A Nationalism
and International Order
in Europe and the World
Ethno-social wars
in Europe as a challenge
to citizens' movements and peace research
By Ulrich
Albrecht
1. The issue
The peace and citizens' movements are confronted
with new challenges if they today deal with war and
bloodshed in Europe and possible remedies. Actual politics
face the same dilemma: the two dominant war scenarios of the
past, inner-state or civil war and war between sovereign
states, do not fit to what happens in former Yugoslavia or
in the Caucasus. The established main instruments to deal
with the threat of war, on top the system of the United
Nations, are geared towards the full-fledged nation states.
There are no provisions to handle a militant situation in
decaying states, such as Somalia, or to stem warfighting
against the emergence of new states, such as Bosnia. Also
the most recent inventions in this field, e.g. the Vienna
CSCE centre for the prevention of conflict, have no mandate
to deal with the new kind of war (the centre was meant in
the Cold War to prevent inter-state armed conflict).
The new problem is that large conglomerates of states
with multi-ethnic populations, presently led by the former
Soviet Union or Federal Yugoslavia, are in a continued
process of dismemberment, and it remains uncertain, where
the secessions will find a natural end. Secessionist
aspirations are confronted with the contradicting claim to
preserve political structures of the past, e.g. the Yugoslav
federation. In a number of instances it remains also unclear
whether political leaders are more or less only nominally in
charge, because they do not effectively control fighting
units. The social fabric which is so characteristic for the
European nation states is in decay or, in emerging new
states, not yet sufficiently developed.
The violence occurs predominantly in the periphery of
Europe, but (thesis # 1) it is not peripheral for European
politics.
These recent wars are not waged according to the Hague
Conventions and other humanitarian laws of war, under which
the civilian population ideally even is not aware that the
sovereigns fight each other. In the extreme reverse one is
forced to consider war waged against the people, in which
the population has got to carry the brunt of the sufferings,
and where the combatants in uniform count few casualities.
Much of the bloodshed is closer to pogroms than to methods
of modern warfare. There are strategic violations of basic
human rights, for a great number of victims, there are
concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, mass rapes of women
and girls as a deliberate policy - actually the contrary to
the European tradition to hedge the conduct of warfighting
and to limit the suffering of innocent outsiders. To give
just one indication of the ensuing consequences: the Neue
Zürcher Zeitung (10 January 1993) reported that
according to UNICEF estimates more than one million children
until 1993 in former Yugoslavia have been so heavily
traumatized by war events that they deserve therapeutic
treatment in order to survive.
2. The basis of the issue
Human societies disintegrate into groupings of
various sizes and orientations. The so-called theories of
differentiation try to take these processes into
consideration and address some of the basic questions in
social science -- why do groupings of human beings differ
from one another, how can the processes of differentiation
become understandable and politically eventually made
controllable, and what does this imply for the interchanges
of groups? Historically, analysts cared for social strata or
classes, and the orientation towards ethnic descent was
considered to represent an obsolete or even backward-minded
position, at least in European affairs. Social scientists
must today admit that this assessment turns out as
premature.
It remains hard to understand why recently the
distinction between "our own" and the aliens has received so
much direct political meaning, and there is a number of
contributions e.g. pointing at the end of the
East-West-conflict. My hypothesis # 2 is that one must think
in much more profound terms in order to match the
deep-rooted causes for the bloodshed. One of the basic
notions in social science becomes shattered, that of
continuity and the sedimentary increases of stability of
institutions, accompanied by incremental social change,
which sometimes is interrupted by e.g. a revolution, which
rapidly creates new, reliable structures.
In contrast, social scientists by now are forced to see
that the robustness of social fabrics is a precious good
which is difficult to attain and to preserve. Research about
social structures in the Third World more and more comes to
the result that there is a particular weakness in the
failure of "nation-building", and that these societies live
in comparatively frail states. The path of development
during the past decades has lead, in political terms, to
stagnation and even decay of statehood, as Somalia
demonstrates. Both in the formerly state-socialist Second
and the economically backward Third World so-called
intermediate institutions failed to flourish, truly
independent trade unions, strong church movements, or a well
differentiated system of administrative courts. Rogers
Brubaker, taking up the emerging broad notion of uncertainty
about social congruence, has suggested as a common formula a
triangle between "minority, nationalizing state, and
homeland," in order to interpretate the present turmoil.
