Nationalism, Nationality, and Ethnicity

 

Although the state unquestionably remains the most visible actor in world affairs, nationalism and nationality are potent cultural factors defining the core loyalties and identities of many people that influence how states act. Many people pledge their primary allegiance not to the state and government that rules them, but rather to the politically active minority group with which they most associate themselves. One broad category of such national groups is ethnopolitical groups whose members share a common nationality, language, cultural tradition, and kinship ties. They view themselves as members of their nationality first and of their state only secondarily—a definition that follows the interpretation of E. K. Francis (1976) who maintains that "cultural affinities manifest in shared linguistic, religious, racial, or other markers... enable one community to distinguish itself from others." As Nnoli elaborates on the meaning of ethnonationalism, ethnicity is "a phenomenon associated with contact between cultural-linguistic communal groups... characterized by cultural prejudice and social discrimination. Underlying these characteristics are the feelings of pride in the in-group, and the exclusiveness of its members. It is a phenomenon linked... to forms of affiliation and identification built around ties of real or putative kinship."

Acknowledgment of the importance of ethnic nationalism (people's loyalty to and identification with a particular ethnic nationality groups) in world affairs reduces the relevance of the unitary state. Many states are divided, multiethnic societies made up of a variety of politically active groups that seek, if not outright independence, a greater level of regional autonomy and a greater voice in the social and foreign policies of the state. In the mid-1990s of the world's 190 countries, 120 had politically significant minorities. Of 305 active minority groups that were at risk from persecution worldwide, 37 were ethnonational groups, 70 indigenous nations, and 44 national minorities. Relations between ethnic groups are also vitally important, as contact is customarily widespread between groups who define their identity by their common ancestry. These divisions and the lack of unity within states make thinking of international relations as exclusively interactions between unified states dubious.

 

The Fourth World [2]. The globe is populated by an estimated six thousand separate indigenous nations, each of which has a unique language and culture and strong, often spiritual, ties to an ancestral homeland. In most cases indigenous people were at one time politically sovereign and economically self-sufficient. Today there are an estimated 300 million indigenous people, more than 5 percent of the world's population (some have placed the number as high as 600 million).

Indigenous peoples often feel persecuted because they are not permitted full political participation and representation in the states where they reside, and in some cases they feel that their livelihoods, lands, cultures, and lives are threatened. This segment of global society is conventionally referred to as the Fourth World to heighten awareness of "native" or "tribal" indigenous peoples within many countries, the poverty and deprivation that confronts them, the state's occupation of the land from which they originate, and the methods to combat discrimination these movements are pursuing. Aroused nationalists are now fighting back across the globe in rebellion against the injustice, misery, and prejudice they perceive the state to have perpetrated against them. The pervasiveness of ethnic nations alongside states is so commonplace that many feel the voice of the people behind the indigenous national movements they lead must be given its due.

Fourth World liberation movements are active in many countries throughout the globe. For most indigenous peoples, the central issue in this clash of civilizations is land. Most seek a state or, more often, a regional government, of their own. In part, this quest is inspired by and is a reaction to the evidence that between 1900 and 1987 about 130 million indigenous people were slaughtered by state-sponsored genocide in their own countries. Friction escalating to war between indigenous nations and the state occurs in many countries. In other areas, conflicts below the threshold of overt armed violence are heated and activism appears to be growing.

This is not to suggest that all indigenous groups are bent on tearing existing states apart, or on using violence to attain power. The members of many such movements are divided about objectives, and militants who are prepared to fight for greater autonomy are usually in a minority within these groups. In fact, most Fourth World indigenous movements are committed to gaining substate autonomy, not sovereignty, and seek only more representative clout in redirecting the policies and allocation of resources within existing states. Increasingly, these repressed Fourth World minorities are using the conventional tactics of social movements (such as mass mobilization and protest), and are eliciting the support of NGOs and IGOs to pressure states to recognize their claims and protect their civil liberties and human rights. Moreover, a substantial number ot indigenous movements in the last decade have negotiated settlements resulting in devolution by the state, in which the protagonists gained concessions for greater local political power in exchange for accepting the sovereignty of the state. Examples include the Miskitos in Nicaragua, the Gagauz in Moldova, most regional separatists in Ethiopia, and others in India's Assam region.

