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Race & ethnic relations: American and global perspectives

Marger, M. N. (2015). Race and ethnic relations: American and global

perspectives (10th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC

CONFLICT AND CHANGE CHAPTER I7

During the past half century, societies in all regions of the world have become more ethnically diverse. Those with a history of absorbing a variety of ethnic groups- like the United States and Canada- emerged as even more heterogeneous. Many others that had been relatively homogeneous- such as those in Western Europe- evolved into truly multiethnic societies. This trend has continued unabated.'

In addition to increasing diversity, societies that have had a multiethnic structure and tradition for many decades have experienced a rise in ethnic nationalism, some- times at a ferocious level.

In this chapter we look at these two most evident trends of ethnicity in the con- temporary world- the proliferation of ethnic diversity and the resurgence of ethnic nationalism. Both, as we will see, have contributed to a marked rise in ethnic conflict and change.

THE GLOBAL EXPANSION OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY '

SHIFTING PATTERNS OF IMMIGRATION

With the movement toward industrialization throughout the West during the one hundred years between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, global mi- gration occurred mostly within Europe and between Europe and North and South America. Beginning in the 1950s, however, that traditional pattern was replaced by an international migration system encompassing virtually all world regions. Three major immigration streams evolved: (1) from Latin America and the Caribbean countries primarily to the United States, and secondarily to Canada and Western Europe; (2) from south and east Asian countries primarily to the United States, Canada, and Australia, and secondarily to Western Europe; and (3) from North Africa, the Middle East, and southern Europe primarily to northwestern Europe, and secondarily to the United States and Canada. Basically the prevailing pattern of international migration was the movement of people from the developing societies, or Third World, primarily to the developed, industrialized societies (Figure 17.1).

481

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CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 483

Not only did the direction of world migration change but its scope expanded greatly and its pace accelerated. Whereas international migration had been sharply reduced during the 1930s because of a worldwide economic depression and then by the outbreak of World War II, in the 1950s immigration began anew with great impetus. Nothing comparable had occurred since the great migrations to North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, an estimated 232 million people are living in a country other than their country of origin, representing more than 3 percent of the world's population (United Nations, 2013 ). 1 Moreover, '- international surveys show that another 700 million people would like to move to another country permanently if they had the opportunity (Esipova and Ray, 2009). Hence, the flow of international migration is not likely to abate in the near future.

The expansion of immigration and the ensuing ethnic diversity throughout the world in recent decades are attributable primarily to two developments- uneven economic and social development among nations, and inter- and intrasocietal politi- cal conflicts.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT International migration has accelerated as a consequence of the widening gap between rich and poor nations. As with previous movements, the pri- mary driving force of contemporary global migration has been the push-pull factors of labor markets: workers migrate to those countries where jobs are more plentiful and lucrative. As noted in Chapters 5 and 16, this factor, more than anything else, accounts for the unprecedented levels of immigration to the United States and Canada during the past fifty years. As we will see, it also accounts for the upsurge in immigration to Western Europe.

The discrepancy between rich and poor nations became evident throughout the 1950s and 1960s when many former European colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean gained their independence. The economies of these newly independent countries were generally incapable of supporting rapidly growing populations, thereby creating a migration push. Most of the world's population growth since the end of World War II has occurred in the less developed countries. Moreover, gains in economic development made by many of those countries in the 1960s and 1970s slowed or reversed in the 1980s due to economic recession, growing debt, and internal confli~ts. These conditions produced further incentives for migration to the wealthier countries.

It has become evident, however, that in recent years immigrant movement has been taking place not only from the developing world to the nations of the developed world, but in the opposite direction as well. With rapidly expanding economies, many countries in Asia and Latin America- traditionally immigrant-sending regions- have become attractive immigrant destinations. This means that people continue to migrate to developed societies, but they are also moving within the devel- oping world (United Nations, 2013). With their economies suffering the effects of deep recession, the United States and Western Europe have begun to experience a slowdown in immigration. By contrast, India, for example, has been attracting entre- preneurs and highly skilled workers, particularly in its booming IT industry. Also,

1 Approximately half of today's international migrants are women, a marked change from the large-scale global migrations of the nineteenth century, when the majority were men (UNDP, 2009) .

484 PART III ETHNIC RELATIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

as they see greater economic opportunities elsewhere, many immigrants to the devel - oped world are increasingly returning to their countries of origin (Migration Info r- mation Source, 2011 ). As part of this global system, few countries today are nm either sources or recipients of immigrants.

POLITICAL CONFLICT Wars and internal political strife in many societies have created additional push factors stimulating global migration. From the late 1950s to the present, civil wars, internal uprisings, revolutions, and political violence in vario us forms created a worldwide flow of refugees unprecedented in modern history. Virtu - ally all parts of the developing world, as well as some countries in the developed world, were affected. Uprisings in the 1950s and 1960s against Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe, revolution in Cuba in 1959, civil wars in the 1970s and 198 0s in Central America, political violence in parts of the Caribbean and the South Amer- ican continent, the war in Vietnam, civil wars in many parts of Africa, the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, the Persian Gulf War in 1992, the collapse ~f the Soviet Empire in the late 1980s, wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq beginning in 2003, and political uprisings throughout the Middle East in recent years all contributed to the swell of refugees alongside the more con- ventional economic migrants.

IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC CHANGE IN WESTERN EUROPE

We have looked at the transformative effects of recent immigration to the Unite d States and Canada, but the impact of immigration and the creation of greater ethnic diversity hav€ been dramatically evident in Europe as well. In the past half century, many European nations, relatively homogeneous in the past, have been transformed into authentic multiethnic societies.

IMMIGRATION TRENDS IN EUROPE After World War II, workers from southern European countries-Italy, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Yugoslavia-or from newly independent former colonies such as Algeria and Indonesia migrated to Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Scandinavian countries as these nations experienced their postwar industrial expansion. A similar immigration occurred in Britain with the entry of thousands of people from the newly indepen- dent countries of the British Commonwealth-India, Pakistan, Jamaica, and others (Castles, 1992; Castles et al., 1984; Castles and Kosack, 1973; Castles and Miller, 2009; Garson, 1992; Paine, 1974). Labor was in short supply, and immigrants were therefore recruited to work in the economic reconstruction of these countries. This population movement accelerated in the 1960s, leaving previously homoge- neous Western European societies with substantial ethnic communities made up of immigrants of vastly different cultures and physical characteristics.

Although by the late 1970s immigration had been severely curtailed by restrictive measures, many of those who had come as temporary workers stayed on, establishing themselves and their families as permanent residents. In the late 1980s another surge in migration to Western Europe occurred, stimulated in large measure by the disinte- gration of the Soviet Union, but also by the influx of labor migrants and refugees from the developing nations of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. By the

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 485

mid-1990s, immigration to Western European countries once again tapered off, as governments introduced tighter entry procedures and controls (Castles and Miller, 2009; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] , 2001). But the infusion of immigrants had rendered a powerful demographic effect.

Today, Western Europe is home to fifty million immigrants, greater in size than the foreign-born populations of the United States and Canada (Eurostat, 2012). Ger- many alone has ten million and France more than seven million. Before the economic downturn beginning in 2007, Ireland and Italy, traditional immigrant-sending socie- ties, had become major immigrant destinations (Castles and Miller, 2009; Marrero, '- 2004; Muenz, 2006; Quinn, 2007). Table 17.1 shows that the percentage of foreign - born in several European countries has already reached a level comparable to that of the United States. The global recession of the late 2000s reduced the flow of immi- gration to these countries, but they remain home to about one-quarter of the world's migrant population.

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION When they began to arrive in the 1960s, immigrant workers were seen by the native populations as temporary residents who would re- turn to their home countries once their labor was no longer needed. This was made especially poignant in Germany, where immigrants were labeled Gastarbeiter, liter- ally "guest workers." Although the workers were a vital component of the host so- ciety's economic system, little effort was made to integrate them socially or culturally. They were marginal people, and their social conditions were reminiscent of those experienced by successive waves of European immigrants and southern

TABLE 17.1 I FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION OF SELECTED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

1960 2011""

Number % of Total Number % of Total (1000s) Population (1000s) Population

France 3,507 7.7 7,289 11.2

Germany '

2,003 2.8 9,807 12.0

Ireland 73 2.6 557 12.4

Italy 460 0.9 5,350 8.8

Netherlands 447 3.9 1,869 11.2

Norway 62 1.7 568 11.6

Spain 211 0.7 6,556 14.2

Sweden 296 4.0 1,384 14.7

Switzerland 714 13.4 1,940 24.7

United Kingdom 1,662 3.2 7,244 11.6

*Includes citizens of Europea n Union (EU) countries, who are lega lly permitted to move from one EU country to another.

Source: Eurostar (2012).

486 PART III ETHN IC RE LATI ONS IN CO MP AR ATI VE PERSPECT IVE

black migrants to northern U.S. industrial cities in the late nineteenth and ear,_ twentieth centuries. Their housing was substandard; their jobs were the lowest pay- ing and least prestigious; and, except for work, they did not participate in th society's mainstream institutions.

Today, the socioeconomic conditions of these minority ethnic groups are im- proving, but their absorption into German society has failed to advance very far (Saunders, 2010; Soysal, 2008; Woellert et al., 2009). Few of Germany's 3.5 million Turks have become citizens, even those who are German-born and know nothing or any other society. Until 2000, German citizenship was based on ancestry; that is. only those born into the German community could qualify as a German nation al. This meant that ethnic Germans, having lived, for ex ample, in Russia for many gen- erations and speaking no German, could obtain German citizenship merely by moving to Germany (which in fact many did in the 1990s) . By contrast, very few second- or third-generation Turks, having lived nowhere but Germany and speaking only German, were able to qualify for citizenship. A change in German laws in 20 00 making it easier for the foreign-born to obtain citizenship did not result in a signifi - cant increase in those naturalizing (Leise, 2007; Oezcan, 2004).

In France, by contrast, an assimilationist model has traditionally shaped the society's response to immigrants, awarding citizenship on the basis of birth in France, not ancestry. Technically, one qualifies as "French" so long as he or she speaks French and adopts French cultural norms and values. Although this would seem to have made the absorption of immigrants a less troublesome process, the re- sults have not been dramatically different from Germany's.

Most irn,migrant groups in all Western European societies- especially those from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East-continue to experience a high level of eco- nomic and social marginalization. Their unemployment rates are high, and they are overrepresented in unskilled, low-paying jobs (OECD, 2004 ). Furthermore, they live mostly in concentrated areas and participate only minimally in public life.

P REJUDICE AND DISCRI M INATION Immigrants in Western Europe have encountered high levels of prejudice and discrimination (Campani, 1993; Castles and Miller, 2009 ; Finn, 2002; Halasz, 2010; Peach and Glebe, 1995; Skellington, 1996). Having been relatively homogeneous nations, Western European countries lacked the historical experience of the United States, Canada, and other traditional immigrant societies in absorbing large numbers of ethnic newcomers. The result has been, at best, a be- grudging tolerance of immigrants and, at worst, outbreaks of violence. In Germany, physical attacks against immigrants by the early 1990s had become commonplace; in France, North Africans, who compose fully half the immigrant population, are the primary targets. Racially motivated incidents have occurred even in countries with fewer immigrants and solid traditions of tolerance, such as Italy and Sweden.

In some ways the impact of increasing ethnic diversity on Western European so- cieties in recent years has been even more profound than on the United States, and its social, political, and economic consequences have been more wrenching. Questions concerning the social and economic integration of large and distinct ethnic minorities are now in the forefront of political discourse throughout Europe. Should a version of multiculturalism (as in Canada and Australia) continue to be advanced or should stronger efforts be made to assimilate these groups (Vasta, 2007)?

CH APT ER 17 GLOBA L ISSUES O F ETH N IC CON FLI CT AND CH AN GE 487

The fact that these new ethnic populations contain large Muslim communities has given added strength to anti-immigrant movements . Most of the Netherlands' immigrants, for example, are from the Middle East or North Africa and are Muslim. The presence of people radically different culturally has created a situation in which Muslim immigrants generally have been viewed as a social and political problem; this, in turn, has spurred anti-immigrant, often racist, views and actions (Duffy, 2004; Erlanger, 2011; Halasz, 2010; Sniderman and Hagendoorn, 2007). These reached a climax in 2004 when a Dutch filmmaker was brutally murdered by a radi- cal Islamist after he had produced a film critical of the Muslim treatment of women (Buruma, 2005; Saunders, 2004).

The presence of millions of Muslims in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and other Western European countries has set off virulent social debates regarding the compatibility of Islamic cultures with mainstream cultures and the social integration of these immigrants (Benton and Nielsen, 2013; Eriksen, 2013; Roy, 2005) . Whereas most governments have committed to efforts at expanding social and economic op- portunities for immigrants, sharp debate has arisen over how-or whether- the newcomers should be integrated. Several governments in 2010, for example, includ- ing those of France and Belgium, began to legislate restrictions on one of the most readily visible of Islamic ways, the full-face veil. These measures met with contro- versy but were mostly supported by the native population (Cody, 2010). 2

Many believe that the new groups, particularly Muslims, are simply too different culturally and are not prepared to blend into the mainstream. Hence, fears have arisen that European cultures are being threatened, and anti-immigrant sentiment has intensified accordingly. Extreme right-wing parties have called' for immigrants to be repatriated to their countries of origin, but few parties at any point on the po- litical spectrum have not openly advocated, at minimum, a halt to further immigra- tion. As was noted in Chapter 12, anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination in the United States has paralleled its development in Western Europe, particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9111. But it has been far more turbulent in Western Europe. Moreover, the rise of political parties whose major objectives are to limit or repatri- ate Muslim immigrants has not had an American counterpart.

T HE PERM ANENCE OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY Regardless of efforts to limit immigration, sizable ethnic populations will remain a permanent part of Western European societies. The children and grandchildren of the original immigrants are European-born or reared, and for them a society of origin, or "mother country," is only an abstraction. More- over, it would be difficult for the economies of Germany, France, and other countries in the region to function without foreign workers . With extremely low birthrates, these societies can fill their future labor needs only through substantial immigration. Western Europe is a central link in the emergent global economy in which the flow of capital and goods and, increasingly, workers is unhindered by national boundaries.

2 Defenders of the ban on wearing the full-face veil ha ve argued that the aim of the measure is not to limit religious freedom but is essential to assure public security and uphold principles of social integration. A leading French advocate of the ban maintains that covering the face makes "identification or participation in economic and social life virtually impossible" (Cope, 2010 ).

488 PART IIJ ETH N IC RELATIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPE CTIVE

As in North America, the tendency toward greater ethnic and racial diversity, there- fore, appears irreversible. These societies are now permanently multiethnic. It is rea- sonable to expect, therefore, that for many years ethnic issues will be in the forefr mr of the politics of most Western European countries .

ETHNIC NATIONALISM AND CONFLICT: SOME CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLES

Most people in North America have only a vague understanding of political and so- cial affairs that occur outside the boundaries of their own society. But even those who have kept only casually informed of world events in the last thirty years could not help but become aware of the increasing level of ethnic nationalism, accompa- nied by political conflict, that has erupted in various parts of the world. Some of these situations have been dealt with through peaceful political means; others ha ve been disastrously violent.

As the world watched the dramatic end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, ex- pectations were high that a new era of global tranquility was on the horizon. With the political map of the world changing frequently and rapidly, however, it became obvious that a new force had been unleashed, one that augured not a more peaceful globe but one enmeshed in ethnic conflict. Indeed, in the early twenty-first century ethnic nationalism appears to be the world's most ubiquitous, intractable, and dev- astating sociopolitical force.

THE RESURGENCE OF ETHNIC NATIONALISM

Nationalism, as a form of political and social expression, emerged in the eighteenth century with the appearance of the first modern nation-states in Europe and the United States (Kohn, 1944 ). Loyalties to family, kin, tribe, or community were ex- tended so as to encompass entire peoples, marked off by common language, religion, and other cultural elements. Benedict Anderson (2006) has referred to these emer- gent nations as "imagined communities, " social constructions of modern history, but amazingly powerful in claiming people's loyalty. In the twentieth century, and especially after the end of World War II, nationalism spread throughout the worl d among formerly colonized peoples intent on achieving political self-determination. It also advanced among well-established nations where diverse ethnic groups as- serted their identity and sought greater social and political autonomy.

In its modern-world expressions, nationalism has essentially been of two types- civic and ethnic.

CIVI C NATIONALISM Civic nationalism, Michael lgnatieff writes, "maintains that the na- tion should be composed of all those-regardless of race, color, creed, gender, language, or ethnicity- who subscribe to the nation's political creed" (1995:6). In societies that have chosen this form of nationalism, people possess equal political and social rights and choose to be members of the nation, along with others-regardless of ethnicity- who share broadly similar beliefs and values. Citizens may be members of various

CHAP TER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHN IC CON FLI CT AND CHANGE 4 89

ethnic groups, but what binds them together is not their ethnicity but a common belief in and loyalty to the idea of the nation as a political entity, encompassing everyone who pledges allegiance to it. American patterns of nationalism, as well as those of most other immigrant societies, have historically been expressed along these lines.

ETHNIC NATIONALISM Ethnic nationalism (or as some have referred to it, "ethnonation- alism"), by contrast, holds that people's allegiance is to an ethnic group or nationality into which they have been born or assigned, not to a larger political entity encompass- ing many ethnic groups or nationalities. Here, "an individual's deepest attachments are inherited, not chosen" (Ignatieff, 1995:7-8). Basic to ethnic nationalism is the notion that people cannot join the nation simply by living within it or even by accept- ing its cultural system. One is a member of the nation only through heritage, and those who cannot claim that ethnic heritage do not qualify for membership. Those who are part of the ethnic nation, notes Aviel Roshwald, "are bound to one another by puta- tive ties of blood, not just by juridical categories or ideological affinities" (2006:254). In the past several decades, every continent on the globe has witnessed cases of intense ethnic conflict in one or more countries, provoked by ideologies of ethnic nationalism.

A common form of ethnic nationalism in the contemporary world involves the as- sertion of national identity by minority ethnic groups and their challenges to majority- group dominance. Within multiethnic societies, a group or groups see themselves as fundamentally different culturally from the dominant group and from the rest of the society. They may view themselves not only as different but as culrurally and politi- cally oppressed. Hence, they may seek greater autonomy within or independence from the nation-state of which they are a part. (Recall "secessionist minorities," de- scribed in Chapter 2.) Political and cultural movements by Basques and Catalans in Spain; Scots in the United Kingdom; Flemings in Belgium; Tamils in Sri Lanka; Ibo in Nigeria; Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey; Chechens in Russia; and, as we have seen, Quebecers in Canada all illustrate this form of ethnic nationalism.

By the same token, a dominant ethnic group may try to reduce the economic, political, or cultural influence of another ethnic group that it defines as inimical to its interests or dangerous to the nation. In such cases, the dominant group seeks to entrench its po~er by further subordinating, expelling, or perhaps even exterminat- ing that rival group. This version of ethnic nationalism gave rise to horrific genocides in the twentieth century, including the Nazi extermination of the European Jewish population and, more recently, the mass killings in Bosnia and Rwanda. Let's look at these latter two cases, each the outcome of extreme ethnic nationalism.

THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE

HrsTORICAL BACKGROUND Rwanda is a tiny country in central Africa which, like many others on the African continent, is the product of European colonialism and its after- math. In the early 1900s, both Germany and Belgium sought control over the area that eventually became Rwanda and the neighboring country of Burundi. After World War I, Germany lost control of its African colonies, and Belgium emerged as the dominant colonial power in the region. In the fashion of classic colonialism, Rwanda and Burundi were exploited for their natural resources, specifically coffee and tea production.

'·

490 PART III ETH N IC RELA TIO NS IN COM PARATIVE PERS PE CTI VE

When Americans or other Westerners try to make sense of mass killings am on:_ rival ethnic groups, the usual explanation is that these are "ancient" rivalries thaz "naturally" or "inevitably" result in periodic hostilities. That is rarely the case, how- ever, and the Rwandan genocide illustrates this quite well. Its two major ethni.: groups, Tutsi and Hutu, both had drifted into the region over several centuries so neither could claim to be the society's original people. 3 Cultural differences betwee the two were not sharply evident. In fact, they shared a common language and reli- gion. Physical differences-Tutsi taller, Hutu shorter-though originally serving as a rough ethnic marker, had also begun to fade as intermarriage occurred increasingly. In brief, prior to European colonization neither group saw the other in ethnic terms. As sociologist Michael Mann has described them, "Hutus and Tutsis have not been fighting each other since time immemorial" (2005:432).

As the Rwandan state developed, however, an ethnic stratification system evolved, with Tutsis, though only 15 percent of the population, emerging as a rulin elite. As a means of controlling the population, the Belgians duhng their colonial reign encouraged and solidified this ethnic division in a kind of "divide and rule~ strategy. Tutsis were placed in strategic positions in the colonial administration, and Hutus became an ethnic minority despite their numerical dominance (Eltringham, 2004; Human Rights Watch, 2006; Orth, 2006; Semujanga, 2003).

Through a distorted and racialized reading of the history and anthropology of the region, the Belgian colonialists had come to see the Tutsi as a "superior race" to the Hutu. This was a view that, not surprisingly, the Tutsis adopted readily. On the other hand, the Hutl:l came to be seen as an inferior people who deserved their second-class treatment. As the historian Gerard Prunier writes,

As a consequence they [Hutu] began to hate all Tutsi, even those who were just as po or as they, since all Tutsi were members of the "superior race," something which was to translate itself in the post- Second World War vocabulary as "feudal exploiters." (1995 :39)

In 1926, the Belgian colonial regime issued ethnic identity cards, thereby establishing an official basis of the ethnic division.

Social and cultural differences between Tutsis and Hutus were, then, essentially political creations of the colonial Belgians who used these putative group character- istics to solidify their control over the population. A racial ideology had been crafted from the myths of the white colonialists, and it would come to shape the relations between the two peoples. The time bomb had been set, as Prunier describes it, and it was only a matter of when it would go off.

Intertribal clashes erupted periodically, many of which resulted in widespread killing and destruction. In 1959, when the Belgians began to leave, Hutus overthrew the Tutsi elite and established a Hutu-led republic. Twenty thousand Tutsis were killed and three hundred thousand driven into exile mostly into the neighboring countries of Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda. This was a seminal event for both sides: Hutus saw it as a glorious triumph over past injustices, whereas Tutsis saw it as a criminal action. In the several years afterward, Tutsi attempts to regain control

3 A third indigeno us tribe in Rwanda, the Twa, was very sma ll (less than 1 percent) and pla yed essentially no political role.

CH APT ER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHN IC CON FLI CT AN D CH ANGE 49 1

of Rwanda were repelled, but Tutsi leadership in exile never relinquished hope of eventually restoring their power. Meanwhile, waves of interethnic killings in both Rwanda and Burundi continued ceaselessly.

The opportunity for Tutsis to reclaim power in Rwanda came in 1990 when the Tutsi political organization in Uganda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), launched an invasion across the border. After a long period of fighting and under pressure from domestic opposition groups, President Juvenal Habyarimana agreed to negoti- ate a settlement with the RPF and create a power-sharing government that would re- place the one-party system from which Tutsis had been excluded. Hutu extremists saw this new political arrangement as a dire threat to their well-being, however, and feared a return of Tutsi dominance. To deal with the perceived threat, they de- cided to literally exterminate the Tutsi in Rwanda.

THE G ENOCIDE In 1994, the plane carrying the Hutu president of Rwanda was shot down, killing him and others on board. This was a catalytic moment, setting in mo- tion the genocide that would follow for the next six weeks.

What ensued was a virtual orgy of killing. Tutsis were killed only because they were Tutsi, no matter what their political leanings. But murdered as well were thou- sands of Hutus who were seen as political enemies or sympathizers to opposition parties. Others were simply caught up in the murderous frenzy. The intensity of the killings reached a level of almost unimaginable proportions. Journalist David Rieff recounts the killing as it began and gained momentum:

Over the radio, the call kept going out for the extermination of every Tutsi man, woman and child in Rwanda, and of the Hutus who opposed this final solution. In the villages, people were hunted down. They died by the tens of thousands in their homes, in their fields and in the churches ... in which they had sought refuge. And no matter how many died, the radios kept blaring out the calls for all good Hutus to kill the imyenzi, the "cockroaches," who were polluting the Rwandan nation and preventing it from living in peace. (1996:31)

The popular view of the physical differences between Hutu and Tutsi- that the former were generally shorter and stockier and the latter taller and slimmer-led to killing merely on the basis of one's appearance. But because of the frequent intermar- riage between' the two groups, there were many Hutu-looking Tutsi and Tutsi- looking Hutu. The ethnic identity cards were used by Hutu gangs to determine who was Tutsi and thus to be killed, but merely the appearance of Tutsi ethnic identity could be sufficient cause. "In towns or along the highways," Prunier explains, "Hutu who looked like Tutsi were very often killed, their denials and proffered cards with the 'right' ethnic mention being seen as a typical Tutsi deception" (1995:249) .

No one was safe and no one, if identified as Tutsi, was spared. Neighbors killed neighbors; relatives killed relatives; teachers turned over their own students to the militia or even did the killing themselves; hospitals, schools, or churches proved no safe havens for those trying to escape death. Philip Gourevitch describes how militia men, often drunk or fortified with drugs looted from pharmacies, were bused from massacre to massacre. As an added incentive to the killers , "Tutsis' belongings were parceled out in advance- the radio, the couch, the goat, the opportunity to rape a young girl" (1998:115). And the horrors of the actual killings demonstrated the utter

492 PART Ill ETHN I C RELATIONS IN COMPARAT IVE PERSPECTIVE

depravity of which humans are capable: chopping off body parts and other mutila- tions; sexual abuse of women before their murder; throwing live babies into pit la- trines or smashing their heads against a rock; forcing family members to kill other family members; burning people alive as their relatives were forced to watch-all o - these horrific acts were documented by the survivors (Gourevitch, 1998; Prunier. 1995).

Not all Hutu, of course, succumbed to their ideological passions or obediently carried out orders to kill. Numerous cases of heroism on the part of Hutus and at- tempts to protect potential Tutsi victims were also recorded. But the magnitude and level of brutality of the Rwandan genocide could, in modern history, be compared only to the Nazi Holocaust of the 1940s. Unlike the highly systematic and technolog- ically sophisticated killing machine created by the Nazis, however, much of the ac- tual killing in Rwanda was done with crude weapons, mostly Jllachetes. But its objective was met: the elimination of three-quarters of Rwanda's Tutsi population in less than three months. No one will ever know the number actually killed, though most estimates are in the range of eight hundred thousand to a million.

THE ROLE OF IDEOLOGY The Rwandan tragedy illustrates the crucial role of ideology in kindling ethnic conflict. Hutu leaders certainly saw themselves benefiting in terms of power and wealth from elimination of the Tutsis and instilled those visions to other Hutus who had hopes of obtaining land and belongings of the victims. Fear, as well, played a strong role in-the genocide as the Hutu population had been subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda warning that Tutsis were determined to kill or subju- gate all Hutus. >Others were coerced into killing, fearing the consequences of refusing to do so (Mironko, 2006) . But in the final analysis, Tutsi and Hutu killed each other, as Prunier writes, "more to upbraid a certain vision they ha[d] of themselves, of the others and of their place in the world than because of material interests" (1995:40 ). Hutu propaganda stressed the inherent evil of the Tutsis. Furthermore, Hutus, in this view, were the " natural" people of Rwanda who had been continually exploited and impoverished by the Tutsi (Mamdani, 2002; Verwimp, 2006). These ideas were con- tinually disseminated through newspapers and, especially, radio starting in 1990.

The strength of the racial ideology that had taken hold of the Hutu majority be- came horrendously evident. Killing, in this view, was an act of self-defense, and kill- ing women and children was perfectly logical if, as they had been taught to believe, the future was at stake. The power of the racist ideology in this case is further evi- denced by the fact that much of the killing was carried out by ordinary peasants in addition to militia and other military units. The latter could not have accomplished the enormity of the slaughter in such a relatively brief time had they not had the co-

., operation of the civilian population. At the genocide's peak, eight thousand were killed per day, a rate faster than the Nazi Holocaust (Lovgren, 2004) .

A TENUOUS PEACE How does a society recover from such a powerfully destructive event as the Rwandan genocide? More than two decades after the events of 1994, ethnic conflict has been reduced to occasional forays of Hutu partisans across the border. Rwanda appears to be orderly and, by comparison with other central African countries, prospering. A Tutsi-led government is in power, though there is no effective opposition party.

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 493

An ambitious program of national unity has been promoted, and efforts have been made to reintegrate into the society many Hutus who had taken part in the kill- ings (Gourevitch, 2009; Lovgren, 2004; McGreal, 2013). For several years, village courts heard testimony from participants and victims with the purpose, as described by Gourevitch, of "establishing a collective accounting of the truth of the crimes in each place where they were committed." By eliciting confessions of the murders, it was hoped that some degree of reconciliation would be brought about. On the sur- face that program seems to have yielded a tenuous ethnic peace. However, the enor- mity of the crime created so many victims and perpetrators that, as the current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has admitted, "People's hearts and minds need some time to heal. A very long time indeed. They will probably need a whole gener- ation, and the memories will keep lingering" (quoted in Gourevitch, 2009:42).

THE B REAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA: A FAILED ATIEMPT AT CORPORATE PLURALISM

Yugoslavia represents the failed attempt of a multiethnic society to construct some form of corporate pluralism. As we saw in Chapter 4, corporate pluralism is a situa- tion in which a number of ethnic groups coexist in a loosely bounded system. These culturally and perhaps linguistically distinct groups are linked together in a federa- tion in which each is recognized officially by a central government that attempts to distribute national political power and economic resources proportionally among them. Each, however, enjoys some degree of political autonomy. ,

In such cases, each ethnic group also usually occupies a distinct territory or geo- graphical area, where it becomes the dominant group. H~wever, these ethnically concentrated populations usually spill over or are dispersed to other areas of the country, where a majority of the population is composed of members of another eth- nic group. As a result, minority ethnic groups develop in those territories. When cor- porate pluralism breaks down, the federation begins to crumble, and each ethnic territory seeks full political independence. As ethnic divisions intensify, each ethnic group attempts to maximize its territory and to embrace group members who are living as ethnic minorities in other areas. Previously subdued historic rivalries are re- generated, and intergroup hostilities heighten, perhaps leading to violent confronta-

' tions. The Yugoslav situation in the 1990s illustrates this process vividly.

YUGOSLAVIA AS A CORPORATE PLURA LISTIC SYSTEM For almost thirty-five years following World War II, this ethnically disparate and politically divided country had been held together delicately by Josip Broz Tito (usually referred to simply as Tito), a World War II hero who led the victorious Partisan guerrilla army against the Nazis. After the war, Tito emerged as a unifying authoritarian figure, acting as prime min- ister and later as president. Though an avowed communist, Tito moved Yugoslavia toward nonalignment and away from the Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.

Tito's strong rule and ability to bring the various ethnic factions together had created a multiethnic society that fulfilled the major features of corporate pluralism. Yugoslavia was made up of six republics and two provinces, each different in social and political makeup and history, and each dominated by a particular ethnic group. Political and social institutions were carefully crafted to preserve a sense of ethnic

494 PART Ill ETHNIC RELATIONS IN C0~1PARATI VE PERSPECTIVE

balance and fairness among the various components. None of those measures, how- ever, created more than superficial ethnic harmony. With Tito's death in 1980, the rancor that had been simmering beneath the surface gradually intensified, eruptinc into full-blown warfare in 1991.

THE D1ssoLUTION OF THE YUGOSLAV FEDERATI ON With the end of the Tito regime, ethni rivalries previously held in check reemerged, stirred by political leaders in each republic.

The major ethnic split was between the republics of Croatia and Slovenia on the one hand, and Serbia on the other. The former are both Roman Catholic an d strongly oriented culturally toward Western Europe; Serbia, in contrast, is Orthod ox: Christian in religion and more culturally attuned to Eastern Eu~ope. With the col- lapse of the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1990, Croatia and Slovenia each mo ved toward independence and seceded from the federation a year later. This left Yugosla- via composed mainly of Serbia. The smaller and less economically viable republic took sides or became pawns in the ensuing confrontations that developed as the three major ethnic states sought to establish boundaries that each interpreted as cor- responding to their historical ethnic dominance.

The Serbs and Croats emerged as the major ethnic rivals. The enmity th at erupted in the early 1990s was in some ways an extension of animosities that had run deep for many d-ecades. During World War II, fighting in Yugoslavia occurred not only with the German invaders but also among the various ethnic factions them- selves, notabfy between Serbs and Croats, who took opposing sides during the Na zi occupation. More than 1.5 million Yugoslavs died during the war, most as a result of interethnic fighting. Hitler established a puppet fascist regime in Croatia, run by the Ustasha Party, that sought to purge the country of Serbs (and, of course, Jews though they were a relatively small population). Hundreds of thousands of Ser bs were executed by the Ustasha regime (Bennett, 1995). Following the war, these sav- age killings were bitterly remembered by the Serbs; in their minds all Croats, whether they had been Ustashas or not, were associated with the killings.

Similar actions took place during World War II in Serbia, but against resident Croatians. Serbian guerrilla bands called Chetniks fought against the Nazis (and thus the Ustashas) but also oppressed and slaughtered many Croatians. Because of the atrocities on both sides, Serbs and Croats found themselves in a perpetual state of mutual distrust (Schopflin, 1993 ). Indeed, so bloody had been the conflict inside Yugoslavia during World War II and so venomous were the emotions it created on all sides that, as the journalist Misha Glenny accurately forecast, "were it ever to re- vive, it was always likely to be merciless " (1993:171).

THE ROLE OF PROPAGA;\;DA AND IDEOLOGY Some contend that Yugoslavia's attempt at cor- porate pluralism was always precarious and, without Tito, was doomed. Others, however, maintain that it did not fall apart of its own volition but rather was de- stroyed by a few people who incited ethnic emotions that served their political inter- ests, especially Serb president Slobodan Milosevic (Bennett, 1995; Rieff, 1995).

Tito's death was accompanied by an economic crisis, which stirred a new wave of ethnic nationalism in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia, the latter another of the Yugo- slav republics, about half of whose population consisted of secular Muslims.

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ET HNIC CONF LI CT AND CHANGE 495

Intergroup rivalries were promoted through propaganda campaigns in the media . Serbian television, for example, frequently showed films of the atrocities committed by the Croatian Ustashas during World War II (Human Rights Watch, 1995). In Bosnia, ethnic passions were aroused by accusations against the Muslim population, which was portrayed as a threat to the very survival of Christian Serbs and Croats.

At the outbreak of the conflict, the Serbs were not only the largest of Yugosla- via's ethnic groups but the most dispersed, living in all areas . Serbia alleged that Serbs living outside the Serbian nation-that is, in other parts of Yugoslavia- were victims of oppression, especially in Croatia and Bosnia. Serb leaders and the media engendered fear among Croatian and Bosnian Serbs that, if the territories in which ~ they were living were to become independent states, they would be divested of their rights and property (Bennett, 1995). Hence, the first wave of war, starting in 1991, essentially became one in which these minority populations were "liberated" by Serbs.

ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BosNIA The most severe ethnic war within the now-shattered Yugoslavia occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina (usually referred to simply as Bosnia) . When Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, Bosnian Serbs re- fused to accept this arrangement, preferring instead to remain part of Yugoslavia (which by that time was essentially only Serbia). Thus began the efforts of the Bosnian Serbs, aided by Serbia itself, to drive Muslims from the territory. Although they lived in all of Yugoslavia's republics , Muslims were heavily concentrated in Bosnia. Sarajevo, the republic's capital and largest city, was not only heavily Muslim in numbers but culturally as well. The Bosnian Muslims should not be seen as com- parable to Muslims in other parts of the world. They are secular·, having only a dis - tant link with other more traditional Islamic populations. Most are Slavs (that is, Serbs or Croats) who were converted to Islam during the five centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia (Glenny, 1993). M ost, moreover, are Sunni Muslims, not in sympathy with fundamentalist groups in the Middle East and North Africa. Like the Serbs and Croats, Bosnian Muslims speak a variant of Serbo-Croatian.

The campaign waged by the Serbs in Bosnia was referred to as "ethnic cleansing." This meant killing Bosnian Muslims and Croatians, or driving them from their homes, in order to prepare their areas for a future "Greater Serbia ." In addition to the Serb attack, the Croats also launched an attack on western Bosnia, driving out Serbs and Bosnians.

THE END oF ETHN IC HAR:l tONY An irony of the Yugoslav conflict is that Bosnia , the area affected most severely in the early 1990s, had for decades been an example of ethnic harmony, a society of "pluralism and tolerance" (Rieff, 1995) . Its three major groups- Serbs, Croats, and Muslims-had coexisted peacefully and had created a relatively integrated society. In Sarajevo, Croatian Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox churches stood side by side with Muslim mosques, ethnically integrated neighborhoods were commonplace, and intermarriage among the three populations was not at all unusual.

Neighbors and family members, who had been comfortably integrated just weeks before, voiced puzzlement at how quickly their social harmony had dissipated and had been reduced to vicious and bloody hatred. "Growing up before the war

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496 PART Ill ET HNI C RELATIONS IN COMPARAT IVE PER SPE CT IVE

here, my boys played with all the neighborhood kids," said a Serbian woman living in Bosnia. "We never knew who was Georgy and who was Muhammed. And I baked cakes for them all. Now neighbors we've known for years don't greet us any- more" (Sudetic, 1994:8A). So intense and bitter were the feelings that surfaced among those of the different ethnic groups that people were driven to exchange their homes with each other to create more ethnically homogeneous areas. Later, as Serb took control of parts of Bosnia, Croats and Muslims were driven from their homes which were given to Serb refugees who had fled similar incursions in other areas by Croats or Muslims. Often, as Serbs or Croats advanced on each other, houses of those fleeing were summarily destroyed. lgnatieff describes what he saw as he drove through ravaged villages:

Toward Novska, you pass Serb house after Serb house, neatly dynamited, beside undis- turbed Croat houses and gardens. When you turn toward Lipik, it is the turn of all the Croat houses to be dynamited or firebombed, nex t to their untouched Serb neighbors. Mile upon mile, the deadly logic of ethnic cleansing unfolds. (1995:35)

Much more dreadful actions were to occur, however, as the fighting intensified. Indeed, quickly the hostilities between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims degenerated into the most ferocious conflict in recent European history. Each side accused the other of atrocities, and in many cases these were confirmed by the United Nations and other nonparticipating observers. The most horrific actions, however, were committed by Serbs in Bosnia as part of their campaign of ethnic cleansing. Mass executions, rape camps, savage mutilations and torture, and wanton destruction of homes, churches and mosques fill~d news reports as the Bosnian war intensified starting in 1993. One year later, the United Nations documented 187 mass graves, each containing the bodies of between three thousand and five thousand Muslims murdered by Serbs.

The horrors of the Yugoslav war were eerily reminiscent of the genocide com- mitted by the Nazis fifty years earlier. The massacre in the city of Srebrenica wa s one of the more thoroughly documented of incidents that seemed so monstrous as to border on the surreal. Srebrenica had served as a United Nations refuge where more than forty thousand people had taken shelter from the war. After it was over- run by the Bosnian Serb army, the aftermath was described as the worst war crime in Europe since World War II. Although no one can be sure how many were slaugh- tered, American intelligence analysts estimated between five thousand and eight thousand. A few survivors as well as Serbian civilians living in surrounding villages recounted the mass killings. Hundreds were herded into trucks, taken to a field, and shot; others were jammed into a warehouse where they were killed with automatic rifles and shoulder-held grenade launchers. Mass graves of the victims were uncov- ered later (Engelberg and Weiner, 1995). This incident more than any other prompted the military and diplomatic efforts of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stop the war. But it was only one of many such massacres of entire villages.

Muslims were victimized as well by Croats seeking to secure what they claimed was their territory. As with the Serbs, a policy of ethnic cleansing produced grue- some incidents of terror and brutality. One such affair, documented by UN investi- gators, occurred in late 1993. A so-called death platoon of a few dozen Croatian paramilitaries entered the village of Stupni Do, shouting "Let's kill the Muslims "

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 497

and "Where are all the pretty girls for us to rape? Bring them out." A journalist de- scribes what ensued:

With avenging fury , the Croatian death squad crushed the skulls of Muslim children, slit the throats of women and machine-gunned whole families at close range. The next morning Croatian reinforcements finished up the job, torching all 52 houses and dynamiting the community's one small mosque. In less than 48 hours Stupni Do simply ceased to exist. (Nordland, 1993:48-49)

Although Bosnia suffered the most appalling conditions and was the site of the .. most intense fighting, other regions were affected to a lesser degree in much the same way. Following the Croatian invasion of the Krajina, an area of Croatia populated mostly by Serbs, a hundred thousand Serbs fled what they feared was the Croatian version of ethnic cleansing. Like the Bosnian Muslims, the Krajina Serbs expressed the same disbelief that former Croat friends and neighbors with whom they had lived together and even intermarried for decades could so viciously turn on them without provocation. "I had a very good friend, a Catholic Croat," said a refugee Serb. "I would have given blood for him. But three years ago, he said: 'I like you a lot. But please don't come and see me anymore. My neighbors object to a Serb visiting.'" Another put it: " I'm sorry I didn't burn down my house. I'm sorry I left it to the Croats to burn" (Perlez, 1995a, 1995b).

RESOLUTION AND LEGACY In late 1995, after three and a half years of war, a fragile peace was established-largely through the efforts of the United States-that divided Bosnia into semiautonomous regions along ethnic lines. Under the terms of the agreement, Bosnia was split into two parts-a Muslim-Croat federation made up of 51 percent of the territory, and a Bosnian Serb republic, with 49 percent. NATO forces were deployed to enforce the treaty. Although this temporarily stopped the killing, few seemed to feel that anything short of a more complete partition of Bosnia would secure a long-term resolution to the conflict (Mearsheimer and Van Evera, 1995).

The legacy of the war was that the ethnic mosaic of Yugoslavia ' s population had been radically- probably irreversibly-altered and interethnic relations reduced to mutual fear and antipathy. In Bosnia, the most severely affected region, at least two hundred thousand people had been killed or had disappeared; almost half of its pre- war population of 4 .2 million had been displaced. This, it should be remembered, had been Yugoslavia's most ethnically diverse region. Wholesale population trans- fers occurred in parts of Croatia and Serbia as well. Most Croats living in Serbia were forced to leave, as were Serbs living in Croatia. Refugees fleeing regions as they repeatedly changed hands reached epic proportions, unseen in Europe since World War II. As many as three million people were driven from their homes. Those brave enough to try to return to their homes in areas now dominated by the oppos- ing ethnic group found them occupied by members of that group, who themselves had been expelled from their homes in other areas.

For those who endured the war, a residue of distrust, resentment, and terror on all sides made the reemergence of interethnic tolerance and accommodation improb- able for many decades in the future. Sarajevo, previously the showpiece of ethnic harmony, symbolized this legacy of ethnic hatred. There, Serbs refused to accept

498 PART III ETHNIC RELATIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Muslim governance of the city, as the peace agreement provided, and thousands lef;: their homes in protest, some burning them in a final act of defiance. Some even ex- humed the remains of dead family members to carry with them, fearing that their graves would be desecrated. In Mostar, another of Bosnia's major cities, two sets o: nearly all institutions- schools, hospitals, public transportation- were operating in accordance with the almost total ethnic segregation that had been created (Wo od. 2004a).

In effect, Bosnia was left a country partitioned into tightly enclosed ethnic en- claves, reflecting a system of cultural and educational apartheid (Cohen, 2005: Engelhart, 2012a; Hedges, 1996, 1997). The ethnic diversity that had characterized Bosnia before the war was replaced by ethnic homogeneity-Serbs living in Ser b areas, Croats in Croat areas, and Muslims in Muslim areas; coexistence had essen- tially been obliterated.

Kosovo: EXPANSION OF THE YucosLAV CONFLICT In the late 1990s, the Yugoslav conflict, w hich had centered mainly in Bosnia, took a new turn. Kosovo, a province of Serbia became the focus of severe ethnic fighting. For Serbs, Kosovo represented the birth- place of Serbian culture; thus it was of great symbolic importance, even though Ser bs living there were only a small numerical minority. It is an area where, in the coun- try' s mythology, Serbs held off the Ottoman Turks from invading Europe in the late fourteenth century. The most important monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church are also located there.

Two factors made the Kosovo situation different from Bosnia. The Bosnian population before the 1990s had been relatively intermixed ethnically. Most of Kosovo, however, had been made up of ethnic Albanians- about 90 percent of its population of 2.2 million- with the minority Serb population segregated fro m neighboring Albanians. Very little social interaction occurred between the two popu- lations, and hostile stereotypes thrived among both (Calic, 2000). Second, Bosnia had attained independence before the outbreak of the civil war there, whereas ind e- pendence was the key issue for Albanians- mostly Muslim-in Kosovo: most de- sired that the province either become fully independent or become part of a greater Albania.

Under Tito, Kosovo had enjoyed much autonomy even though it remained a Yugoslav province. In 1989, the Milosevic government revoked much of Kosovo 's autonomy, making it an integral part of Serbia and imposing repressive rule. Ethnic Albanians lost their jobs to minority Serbs, Albanian-language schools were closed, and the police and Serb army became an occupying force (IOM, 1999; Kinzer, 1992) . In the early 1990s, Kosovar Albanian guerrillas-the Kosovo Liberatio n Army (KLA)- launched a movement for the province's independence from Serbia. Starting in 1998 the Serbs began an offensive intended to crush the insurgents, com- parable in many ways to earlier Serb actions in Bosnia referred to as "ethnic cleansing."

In early 1999, the fighting in Kosovo entered a new dimension. NATO coun- tries, which had acted to stop the Bosnian conflict, only after its horrors had become hideously apparent, seemed determined to avoid a similar outcome in Kosovo. Peace talks were initiated and an agreement was offered to the Milosevic regime in Serbia and the rebel forces in Kosovo to end the fighting. The agreement was rejected by the

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 499

Serbs, and NA TO subsequently began a seventy-eight-day bombing campaign against Serb forces in Kosovo.

The pattern of atrocities that had so grotesquely characterized Serb actions in Bosnia was replicated in Kosovo- mass murders, destruction of entire villages, rap- ing and looting on a massive scale. As a UN war crimes tribunal later explained in its indictment of Yugoslav president Milosevic, the campaign of terror and destruction against Albanian civilians was designed to change the ethnic balance in Kosovo by purging the province of as much of its Albanian population as possible. Within weeks, 90 percent of Kosovo's Albanians were driven from their homes and towns. Most fled to surrounding countries, creating a refugee crisis comparable to that brought about by the Bosnian war. Although by comparison with Bosnia the death and destruction were less expansive, the savagery was no less gruesome and shock- ing: Serb attackers intent on destroying and looting went from village to village in killing sprees, sparing no one- women, children, infants, the elderly- and torching every house and building in sight (Finn et al., 1999; Kifner, 1999).

At the cessation of fighting in July 1999, war crimes investigators estimated that at least ten thousand people had been slaughtered by Serbian forces during the three- month war, and newly discovered mass graves were being reported daily. The true death toll will probably never be known because many bodies were burned or hid- den in an effort by Serbs to destroy evidence or were simply buried by relatives with- out informing Western officials.

Following removal of the Serbian army and paramilitaries, ethnic Albanians be- gan to return, under the protection of NA TO forces that now occupied the province. Not unexpectedly, violent recriminations, including killings and the burning of entire neighborhoods, were carried out by Albanians against Ko_sovo's Serb population. As the municipal administrator for one ethnically divided town-an American who had served in Bosnia- explained, "There is a degree of hate here that is far greater than anything I found in Bosnia; and also a degree of fear. I am searching for a word that means vitriolic squared" (quoted in Smith, 2000:15). Within a few months, three- quarters of the province's two hundred thousand Serbs had been forced from their homes and villages, most fleeing to Serbia proper. Thus, as in Bosnia, the war had produced an "ethnically cleansed" region. There was little likelihood that Serbs would ever return to Kosovo in significant numbers. 4

Those wh'o did return were subjected to continual threats and attacks despite the presence of UN peacekeepers. In 2004, five years after Serbian forces were removed, in one episode over two days, dozens of Serbian communities across Kosovo were attacked by ethnic Albanians. More than four hundred homes were ruined and thirty churches were destroyed (Wood, 2004b). In 2008, ethnic antipathies flared again when Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. Although many countries (in- cluding the United States) quickly approved this move,, uncertainty of how Serbia, with its claim of sovereignty, would respond stoked fears of another bloody chapter

4 Another piece in the ethnic puzzle of the disintegrated Yugoslavia- Macedonia-became a focus of global attention in 2001. As in Bosnia and Kosovo, ethnic conflict, in this case between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians, flared into armed conflict as a rebel ethnic Albanian group, intent on uniting the heavily Albanian area of Macedonia with neighboring Albania, initiated the hostilities. The Macedonian government managed to quell the uprising, but only after dozens died in clashes.

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5 00 PART III ETHNIC RELATIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

in the Yugoslav tragedy. In 2013, Serbia and Kosovo signed a fragile power-sharin., agreement, but Serbia continued to refuse to recognize Kosovo's independence.

In sum, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the ethnic animosities and savageries i· inflamed, like the Rwandan genocide, demonstrated horrifically the end result of eth- nic nationalism carried to its extreme. What remained afterward was a region more intensely divided by ethnic loyalties than before, with little expectation of future rec- onciliation among the various groups.

NORTHERN IRELAND: DECLINING CONFLICT, ENDURING DIVISION

The ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland demonstrates a variant of ethnic nationalism. Though replete with episodes of frightful violence, it never reached the intensity and ferocity of the Rwandan or Bosnian wars. The total of less than 4,000 killed in

' Northern Ireland's conflict during its most virulent years seems minuscule in com- parison. Moreover, in the past decade, the most combative aspects of the conflict have been brought to a close. Nonetheless, Northern Ireland continues to demon- strate clearly the difficulties of managing intergroup relations where ethnic identities and divisions are intense and historically well defined.

Although the protagonists in Northern Ireland's conflict are Protestants and Catholics, it must be understood at the outset that matters of religious doctrine and dogma are not the basic issues. Rather, this is an ethnic conflict in which religiou s identities mark off the boundaries of the two major ethnic groups.

To comprehend the basis of Northern Ireland's ethnic conflict, one must take note of the syst~m of ethnic division and stratification that characterize this society. Protestants and Catholics constitute two sharply divided ethnic communities whose differences transcend religion. Each group maintains a relatively separate, cohesive and institutionally complete community (CAIN, 2004; Livingstone et al., 1998; Moxon-Browne, 1983). Although they share some common features, neither com- munity, as Ruane and Todd have described them, "has a developed concept of a gen- eral interest which transcends its own particular interests" (1996:78).

Political scientist Richard Rose (1971) referred to Northern Ireland as a "bicon- fessional society" because almost all people identify themselves as either Protestant or Catholic. Those claiming to be atheists, it is joked, must say whether they are Protestant atheists or Catholic atheists. These identities, however, do not mean the same as they do in the United States or other Western nations. In those societies, "Protestant" and "Catholic" denote denominational affiliations that no longer carry with them significant social consequences. In Northern Ireland, these are ethnic iden- tifications that determine in a fundamental manner one's place in the society and the nature of one's relations with others. Religious affiliation is quite simply one's most important social characteristic, taking precedence over one's social class and even one's gender (Harris, 1972; Mitchell, 2008). In some measure, it is not unlike the significance of racial identity for people in the United States or South Africa. North- ern Ireland is a highly polarized society in which ethnicity plays a predominant role in all realms of social life- work, education, politics, residence, leisure activity. Not only do separate institutional structures exist fo r each group but aspects of ethnic nationalism infuse each group's perspective on Northern Ireland's history, its current political circumstances, and its future social order.

CH APT ER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES O F ETH N IC CONF LI CT AND CH ANGE 501

EVO LUTION OF TH E CON FLICT The essence of the ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland is this: In 1920, six counties of the Irish province of Ulster, which today make up Northern Ireland, were adamant in retaining their tie to Britain following Ireland's successful movement for independence. Protestants outnumbered Catholics in this area, unlike the remainder of Ireland, and were resolved to remain apart from a sovereign, Catholic-dominated society. As a result, Ireland was partitioned into two states, the Irish Free State {later the Republic of Ireland), with a Catholic majority, and Northern Ireland, with a Protestant majority. Unfortunately, this left a substantial Catholic minority in the six counties. 5 The dispute since that time has concerned this artificially created boundary. Most Protestants seek to maintain the boundary as it is drawn and to remain linked with Britain, whereas most Catholics do not recognize the permanence of the dividing line and visualize an eventually united Ireland.

Today, Protestants are a slight numerical majority of Northern Ireland's 1.8 mil- lion, but in a united Ireland they would be outnumbered by about four to one. Hence, since the partition of Ireland, the root of the Protestants' resistance to politi- cal change has been the fear that they will be absorbed into a unified Ireland and thus become the minority within a Catholic-majority state. Although these condi- tions are the immediate sources of the modern conflict, the Protestant-Catholic divi- sion has much deeper roots reaching back many centuries. The conflicting ethnic identities and loyalties of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland emerge out of what both groups see as very different and opposing national heritages: British for Protestants, Irish for Catholics . Each, therefore, maintains a distinctly different view of history and national identity.

The beginnings of conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland are traceable to the early seventeenth century, when England embarked on its colonization of Ireland. Over the next two centuries the suppression of Ireland's Catholics, particularly in Ulster, produced antipathies and episodic armed hostilities.

Late in the nineteenth century, sentiment grew in England for the establishment of home rule for Ireland, a measure strongly resisted by the Protestants of Ulster, who saw themselves at the brink of absorption into a Catholic majority. In 1916, Irish na- tionalists sparked an armed rebellion against British rule in what has become known as the Easter Rising. The rebellion eventually led to the partition of Ireland into North and South, with the latter granted full sovereignty from Britain a year later.

The partition was a compromise measure that fully satisfied neither the North nor the South. The Ulster Protestants wanted no form of autonomy for Ireland, preferring retention of the British union, and the South desired a fully unified Irish nation, includ- ing Ulster. Northern Ireland, then, was essentially created by the British, ironically, to avoid bloodshed between Protestants and Catholics (Beckett, 1972). Not until 1925 did all parties-Britain, Ireland, and Northern Ireland-finally accept the arrangement as permanent. Nonetheless, Irish Catholics, in both the North and South, never fully relinquished their belief that Ireland would eventually be unified.

5 The province of Ulster originally comprised nine counties, but with partition it was reduced to six to ensure a more comfortable Protestant majority.

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EMERGENCE OF THE "THE TROUBLES" Increased economic prosperity and educational opportunities following World War II greatly benefited the Catholic minority and led to hopes for an end to the inequities they had long suffered in voting proce- dures, housing, and employment. In the late 1960s, Catholics adopted peaceful protest tactics similar to those employed by the black civil rights movement in the United States. The protesters even sang the American movement's anthem, "We Shall Overcome." This was not a separatist movement that sought unification with the Republic of Ireland but an effort to secure equal treatment for Catholics in Northern Ireland.

In response, militant Protestants mobilized around a countermovement. Th e British Army was sent to quell the violence, which had been directed mostly at Catholics, but its use of indiscreet tactics soon turned the Catholic populace again st it. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had all but disbanded after the successful Irish Rebellion in the 1920s, reemerged as the protector of Catholic neighborhoods and began its campaign against the British Army. Protestant counterparts sprang up creating the organizational basis for the ethnic violence that would characterize the society for the next three decades, a period referred to by the people of Northern Ireland as "the Troubles."

Thro ughout the 1970s and 1980s, incidents of sectarian violence, including bombings and assassinations carried out by paramilitary groups on both sides, kept the society in a state of turmoil. Meanwhile, a political middle course, aimed at reason and reconciliation, was stymied. The first real break in the cycle of violence occurred in 1994 when a cease-fire was effected and a so-called peace pro- cess begun. -

CONFIRMING ETi'i N1c IDENTITIES One of the curious aspects of the ethnic division in Northern Ireland concerns the manner in which ethnic identities are established and applied by members of the two communities. In the United States, although there are no "official" ethnic groups, ethnic or racial status is clearly defined in a customary fashion; rarely are there questions about who, for example, is white and who is black. In Northern Ireland, however, there are no apparent physical distinctions be- tween the two ethnic groups, and except for religion, even cultural differences are not readily evident. How, then, do interacting people perceive ethnicity in a society in which it is such a critical social identity?

With obvious physical marks such as skin color not available, cultural cues and symbols, to which the people of Northern Ireland are finely attuned, serve effectively in their place. Names, for example, often suffice as indications of ethnic identity. Certain surnames indicate an English or Scottish (and thus Protestant) or Irish (and thus Catholic) ancestry, and even Christian names are commonly associated with one side or the other. Other cues are accent, dress , demeanor, and-some would insist-even facial features (Fraser, 1977; Lanclos, 2003). Because residence anded- ucation are so rigidly segregated, however, the surest indicators of religious affilia- tion are one's address and school attended. Knowing either of these social facts is ordinarily sufficient to identify a person ethnically (Buckley and Kenny, 1995). Northern Ireland demonstrates dramatically that visible physical differences or even vast cultural differences are not necessary to create and sustain fierce ethnic hostility. Groups need only perceive their differences as unbridgeable .

CHAP T ER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHN IC CONFLICT AND C H ANGE 5 0 3

PREJUD ICE AND D ISCR IM INATION Prejudice and discrimination in this society are in many ways similar to patterns of black-white relations in the United States. They are nei- ther officially legitimized nor enforced through the application of coercive power, but they are not difficult to detect.

For Protestants, anti-Catholic stereotypes buttress their prejudices. Many of the stereotypes commonly applied to Catholics are part of what seems to be an almost standard litany employed by dominant groups in Western multiethnic societies- lazy, dirty, shiftless, oversexed, ignorant, quarrelsome, and so on (Bell, 1976, 1996; Fraser, 1977). Fraser writes that of all negative characteristics, the size of Catholic families "seems to provoke Protestant hostility more than anything else" (1977:94). He quotes one young Protestant boy of eleven, already well imbued with anti- Catholic conviction:

The Catholics have big families and they won't work. Daddy says we're poor because the Government takes his money to give to the Catholics and all their children and their priests to keep them in luxury because they don't work. (1977:96)

For Catholics, anti-Protestant animosity stems primarily from a heritage of dis- criminatory treatment rather than from any long-standing stereotypes. The objec- tions to and suspicions of Protestants focus on their political power and the society's social and economic issues, which tend to be shaped along religious lines (Barritt and Carter, 1972; Bell, 1996; Pollak, 1993). The animosity of many Catho- lics toward Protestants can be as deep as that which flows in the opposite direction. 0 Connor has trenchantly described this mind-set:

Every Catholic knows someone in their circle who has either reactedcwith horror when told their child intended to marry a Protestant, tried to prevent such a marriage, or been wounded by such a reaction from a relative. The objectors may say their concern is based on religious conviction, that they fear for their child's religion, their future grandchil- dren's religion, even their child's safety. But the sheer distaste many show when con- fronted with the imminent arrival in their family circle of a Protestant cannot be explained as anything other than prejudice. (1993:169-70)

Because the two groups are so segregated in their own communities, it is difficult to ascertain the actual degree of discrimination applied by Protestants against Catho- lics, or vice versa. Observers of Northern Ireland are generally agreed, however, that ethnic discrimination has been both individual and institutional, particularly in em-

' ployment and politics, and in both areas Catholics, historically, were the chief vic- tims (Barritt and Carter, 1972; Bell, 1976; Hoare, 1982; Whyte, 1983). During the past few decades, steps have been taken to promote ethnic equality, and as a result Catholics have gradually closed the gap with Protestants on various measures of socioeconomic status (Boyle and Hadden, 1994; Darby, 1995; Edwards, 1995; Osborne and Shuttleworth, 2004; Smith and Chambers, 1991; Smyth and Cebulla, 2008) . For example, Catholics have increasingly moved into higher-status profes- sional and managerial jobs once closed to them. 6

6 Despite the fact that blatant forms of discrimination no longer characterize interethnic relations, Catholics may continue to perceive discrimination by Protestants. Because one's religious affiliation is not easily camouflaged, Catholics may not be convinced that "failure to get a job or a home is not governed by that fact" (Jackson and McHardy, 1984:4).

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504 PART Ill ETHNIC RELATIONS IN COM PARAT IVE PER SPECT IVE

NORTHERN IRELAND AS A PLURAL SOCIETY Northern Ireland is clearly a society in which the centrifugal forces of pluralism- some imposed, some voluntary-predominare in the relations between the two ethnic groups.

The establishment of separate institutional structures for each ethnic group is a key feature of highly pluralistic societies, and in this regard Northern Ireland is al- most a pure case. Protestants and Catholics constitute ethnic communities with a high degree of identification and institutional completeness . Segregation is the gen- eral rule in most areas of social life. Each group maintains its own neighborhoods schools, shops, voluntary associations, and even newspapers. Much social and lei- sure activity occurs within the churches of both Protestants and Catholics, which fu r- ther restrains intergroup contact. Social interaction across ethnic lines, therefore, is confined mostly to instrumental contexts like work, and even there it is limited. The separation of the two communities is enforced as well by the norm of endogamy (Gallagher and Dunn, 1991; McGarry and O'Leary, 1995a) . A Protestant student at one of the few integrated schools in Belfast confesses that "I'd never met a Catho- lic before I sat beside one in class" (Irwin, 1994:106). Although group differences may be tolerated in situations where Protestants and Catholics meet, rarely are they disregarded. Social separation is not dictated by law, as it was in South Africa under apartheid or in the pre-1960s American South, but it is effectively enforced by a deep-rooted customary system.

The rigorous ethnic segregation of neighborhoods and schools assures that di- vergent views are promulgated from generation to generation. The dynamics of Northern Ireland's residential patterns, in fact, seem strikingly similar to those of blacks and whites in- American cities (Marger, 1989; Poole, 1982; Shirlow, 2008 ). Some working-class areas of Belfast are divided literally by a twenty-foot-high rein- forced wall (i~onically referred to as a " peace line") .

Ethnic segregation in education is even more complete than in housing. Almost all Catholic children attend Catholic schools, and Protestants attend state (de facto Protestant) schools (Lloyd et al., 2004). Only at the university level do students of the two groups mix to any significant degree. Noticeably different histories are taught Protestant and Catholic students, one emphasizing the British connection, the other the Irish. Events, personalities, and political institutions are interpreted dif- ferently, thus perpetuating the discordant societal views and distinct national identi- ties of the two groups (Murray, 1995).

The high level of residential and educational segregation in Northern Ireland has far-reaching effects on all other aspects of group interrelations, just as it does in the United States. Social contacts are minimized, and the cycle of misunderstanding, sus- picion, and at times violence between the two groups is preserved (Murray, 1995).

STABILITY AND CHANGE Over the years, numerous political schemes had been proposed periodically, aimed at resolving the conflict. But the depth of ethnic division pre- cluded the implementation of any of these scenarios. Thus direct British rule of Northern Ireland- the least unacceptable political option-remained in place (Arthur and Jeffery, 1996). In the 1990s, however, a peace process was begun that seemed, finally, to create a political atmosphere conducive to ending the Troubles.

In 1994, paramilitaries on both sides declared a cease-fire. This was followed by a coming together of representatives of the Irish and British governments and all the

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 505

political parties in Northern Ireland to begin talks that, it was hoped, would culmi- nate in a permanent political settlement. Additional impetus for the peace process was provided by the United States, particularly the personal efforts of President Bill Clinton. A proposed peace agreement called for the .resumption of most government responsibilities by a Northern Ireland government, rather than direct rule by Britain. A set of complex checks and balances provided for a kind of power-sharing system in which one side would be unable to dominate the government, as it had in the past.

A referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic was held in 1998, '- asking whether the political institutions specified by the agreement should be adopted. By a resounding majority, the people of both Northern Ireland and the Re - public voted their approval of the measure, though in Northern Ireland a much greater percentage of Catholics than Protestants supported it (Valandro, 2004). This peace accord became known as the "Good Friday Agreement."