The analyst also has to drop established perspectives on
political affairs. The study of war hitherto remained the
arcanum of an elitist view on governmental politics. In the
case of progroms or ethno-social violent clashes nothing
could be less appropriate. The perspective from below, from
the angle of the victims will be much more telling, e.g.
about the systematic application of raping as a strategy to
humiliate the husbands on the other side, the strategic use
of snipers to terrorize civilians, or the shelling
prohibited by international law of cultural landmarks such
as Dubrovnik. In sum, the atrocities of fighting in wrongly
so called civil wars in Europe require and deserve a serious
and unconventional approach by the social sciences -- if
these are willing to offer help.
3. A problem of transformation in
formerly communist states?
There is an obvious tendency to link the erupting
violent conflicts in the arc of countries which neighbour
the former Soviet Union or which were part of it with the
general grave problems which ensue in the transformation
into market economies and Western style democracies. There
is hardly a more comprehensive restructuring of a society
imaginable than the one occurring in the formerly state
socialist societies which change their political and
economic systems. It ought to be expected that such
transitions are prone to conflict, that they entail numerous
possibilities to turn violent. But the grand transformation,
according to thesis # 3, does not provide for the root cause
explaining the recent bloodshed and atrocities in the
respective countries. Certainly in the past one cause has
been repression of secessionist aspirations and the specific
policies of past regimes towards the various nationalities.
It will also be the case that repressed minorities feel that
even their poor status was threatened by emerging new
states, and that they deliberately tried to exploit the
phase of transition to step out and to quit older ties. But
the decision to go to war is not based on such
considerations.
A supporting argument comes in if one looks at the
protracted kind of violent conflicts in Western Europe. The
bloodshed in Northern Ireland, the Basque irredentistic
bombings in Spain, violent clashes in Corsica indicate very
similar symptoms to the cases cited above. The recent
research literature stresses the globality of the
phenomenon.
4. The magnitude of the problem
Ethnologists count up to 5,000 ethnic groupings
in the world which potentially might call for their right of
self-determination, and which theoretically could call for
their own state. The vast majority of these disputes are
latent or stable nonviolent. Some 260 minorities demand
actively independence and secession, indicating the upper
limit of the number of members of a future United Nations.
Between seventy and ninety of these ethnic squarrels were
recently characterized by outbursts of organized violence.
UN peacekeeping operations dealt with 17 of them in
mid-1994. - In Europe, some 50 "regional movements" are on
the record striving toward secession.
This supports thesis # 4: the cause of ethnic bloodshed
will increase and has not yet reached an upper limit.
5. The root causes of violence
The varying keywords in the assessment of ethnic
war indicate that social science is still at an early stage
to understand the phenomenon (thesis # 5), and that there
are no accepted standards: the more or less identical issue
is labeled "ethnopolitical conflict"/Gurr; "pluri-ethnic
conflict"/Krippendorff; "ethno-national conflict"/Ropers;
"identity conflict"/Koenig, alongside with older appoaches
such as "secessionist conflict"/Horowitz; "Anti-regime
war"/Gantzel, "regional movement", "minority conflict",
"irredentism", etc.
As most group activities, violence against others is
certainly not predetermined by one single motive or cause.
There is mostly a bunch of push factors, proximate events,
and triggering experiences which overlay one or more prime
fixations which lead into insane escalation (thesis 6). Yet
the task is, for the sake of finding remedies, to identify
the basic elements which make the outbursts of barbarism at
all comprehensible.
According to the respective basic premises, some analysts
stress the role of social discrepancies, or alternatively
group psychological or religious differences. The multitude
of key concepts mirrors analytical uncertainty about the
actual factor which induces groups top resort to violence.
The various epithets hardly fit (thesis # 7), as will be
demonstrated in the following.
5.1 The flag of religion
It is easy to reject the religious notion, which
generally prevails in identifying the groups involved in
active ethnic conflicts (thesis # 8). It is common use to
set Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland, to
pose in former Yugoslavia catholic versus orthodox
Christians or against Muslims, in the Caucasus again
Christians of various denominations against Muslims, in
Lebanon Sunnites versus Shiites versus Druses versus
Maronites. There is a narrow relationship between religious
fragmentation of a society and political cleaveges.
But hardly more. The infights are not about disaccords in
matters of religious belief, which had been central in the
understanding of war in Europe a few hundred years ago.
Churches and mosques in Europe do not experience a massive
inflow of believers. The religious label simply generates
identity, at least one of collective historical
rememberances. The combatants do not fight as religious
fanatics. The crude grouping according to religion, in a
widely secularized world, is little more than one reference
to descent. It does not reveal the contents of conflict, nor
does it pattern the mode of action by the parties involved
in the dispute.
5.2 The flag of ethnicity
The epithet "ethnic", if one really goes into things,
also rapidly fades away as a prime tool of differentiation
(thesis 9). Firstly, the debate among ethnologists about the
definition of the key term of their discipline appears as
not very rewarding. One finds various accumulations of
attributes of the kind "historically grown units", distinct
by "common language, racial descent, cultural tradition,
national character" from other people. For a political
scientist, the notions of "racial descent" and "national
character" create headaches. There is also hardly a modus
operandi to turn these concepts into something which can be
actually researched. Recent definitions of ethnicity hardly
surpass Max Weber's statement of a "subjective believe in
common descent."
Secondly, racially "pure" populations, even of small
groups, are exceptions in Europe. Centuries of migration,
the consequences of two World Wars, in modern times mobility
required by the division of labour in the economy, all these
factors have contributed to blur ethnic boundaries. Eric
Hobsbawm, in a brilliant piece which demonstrates that the
soul-searching for identity is vastly looking at historic
forgeries, addressed in the most sardonic manner as an
example Greek nationalist claims that there is but one
Macedonia: this region "is historically such an inextricable
mixture of ethnies - the French by no means accidentally
have named their fruit salade after this (macÇdoine)
- that any effort to equal it with a single nationality is
undue."
Noting the problems which ensue with the ethnic epithet,
Gurr uses repeatedly the surrogate notion of "communal
groups", as he states, "fuzzy sets" of people:
"In essence, communal groups are psychological
communities: groups whose core members share a distinctive
and enduring collective identity based on cultural traits
and lifeways that matter to them and to others with whom
they interact."
The attribute "communal" for a group, however, appears as
analytically not very helpful. Hence we will continue, as
most of the literature does, to use the label "ethnic" to
identify actors in the armed clashes which should be
analysed.
But the reader should remain well aware of the
shortcomings of this waiver. The actual movers, the thriving
force, remains shrouded. And even if the desire for identity
could have been answered: why is this demand so
overwhelmingly important that it induces contemporary
citizens to engage in the obscene cruelties the media so
often report?
5.3 Results
The repeated reference to "belief" systems (thesis # 9,
the belief in a religion, in one's heritage) signals the
importance of social-psychological aspects for the
understanding of the problem. Groups which come under
consideration furthermore see themselves as discriminated
(the perception again is a psychological process), in
economic, political or racial dimensions, something the
whole group experiences as grievances. There is also a
self-determined aspect involved: in order to become a
political actor, the group needs to be mobilized. The
mechanisms of mobilization, which in the end motivate humans
to dehumilate and kill, deserve special attention in the
analysis.
6. The extension of the paradigm -- my
proposal for research
Helmut Koenig states generally that ethnosocial
conflict is principally prone to escalation:
"Ethnonational currents are generally shaped by
demands for identity. At least they contain a dynamic
which easily induces that rational and negotiable
interests become dominated by aspects of identity.
Negotiations are difficult, compromise is rare and
violence abundant where questions of ethnonational
identity are at stake."
A little bit later, the same author writes about "the
high danger of escalation and great openess for violence.
Apparently suitable instruments for peaceful conduct in
conflict are lacking in these societies as well as in the
international environment." This enforces the basic
question, why ethnic groups resort to violence, why they opt
for war and pogroms.
My personal proposal is to link research and reflection
about ethnosocial clashes with research about extremism
(thesis # 10).
The idea to link the paradigm of peace research with the
one about research on extremism is supported by the
similarity of factors which condition the excess into
violence, the irrational involved. Again, there are numerous
definitions of what extremism is, but commonly they contain
the aspects of openess for violence, militancy and
intolerance - indeed pertinent dimensions for our
problem.
In sum, the political fight against "civil" war in Europe
in fact is one against extremism. The peace and citizens'
movements apparently are facing one common enemy. And they
know from history how to counteract successfully.
Recommended literature
Rogers Brubaker, National minorities,
nationalising states, and external national homelands in
the new Europe: Notes towards a relational analysis,
(mimeo), Los Angeles (UCLA) 1994.
Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities at risk. A global view
of ethnopolitical conflicts, Washington, D.C.
1993.
Jochen Blaschke (ed.), Handbuch der
europäischen Regionalbewegungen, Frankfurt a.M.
1980.
Eric Hobsbawm, "Die Erfindung der
Vergangenheit", in: Die Zeit, No.37, 9 September
1994.
Helmut Koenig, "Nationalismus und Identität in
Osteuropa - eine Forschungsskizze", in: Nationalstaat -
Nationalismus - Frieden.Humboldt-Journal zur
Friedensforschung 10/11, 1992-93.
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