It is difficult to foresee what the post-Cold War wave of internal discontent and rise of politically active minority protests will ultimately bring. Many have spawned governmental decentralization, weakened the sovereign authority of states, and compounded leaders' difficulties in constructing a coherent foreign policy that adequately represents diverse ethnic and minority interests. But on the whole, devolution – the granting of political power to ethnopolitical national groups and indigenous peoples – has served more often to keep countries together rather than break them up. The devolution and decentralization of state control in response to minority discontent has strengthened the state in the European region where separatist movements have been especially rampant in the 1990s since the Cold War glue of state loyalties dissolved. For instance, the separatist Northern League has made electoral inroads, but devolution from Rome has solidified the national unity of Italy. Likewise, the September 1997 decision by three-fourths of Scotland's voters to establish their own parliament was interpreted by Scottish nationalists as a bold step toward dissolving the union with the United Kingdom by creating an independent Scotland with the size and wealth of Denmark or Ireland. However, here and elsewhere in Europe (as in France, where the state government in Paris has loosened its grip through devolution to pacify nationalist separatist movements by creating twenty-two new mainland regions with their own budgets) experience "suggests that devolution has proved widely popular without generally leading to secession; indeed, it can help to hold a country together. When strong regional or national identities, silent or suppressed for many years, are suddenly given a voice, the paradoxical result has often been greater harmony and a greater desire to stick together rather than anguish, chaos and disintegration. The end of the Cold War and the inexorable rise of the European Union have both weakened the grip of Europe's main states but without threatening to break them up, except when involuntary unions fragmented after communists lost control." (Economist)

Europe – one of the world’s most stable but ethnopolitically divided regions - could well signal the path other regions could travel in the twenty-first century.

Notes:

1 Unitary actor: the perception of states as culturally and racially homogenious, solidified in their joint pursuit of common internal and foreign policy objectives.

2 Fourth World: a term used to recognize that native nationalities reside in many so-called united states who, although often minorities, occupied the state’s territory first and refuse to accept their domination. In rebellion against discrimination, they see the state as „divisible“ and either seek to create a new state for themselve by splitting existing states and to gain greater political freedom to govern themselves. This term is also sometimes used to describe the „poorest of the poor“ less developed countries of the Global South.

Exercises:

1 Answer the following questions:

1 What are nongovernmental organizationa and who are their members?

2 What problems do NGOs tackle?

3 Give the names of some NGOs.

4 What role do minority racial or religious groups play?

5 What are non-state entities?

6 What are the major non-state actors, what are their activities?

7 What are ethnopolitical groups and ethnicity?

8 What segment of global society is referred to as the Fourth World?

9 Why do indigenous peoples feel persecuted?

10 What do indigenous peoples seek and what role do 4^th World liberation movements play?

2 Give Russian equivalents for the following word-combinations:

environmental deterioration, human rights abuses, International Chamber of Commerce, Union of Concerned Scientists, creation of sets of rules, devolution of power, nonstate entity, self-assertive actors, to undergo a transformation, state-centric structure, world-wide authority crisis, incipient communities, indigenous peoples, misleading conception, declining ability, cultural affinity, putative kinship, outright independence, common ancestry, self-sufficient people, state-sponsored genocide, overt armed violence, to tear states apart, allocation of resources, conventional tactics, to elicit support, to gain concessions, internal discontent, coherent policy, electoral inroad, to pacify separatist movements.

3 Give English equivalents for the following words and word-combinations:

во всем мире, общие идеалы и интересы, упростить задачу, приобрести власть над ресурсами государств, раздвоение международной системы, этнические меньшинства, всемогущее государство, родственные связи, признание важности, политически значимые меньшинства, противостоять бедности и лишениям, освободительное движение, защищать гражданские свободы, ослабить хватку.

4 Make up nouns from the following verbs and adjectives using suffixes:

to involve, to form, to deteriorate, to contribute, to impress, to regulate, to compose, to cover, to establish, to move, to press, to accept, to select, to justify, to assert, to provoke, to simplify, to consider, to corrode, to predict, to bifurcate, to evaluate, to unify, to exaggerate, to resemble, to divide, to penetrate, to confront, to solve, to maintain, to elaborate, to affiliate, to acknowledge, to reduce, to persecute, to estimate, to separate, to permit, to reside, to refer, to deprive, to occupy, to perpetrate, to inspire, to escalate, to occur, to commit, to allocate, to recognize, to settle, to solidify;

private, minor, disparate, diverse, major, ethnic, satisfactory, loyal, vital, aware, pervasive, coherent, adequate, stable, just.

