’ a fresh rash of hostilities broke out:
Between 1945 and 1981, 258 cases of ethnic warfare were observed…more recently, this armed conflict has reached epidemic proportions. Ted Robert Gurr (1994, 351-2) estimated that 26,759,000 refugees were fleeing the fifty major ethnonational conflicts that were occurring in 1993-4, each of which was responsible for an average of eighty thousand deaths.
While the Soviet collapse has led to increased ethnonational conflict in the third world, particularly Asia and Africa, it had a more immediate and destabilising effect in Europe and the former Soviet Republics. The USSR, a continuance, under different rule, of the Tsarist Romanov Empire, encompassed countless ‘nations’. The number of ethnically diverse groups within its borders had been studiously suppressed, particularly by Stalin and Brezhnev. As already noted the Cold War ideological battle had little time for nationalism; Soviet style Marxism regarding it as a ‘false consciousness’. Instead, Soviet nation-building initiatives attempted to force all into an acceptable mould:
If supra-national ideology was one pillar of the Soviet multi-ethnic state, coercion- or control- was from the start a still more important one. None of the soviet peoples were given, until 1991, any choice as regards membership of the USSR, and force was used ruthlessly against any national grouping seeking independence. Consciousness that Moscow possessed both the means and the will to repress would-be secessionists was a vital factor in Soviet political instability .
Theoretically each of the Soviet Republics had the right of secession but were denied it until it became clear that the core of the federation was about to collapse. Indeed, claiming the right to secession “was a certain path to a labour camp, if not worse”. To regulate his multi-ethnic state Stalin had been particularly heavy-handed practicing “genocide, mass-population transfers and hegemonic control of multiple ethnic groups”, much as the colonialists had. Since 1945 Soviet genocides have focused on “the Chechens, the Ingushi, the Karachai, the Balkars, the Meskhetians and the crimean Tartars”. This startling record gives some indication of the ethnonational tensions that smouldered in the former USSR. Though genocide was used as a tool for the termination of ethnic conflict, in the long term this may be proved utterly false, instead genocides, if they are unsuccessful, create “explosive and historically entrenched bitterness and fear amongst the descendants of victims”. This anger is echoed by ‘frontier genocide’ as witnessed in colonial injury. Glasnost and Perestroika set the foundations for the break-up of the Soviet Union and allowed hitherto suppressed resentment to boil over. As early as 1988 eruptions had occurred in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Baltic state were first to gain their independence (it was easier for these states as they had traditional and existing boundaries and a strong moral case for independence, only coming under Soviet control at the outbreak of WWII). In the central Asian republics the story was infinitely more convoluted; as McGarry and Lieven argue of this area of the former USSR:
States exist but genuine nations possessing historical legitimacy and ethnic homogeneity do not. The rulers of these states are likely to emulate the ruthless attempts…to create genuine nations out of disparate clans, regions and ethnic groups whose only overarching loyalty is to Islam.
Already, fighting has occurred in the Transcaucasus between Armenians and Azeris (from Azerbaijan) over Nagorno-Karabakh. Rivalries and ethnic differences have cast their shadows over most of the ex-USSR including Russia itself, where tensions exist between Chechen-Ingush and Tartarstan and Russia itself. Secessionist violence is a real worry and has already occurred in relation to the Chechens. Coupled with the demise of Yugoslavia the collapse of the USSR has unleashed ethnonational confict and tensions that could easily spiral out of control:
The perils should not be underestimated. As Russian foreign minister Andrei, V. Kozyrev warned the United Nations in September 1993, the threat of ethnic violence today is “no less serious than the threat of nuclear war yesterday”.
In the former Yugoslavia demotic nationalism was easily able to fragment the civic nationalism of the state. Again, because of the number of ethicities present, past evils and hatreds were able to blossom once more. Triggered, in part, by ‘ethnonational entrepreneurs’ such as Slobodan Milosevic, currently awaiting trial for war crimes in a U.N court in The Hague. Others such as Radovan Karadic also played their parts, as with Hitler they, antagonised and “using memories of separate histories and identities” in order to increase their power. This led to ethnic conflict on a scale not seen in Europe since WWII and shocked the West and Russia into action. The propensity of aggressive nationalistic sentiment in “transforming the healthy pride of nations, tribes, religions and ethnic groups into cancerous prejudice” is profound.
The last point I would raise concerning the persistence of ethnonational conflict in the contemporary world is the effect of Globalisation. Paradoxically, it seems, that the more global and interdependent the world becomes the more awareness of ethnic difference is heightened. In the European theatre, the formation of the E.U. was aimed, in part, at the peaceful interaction of its member states, theoretically producing a reduction in ethnonationalist sentiment. On the contrary, increased awareness of cultural identity and regionalism. Autonomy for E.U. regions can be perceived as a step in the direction of ethnic legitimacy, unlikely to extinguish ethnonationalist sentiment. Worldwide the gaping inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest people endangers the political and social stability of many states. The loss of sovereignty, particularly in the economic arena, has mystified and angered ethnic groups who perceive themselves to be disempowered. The strength and ease of modern communications has allowed more and more people to hear, read and witness the proddings of ethnic revival in the face of western values. This situation is inherently unstable and the cultural backlash against the perceived ‘MacDonaldisation’ of the world could be the forerunner of full-blown ethnonational conflict.
As we have seen the factors which help explain the persistence of ethnonational conflict are varied and historical aswell as conteporary. The strength of nationalist ideology and its power to influence people in an almost religious way are crucial factors. The legacy of colonial injury, established animosities that to this day exacerbate tensions and lead to conflict. The methods of controlling multiple ethnic groups within the bounds of one state during the colonial era were similar to those employed in more recent times as in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, not to mention the multitude of ethnically diverse states in Africa and Asia, remnants of a colonial past, left scarred by their experience. The methods used, from genocide to forced population transfers have resulted in a legacy of ethnonational tensions easily transformed into outright conflict. The globalisation encroaching on many independent and proud ethnies seems also to be a cause for concern and for these reasons we must look to the future with a certain amount of trepidation.
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