For several years after the introduction of the peace accord, efforts at creating a functioning, power-sharing system were repeatedly frustrated by distrust on both sides. In 2007, however, a stable and lasting agreement appeared to have been reached. The most hard-core Protestant leader, Ian Paisley, who for years had vowed never to participate in a government with leaders of Sinn Fein, the IRA-affiliated, mainly Catholic party, committed to a power-sharing arrangement. A government, made up of representatives of Northern Ireland's two major political factions- the Democratic Unionist Party (virtually a Protestant party) and Sinn Fein-was formally agreed to. This marked the end of direct rule by London and the assertion of local power by Northern Ireland leaders. Similar agreements nad been attempted in the past, all of which ultimately failed, but observers were optimistic that this may have finally signaled an end to the Troubles.

LooKING BEYOND Over the years, both Protestants and Catholics had, in a sense, learned to live with their society's deep ethnic division and the often violent episodes that had become part of the social environment. Today, limited eruptions of intereth- nic violence continue to occur periodically, and the so-called "peace lines" separat- ing Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods still stand. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the peace accord signed in 1998 will continue to withstand challenges by militant grnups on both sides. One journalist describes it as "more of a fragile calm than a bona fide peace" (Engelhart, 2012b). Yet, a return to the level of hostil- ity and tension that had so characterized earlier decades seems unlikely.

Public opinion polls have for many years indicated, among both Protestants and Catholics, increasingly conciliatory attitudes and an inclination to accept and even encourage the development of integrated institutions, like schools and neighbor- hoods (Gallagher and Dunn, 1991; Lloyd et al., 2004; Moxon-Browne, 1983; Ruane and Todd, 1996). Residential mixing, however, remains limited and almost all chil- dren still attend religiously segregated schools (Calame and Charlesworth, 2009; Hayes et al., 2007; Knox, 2010). People on both sides may agree in principle that ethnic integration would be desirable, but there seems little desire to create social in- stitutions that would actually reduce the separation between the two communities.

The depth of ethnic division in Northern Ireland, then, is undeniably greater than it is in most other multiethnic societies. Hence, it is difficult to envision the eventual eradication of mutually deep-rooted suspicions. Most important, between

506 PA RT III ETH N IC R ELAT IONS IN COM PARATIV E PE RSPECTIV E

the two groups there is no sense of shared community. Institutional segregation re- mains the norm and gives little indication of diminishing to a significant degree.

Thus, despite the apparent political resolution, so well entrenched are the maj or differences-real or putative- between this society's two ethnic communities that one cannot realistically see, even in the long run, their full integration. Almost two decades ago, political scientist Brendan O'Leary noted, "Communal tensions, terri- torial segregation, and endogamous social and sexual relations will remain dominant features of social and political life in Northern Ireland, with or without a definitive constitutional settlement" (1995:713). That observation seems no less compelling to- day. Even if the power-sharing arrangement proves to be long-lasting, it is unlikely that the distrust between the two communities spawned by the Troubles will be sig- nificantly reduced for many years, perhaps even generations (Brown, 2002). The most viable objective, therefore, may be the establishment of a social order in which maximum material and psychological security and optimum political power are pro- vided to people of both groups, divided though they remain. '

THE ENDURANCE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE

Dominance by one group over another, noted Philip Mason, "is as old as the Phar- aohs and springs from passions that are common to all men" (1970:337). The ques- tion, then, is not whether dominant-subordinate relations will continue to be an integral feature of diverse human societies but whether and to what degree those re- lations will be based on ethnicity. Given that multiethnicity is an advancing condi- tion of most nations today on all continents, the ethnic basis of inequality appears unwavering. That, in turn, makes it likely that continued ethnic conflict will be a pre- vailing condition of our time.

Not only within but also between societies, certain trends portend continued eth- nic conflict. Economies of global scale and world-encompassing communications networks make national boundaries increasingly permeable, thus creating ever- greater ethnic diversity within most of the world's nation-states. Indeed, as noted in Chapter 1, few societies today cannot to some degree be called multiethnic. These tendencies might lead to greater understanding among diverse peoples- and thus to a breakdown of ethnic barriers- as they come to recognize their problems and moti- vations as commonly human (Shibutani and Kwan, 1965). But these trends might just as easily serve to rigidify ethnocentric and nationalistic views by demonstrating more dramatically the economic and cultural differences among them. "In deeply divided territories," note McGarry and O'Leary, "increased exposure to the 'other' may make group members more aware of what their group has in common and what

., separates them from the others. Exposure may cement group solidarity rather than diffuse it" (1995b:855).

FACTORS OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

Figure 17.2 shows the conditions and circumstances that most commonly impel eth- nic rivalry and conflict. This is not an exhaustive list but rather an outline of those factors that have consistently appeared as stimulants of conflict in various

CH APT ER I 7 GLO BAL ISSUES O F ETH N IC CO NF LI CT AN D CHAN G E 507

Eth nic pluralism

Inequalities in power

and wealth

Cultural differences

Status inequa lity

Political imbalance

FIGURE 17.2 I FACTORS OF ETHN IC C ONFLI CT

Ethnic confl ict

multiethnic societies. All, to some degree and in some combination, are evident in the cases we have now looked at, as well as in the current and historical relations among ethnic groups in the United States.

In examining these factors, it is important to consider that ethnic conflict will vary in intensity, frequency, and duration. Despite popular belief to the contrary, rare are cases of interminable conflict that reach back centuries; rather, ethnic rela- tions vacillate over long historical periods. Moreover, as explained in Chapter 1, so- cieties are always admixtures of not only conflict and change but also cooperation and stability. Thus these two tendencies are always variable. Intergroup relations in any multiethnic society should not be seen, therefore, as an unending struggle or a constant series of clashes. It should also be remembered that ethnicity is never the only basis of societal conflict, even in highly diverse multiethnic societies. Political, religious, and class divisions are often the source of major conflicts and almost always intersect with ethnic divisions.

I NEQUALITIES IN P OWER AND WEALTH "Competition for resources," write political scientists David Lake and Donald Rothchild, "typically lies at the heart of ethnic conflict" (1997:100). In a similar vein, Stephen Steinberg suggests that "[i]f there is an iron law of ethnicity, it is that when ethnic groups are found in a hierarchy of power, wealth, and status, then conflict is inescapable " (1989:170). Where there are sharp inequalities in power and wealth among ethnic collectivities, dominant groups may induce stability through various techniques of prejudice and discrimina - tion (discussed in Chapter 3) and the effective transmission of ideology. Eventually, however, a minority group or groups challenge that domination, and conflict then prevails. The United States and each of the other societies we have examined have in recent times experienced a challenge, in some degree, to their prevailing ethnic order.

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508 PART III ET H l\ IC RELA TI ONS IN CO MPA RATI VE PE R SPECTI VE

It is important to understand that inequalities that induce conflict need not ,,.__ severe or even objectively salient. Only the perception of inequality among ethni.:: groups is necessary. As we saw in Chapter 16, for example, the socioeconomic differ- ences between French-speaking Canadians in Quebec and other Canadians are no longer evident. Despite this shrinking gap over the past several decades, however. the intensity of Quebec nationalism has not been reduced but has actually risen, cre- ating an ongoing threat to Canadian unity.

Also, the grievances of minority ethnic groups may become more impassioned a they actually experience progressive change in their socioeconomic position. As con- ditions improve, the expectation of and desire for further improvements grow. If those expected changes do not materialize as rapidly as anticipated, minorities may focus on unmet goals rather than on their improved condition relative to that of an earlier period. We noted in Chapter 14 the possibility of such an outcome in So uth Africa. Susan Olzak (1992) has also postulated that as ethnic st~atification break down and inequality declines among a society's ethnic groups, more powerful groups may seek to prevent weaker, minority groups from getting their share of the society's resources, thereby instigating greater conflict.

Amy Chua (2004) describes another form of economic inequality that produce ethnic conflict in the modern world. In many contemporary societies there are market-dominant minorities, that is, ethnic minorities who own a widely disprop or- tionate amount of the society's wealth and control much of its commerce. Free mar - kets enable these minorities to accumulate and concentrate great wealth as the impoverished majority looks on. As the majority experience democracy, however an explosive situation ensues: "[T]he pursuit of free market democracy becomes an engine of pote'ntially catastrophic ethnonationalism, pitting a frustrated 'indigenous majority, easily aroused by opportunistic vote -seeking politicians, against a resented wealthy ethnic minority" (2004:6- 7).

It is most likely, then, that cooperation and stability will characterize ethnic rela- tions for long periods where groups coexist with only minor differences in power, wealth, and prestige among them. In the contemporary world, of course, such cases are uncommon. Instead, deep economic and political inequalities characterize most multiethnic societies.

CULTURAL DIFFE RENCES In addition to economic and political grievances, ethnic conflict is generated by sustained and fundamental cultural differences. Most basically, where ethnic groups speaking different languages or abiding by sharply divergent norms and values must confront each other in various facets of social life-housing, education, politics, religion- conflict is a given; only its severity is variable.

Conflict arises as well when ethnic groups fear their assimilation into a domi- nant culture (Lake and Rothchild, 1998). Repeatedly, we discovered such conditions in each of the societies we looked at. Here, too, however, the reality of cultural dif- ference among groups is less critical than the perception of difference. As we saw in Northern Ireland, for example, two groups whose cultural variance has faded over many generations (and who even speak a common language) nonetheless have clung to historical perceptions of difference that continue to shape their views and attitudes toward each other. As with economic and political inequality, sociocultural differ- ences, or their perception, are fundamental in contemporary multiethnic societies.

C H APTE R I 7 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ET H N IC CONFLICT AN D CHANG E 50 9

PHYSICA L DISTINCTIONS Where there are physical distinctions among groups, an addi- tional basis of division is in place. But racial differences among groups are not an essential ingredient in the emergence of ethnic divisions and conflict. In Canada, Northern Ireland, Rwanda , and the former Yugoslavia, we saw that ethnic bound- aries between racially similar groups can be shaped in a number of ways- and once established, adamantly sustained, often for many generations.

S TATUS I NEQ UALITY Conflict in multiethnic societies is induced by differences in how groups are seen and evaluated. "Strife arises," notes Heribert Adam, "when groups are differentially valued in terms of their intrinsic self-worth " (1992:20). A group's prestige or status is usually tied to its political and economic power, but growing po- litical and economic equality does not always guarantee similar growth in social es- teem. As we saw in the United States, African Americans, for example, despite real collective political and economic upward mobility in recent decades, continue in gen- eral to be held in lower social esteem by white Americans.

POLITICA L IMBALANCE In multiethnic societies, a strong state is necessary to maintain a balance of power and to negotiate among the competing groups. When that ethnic balance breaks down or groups see their position at risk, the possibility of conflict is heightened (Lake and Rothchild, 1997) . The absence of a state capable of ensuring order is likely to lead to an intensification and extension of conflict. This provided the pretext for Britain to rule Northern Ireland directly for several decades, and, as we saw, led to the horrendous ethnic conflict in the former Yugos.lavia.