 

5 Make up adjectives using suffixes:

volunteer, success, debate, vision, territory, centre, autonomy, structure, power, unity, effect, nature, problem, question, race, relevance, custom, spirit, ancestry, tribe, rebel, misery, violence, paradox;

to impress, to construct, to create, to select, to assert, to predict, to respond, to exclude, to relate, to cooperate, to satisfy, to solve, to represent, to pacify.

 

 

6 Give as many synonyms as possible to the following words:

to regard, to form, to influence, to tackle, to deteriorate, to disarm, to save, to compose, to establish, to concentrate, to gain, to erode, to predict, to cooperate, to evaluate, to picture, to govern, to elaborate, to seek, to combat, to slaughter, to escalate, to commit, to allocate, to grip, to prove (оказаться);

abuse, concern, help, demand, devolution, range, agreement, competition, loyalty, ties, affinity, ancestor, poverty, militant;

shared, global, fragile, strong, disparate, major, diverse, complex, replete, incipient, omnipotent, dubious, aware, overt, rampant, bold.

7 Give antonyms adding negative affixes if necessary:

to regard, to arm, to include, to cover, to agree, to accept, to satisfy, to lead, to loosen, to integrate;

minority, evolution, difference, possibility, loyalty, significance, awareness, poverty, justice, centralization, content;

human, fragile, enormous, visible, important, vulnerable, external, powerful, satisfactory, capable, effective, solvable, questionable, relevant, sufficient, conventional, commonplace, prepared, mobile, adequate, popular, voluntary, stable.

 

8 Explain the meaning of the following adverbs and make up sentences with them:

literally, impressively, critically, relatively, unquestionably, vitally, customarily, exclusively, conventionally, ultimately, adequately, generally.

9 Insert prepositions where necessary:

1 The September 1997 decision … three-fourth … Scotland‘s voters to establish their own parliament was interpreted … Scottish nationalists as a bold step … dissolving the union … the United Kingdom … creating an independent Scotland … the size and wealth … Denmark and Ireland.

2 As O.Nnoli elaborates … the meaning … ethnonationalism, ethnicity is “a phenomenon associated … contact … cultural-linguistic communal groups, characterized … cultural prejudice and social discrimination“.

3 … the same time, a large number … NGOs are composed … minority racial or religious groups whose demands shake the sovereign control … fragile or failing states and lead … a devolution … power … many other strong states.

4 The devolution and decentralization … state control … response … minority discontent has strengthened the state … the European region where separatist movements have been especially rampant … the 1990s … the Cold War glue … state loyalties dissolved.

5 … the most basic level, nonstate entities are associations … individuals and/or groups that are not established … agreements … states.

6 Moreover, a substantial number … indigenous movements … the last decade have negotiated settlements resulting … devolution … the state, … which the protagonists gained concessions … greater local political power … exchange … accepting the sovereignty … the state.

7 … part, this quest is inspired … and is a reaction … the evidence that … 1900 and 1987 … 130 million … indeginous people were slaughtered … state-sponsored genocide … their own countries.

8 The activities … these 4 NGOs have been responsible … many ways … increasingly calling … question the idea that the state has full and exclusive control … its destiny.

9 A large number … people … the world regard themselves as participants … the international arena, because they are involved as members … one or more … the literally thousands … “non-governmental organizations”.

10 NGOs are making borders porous and states vulnerable both … external pressures and … challenges … … their boundaries.

10 Translate from Russian into English:

1 Членами негосударственных организаций являются граждане каких-либо нескольких стран, которые образуют организации для достижения своих целей, влияя на политику правительств и межправительственных организаций.

2 Негосударственные организации рассматривают различные проблемы глобального масштаба, они действуют вместе с государствами и межгосударственными организациями, и они установили ряд правил, помогающих регулировать многие международные проблемы.

3 Многие люди считают, что, в первую очередь, они – представители национальной группы, и, лишь во-вторых, они члены государства и подчинены своему правительству.

4 Многонациональные государства состоят из различных политически активных групп, которые стремятся к большей автономии и более весомому голосу в социальной и внешней политике государства.

5 Подсчитано, что сейчас в мире приблизительно 300 млн людей 4-го мира, принадлежащих к 6 тысячам национальностей, имеющих свой язык и культуру и бывших когда-то политически независимыми и экономически самодостаточными.

6 Во многих странах так называемого 4-го мира очень активно освободительное движение, целью которого является создание собственного государства или своего правительства.

11 Questions for discussions: