More on ethnicity...

In a sort of response to the previous post, and to the general idea it addresses, I agree with the idea that defining a conflict as “ethnic” violence without proper understanding of the situation on the ground is foolish and all too common.  At the same time, I feel that the misunderstanding from the outsider’s point of view is often more strongly correlated with an incorrect interpretation of the concept of ethnic identity, exclusive of the occurrence of violence.

 

If we’re referring to communities in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia, many of the entities that we term “ethnic groups” today are modern constructions that only came into existence during the colonial period and as a result of the “divide and conquer” strategy employed by Europeans.  In Africa especially, prior to this it’s generally assumed that groups of people in regions that now experience “ethnic” violence were no more ethnically divided than Western Europe is today.  Of course there were divisions – of lineage and occupation, and class and language – and even some that resulted in violent conflict, but group compositions were much more fluid and adaptive than how we picture them today.

 

This is not to say that ethnic identities, meaningfully or arbitrarily imposed, don’t carry weight in modern society, because obviously they do – we have last weekend’s events in Nigeria and, to a degree, India to prove that.  Constructions of ethnicity have evolved to encompass religious, cultural, and, most unfortunately, racial differences, and it’s this evolution that, especially from a Western perspective, has resulted in the amplification of ethnic nationalism.  Societies to which ethnic conflict is a foreign concept often conceive of it as a characteristic that is concurrent with and inherent to societies that also experience underdevelopment, corruption, and religious extremism; admittedly, it does appear on a surface level that they are mutually reinforcing. But, as Professor King mentioned, though social order may be fragile, violence is never predetermined.  Ethnic conflict hasn’t always existed, and the common Western idea that it is inevitable and uncontrollable in or between specific states, cultures, and religions is inaccurate.  A shift towards more accurate categorizing of “ethnic” violence is unlikely to occur without a transition in the common understanding of what ethnicity itself was originally, and what it has become today.