Where the political status of ethnic groups is unbalanced, grievances and fears are easily interpreted in ethnic terms and are commonly e_xploited by political elites and ethnic activists who attempt to mobilize group members. As ethnicity is fused with political loyalties, intergroup tensions increase and the threat of violence inten- sifies. Thus, it is not simply ethnic diversity as such that is the cause of conflict, but ethnic politics (Smith, 2004). In Yugoslavia, writes Ignatieff, "[n]ationalist politi- cians on both sides took the narcissism of minor difference and turned it into a mon- strous fable according to which their own side appeared as blameless victims, the other side as genocidal killers" (1995:22). The Rwandan genocide was similarly a product in large measure of political exiles ready to manipulate ethnicity in pursuit of power. •

In the early 2000s, the war in Iraq provided another illustration of this outcome. There, following the U.S. invasion, forces were unleashed that created a sectarian- based ethnic conflict. Iraq, though mostly Muslim, is divided into Islamic sects that make for relatively distinct ethnic boundaries. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, those ethnic divisions had been held in check through the imposition of an oppres- sive, secular state. With the toppling of the regime, Iraqi Sunnis, who had enjoyed dominant-group status, were now relegated to minority status. Iraqi Shias, the nu- merical majority, but under Hussein a discriminated-against minority, emerged as the dominant ethnic group (Hashim, 2005). 7

7 Kurds, a third major Iraqi religio-ethnic group concentrated in the northern region of Iraq, had also suffered und er Hussein, and after his toppling assumed a r elatively autonomous political position.

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510 PART lll ETH N IC R ELATIO NS IN COM PARA TIVE PERSPECTI VE

As the war progressed, ethnic cleansing occurred with increasing frequency. Paramilitary groups engaged in killing members of opposing sects, Sunni and Shia, and people living in areas of predominance of one or the other sect were driven from their homes into safer areas inhabited by coethnics. By 2007, at least two mi l- lion people had fled their homes and another two million had fled Iraq, seeking ref- uge in neighboring countries (Rosen, 2007). All these developments were familiar to those who had experienced the horrors of the Bosnian conflict a decade earlier. A journalist returning to Baghdad after an absence of a year described the changes that had occurred in what had been a mixed neighborhood: "It is now relatively safe for Shiites as most Sunnis have been driven out." In another area, mostly Sunni, dead bodies cannot be picked up because " [ t ]he police are Shiite and afraid of the area" (Tavernise, 2007). Another journalist (Cave, 2007) described how formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad had been transformed into homogeneous en- claves, where those in the minority sect had been issued death thre~ts and had their houses burned. Even those who had intermarried or had maintained cross-sectarian friendships were threatened.

R Ac rALIETH NIC IDEOLO GIE S Any of the aforementioned factors can be sufficient to set off and to sustain ethnic conflict in a diverse society. What gives them added weight and what mobilizes people to take actions against an out-group is a coherent and well- founded racial or ethnic ideology. As explained in Chapter 1, ideology is a set of beliefs subscribed to by -all or most of the society that rationalizes and legitimizes pat- terns of dominance and subordination. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the equally horrifying mass killings in Bosnia were driven by beliefs in the inherent infe- riority, evil, and threat of the ethnic other. Similarly, the division in Northern Ireland is sustained by stereotypes and beliefs on both sides that crystallize into obdurate ethnic ideologies .

In a sense, ideology functions as a filter through which various social circum- stances are interpreted and subsequently acted upon. It thus becomes a necessary component of ethnic conflict, justifying prejudice and discrimination against ethnic out-groups. As we have seen in previous chapters, racial/ethnic ideologies ha ve played a key role in creating and sustaining a system of ethnic stratification in the United States and in all other multiethnic societies . Usually behaviors that might re- flect the beliefs of in-groups about out-groups are held in moderate form and only occasionally manifest themselves in serious acts of violence. But there is never a guar- antee that ideologies propounding the inferiority and threat of ethnic out-groups will not degenerate into riots (as have occurred at various times in U.S. history), mass killings, or even genocide, as in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. As Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley have written:

Humans are predisposed to think of competing groups other than their own in essential- izing, that is to say, stereotypical wa ys, and this obviously leads easily to demonization of entire communities of perceived enemies. Our emotions- anger, shame, fear, resentment- predispose us to violence when we feel threatened, and to mass murder against those who most stand in our way or endanger us. (2006:7)

CHAPTER 17 GLOBAL ISSUES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND CHANGE 5rr

THE CONTAINMENT OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

Given the pervasiveness of ethnic diversity and inequality, it is perhaps most realistic to think in terms of the management of ethnic tensions and hostilities rather than their elimination. Some ethnic conflicts are resolved with finality, observes political scientist Milton Esman, but "the great majority rise, subside, and recur" (1994:23). It is important to reiterate that conflict is a fundamental condition of human societies and is inherent in all human affairs. It should not be confused with violence, however. Most social conflict is low-intensity and kept in check through the society's political process and legal system. Conflict may, of course, involve the use of violence, but this is ordinarily episodic and does not characterize most intergroup relations. Thus, al- though ethnic conflict is an essential, ongoing feature of all multiethnic societies, it is usually controlled and limited. Cases in which extreme violence occurs (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, or Iraq, for example) are exceptional, not typical. As sociologist John Darby has put it, "The use of violence marks the failure of normal and functional means of conflict resolution-political exchange, negotiation, compromise" (1995:29). The most achievable objective of multiethnic societies, then, is not to elim- inate ethnic conflict entirely but to contain it as much as possible. "The real issue," writes Darby, "is not the existence of conflict, but how it is regulated" (1995:29).

The ability of diverse groups in multiethnic societies to live together in relative harmony while maximizing equality in the distribution of political and economic re- sources among them depends in large measure on the presence of a central state with sufficient power to contain intergroup conflict to a tolerable degree, but fair enough to win the allegiance of all groups. As Ignatieff has observed, "What keeps ethnic and racial tension within bounds in the world's successful-modern multiethnic socie- ties is a state strong enough to make its authority respected" (1995:243). Develop- ments over the past two decades in South Africa, as we have seen, illustrate that efforts in this regard may in some cases yield significant changes. To some extent that may be occurring in Northern Ireland as well. Yugoslavia, in contrast, demon- strates the disaster that may result from the collapse of a strong state holding diverse groups together. The same appears to be the case in contemporary Iraq and may be the fate of Syria following its tragic civil war. 8

Whatever successes may be achieved in the pursuit of ethnic harmony will prob- ably be overshadowed by discord. It is obvious that with ethnic diversity the prevail- ing global trend, nations everywhere will for the foreseeable future struggle with issues of political, social, and economic inequalities among racially and culturally di- verse groups. To some degree, then, ethnic conflict will be a recurring theme. The spread of pluralistic ideas and movements among ethnic groups within multiethnic societies is an outgrowth of the nationalistic fervor that has swept both the devel- oped and developing worlds, and of international population movements that are oc- curring on a historically unprecedented scale.

It is possible, of course, that with the advent of a global economy and the emer- gence of global communications networks ethnic nationalism may prove to be only a

8 In some multiethnic societies, ethnic consciousness may be so strong and divisive that there is little likelihood of reducing or even containing intergroup conflict within a single polity. Historian Jerry Muller (2008) suggests that in such cases, only partition, that is, the breakup into separate and more ethnica lly homogeneous political entities, may be the most practica l and least costly solution.

5 1 2 PART III ETH N IC RELA TI ONS IN COM PARATI VE PERSP ECTIV E

passing phenomenon, destined to recede as people everywhere are increasingly linked by common needs and cosmopolitan cultural systems. This outcome, however, can- not yet be envisioned. The crucial fact, notes historian Anthony Smith, is that in the twentieth century interethnic conflict became " more intense and endemic ... than ar any time in history" (1981:10 ). Today, there is little indication of the development of a countercurrent. Rather than diminishing, ethnicity as a global phenomenon persists as an exceptionally powerful and tenacious force motivating human behavior. And ir will likely follow us throughout the twenty-first century.

SUMMARY

• Shifting patterns of global immigration have emerged in the past sixty years. This movement of people has been mostly from the developing societies to the developed, industrialized societies. Changing labor markets and political strife are major factors that have stimulated global immigration.

• Western European societies have undergone great social changes in the past fe w decades as a result of immigration and the subsequent creation of ethnic hetero- geneity. Large numbers of culturally and racially diverse immigrants have created ethnic minority communities that have not been assimilated into the mainstream.

• Throughout much of the world, ethnic nationalism-distinct from civic nationalism- has been a stimulant of identity and political action.

• Two of the most deadly ethnic conflicts occurred in the 1990s. In Rwanda, a genocide of epic proportions occurred; and in the former Yugoslavia, ethnically divided Sqbs, Croats, and Muslims engaged in the most ferocious warfare in Europe since World War IL

• Northern Ireland offers a case in which a historically well-rooted and seemingly endless ethnic conflict may be reaching its end. In recent years it has tortuously moved on a course toward a relatively peaceful and functioning pluralistic system. Nonetheless, ethnic divisions remain strong, and it continues to be a thoroughly segregated and divided society.

• In multiethnic societies where there are significant economic, political, and social inequalities among groups, ethnic conflict in some degree is an inherent feature. Cultural and physical differences among groups also may contribute to ethnic conflict. Racial/ethnic ideologies legitimize and inspire ethnic conflict.

• The conditions of the contemporary world-increasing diversity and ethnic nationalism-make the continuation and even intensification of ethnic conflict very likely.

CRITICAL THINKING

1. Despite globalization, ethnic identity and ethnic nationalism have proliferated in most nations of the world for the past half century. How might this paradox be explained?

2. Immigration, as this chapter has noted, is a global phenomenon, not limited to North America . What may reduce international migrant flows? Or is global mi- gration likely to remain at a high level for the foreseeable future?

C HAPT ER 17 G LOB AL ISS UES OF ETHN IC C ONFLI CT AND CH AN GE 513

3. This chapter mentions the French ban on women wearing the full-face veil in public. Some would consider this an infringement on liberty, but others would argue that it is essential to the common good. Which side in this debate seems most reasonable? Who or what determines the limits that a multiethnic society, no matter how open and liberal, can impose on ethnic cultures?

4 . Could a genocide similar to those that occurred in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s occur in a society like the United States? What U.S . political and social conditions make such an occurrence improbable?

PERSONAL/PRACTICAL APPLICATION

1. This chapter points out that strong ethnic divisions and ethnic conflict are cre- ated and sustained not simply by power and coercion but by ideology: beliefs about out-groups that rationalize and legitimize dominance and subordination. No one can escape the influence of their society's ethnic ideology in some de- gree. Can you account for the source of your beliefs and views regarding ethnic out-groups-parents, peers, schools, religious bodies?

2. The conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia described in this chapter entailed some of the most violent and brutal actions witnessed in modern times. These were not the actions, however, only of armies and police, but of ordinary people. Do you believe that Americans could be capable of such horrendous ac- tions against members of ethnic out-groups? Or do you believe that such events are unimaginable in the United States because Americans are "fundamentally different from others"? What circumstances could conceivably lead to extreme ethnic oppression in the United States? Consider the history of oppression against African Americans, American Indians, and-Japanese Americans dis- cussed in earlier chapters.

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