The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict

John Coakley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135764418
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The object of this book is to look at the manner in which states attempt to cope with ethnic conflict through territorial approaches. This revised edition has new chapters covering Northern Ireland, South Africa and Yugoslavia.

1
Introduction
The Challenge

JOHN COAKLEY

While ethnic conflict has many dimensions, one of the first to strike the observer is the territorial one. Marching rituals in Northern Ireland, for instance, are designed frequently to express symbolic control over territory, and the very creation of Belfast’s ‘peace line’ represents an effort to give concrete geographical shape to a profound interethnic division. The contours of the ethnic mosaic of Cyprus became increasingly clearly defined in the 1960s, and in 1974 the ethnic map of the country was radically reformed, as the long-established bicommunal patchwork yielded to a partitioned country, a ‘green line’ extending through Nicosia and the rest of the island separating the Turkish North from the Greek South. In a similar development, intercommunal conflict in Lebanon was eventually transformed into competition over territory, with another ‘green line’ stretching through Beirut and partitioning it into western (Muslim) and eastern (Christian) sectors. This pattern is commonly to be found elsewhere, with Kashmir and Israel/Palestine offering vivid contemporary examples.

The prominence of territorial demands in the rhetoric of ethnic activists is an extremely common phenomenon—demands for autonomy within a state, for separation from it, or for unification with another state. The link between ethnicity and territoriality is, then, well established, but it is also complex. Ethnic affiliation and territorial location have long been acknowledged as sources of national identification; the distinction between the two may be traced back to that between jus sanguinis and jus soli in public international law.¹ Just as these two criteria of identification may give conflicting answers regarding the position of an individual, so too may they give rise to conflict at the collective level, at the level of the community.

In this domain, two sources of potential conflict between the state and the community or communities that reside within its borders may in principle be identified. Both arise from the essentially territorial nature of the state. It is hardly necessary to go back to Weber’s description of the state as ‘a compulsory organisation with a territorial basis’ to make the point that state boundaries are frequently clear-cut in physical reality, and that they are almost always clearly defined in graphic representation.² Since the boundaries of social groups nearly always lack these characteristics, the potential for conflict is immediate. Corresponding to the legal distinction between jus sanguinis and jus soli, social psychologists have noted people and land as the two primary stimuli of patriotism and nationalism, in that they act as powerful foci for group loyalty.³ From the state’s perspective, the problem is that these two sources of identification may give different answers to the question where any boundary should lie, and that both of these answers may conflict with the preferences of the dominant group within the state itself.

The first difficulty arises from the fact that it is obviously the case that persons who feel that they belong to the same ethnic community may occupy a very imprecisely defined territory, and that, even if the territory in which they predominate may be precisely defined, this does not necessarily coincide with the territory of a state. Almost every state includes non-members of the ethnic community with which it is associated, but it also fails to include some members of this community. As the gap between the territory actually occupied by the ethnic community and the territory of its state increases, so too does the probability of ethnic tension, other things being equal.

Second, whatever the spatial distribution of their members, many ethnic communities feel a strong association with a particular relatively clearly defined segment of territory. In the case of indigenous peoples, this may be seen as having a sacred character.⁴ Many ‘modern’ ethnic communities identify a so-called ‘national’ territory, and use historical, pseudo-historical or even fabricated arguments to press their claims to this. Outlying portions of this territory may be inhabited by other ethnic groups (as in the case of the North East of Ireland), the core of the ‘national territory’ itself may be inhabited predominantly by an ‘alien’ community (as in the cases of Vilnius in Lithuania in the past or Pamplona in the Basque Country), or the entire territory may be inhabited by another community (as in the case of Israel at the beginning of the twentieth century), but the claim nevertheless attracts powerful public support. Historical arguments may, indeed, be reinforced by geographical, economic or strategic ones.⁵

The object of this book is to examine the extent to which demographic and political realities, together with other pressures, have permitted or encouraged territorial approaches to ethnic conflict management, and the degree to which these have had to be supplemented or replaced by other conflict-resolving strategies. It should be acknowledged that this perspective is a state-centred one: with a view to maintaining coherence of approach, the central question being addressed is the response of the state to the challenge of ethnic protest. This is not an endorsement of this particular perspective; from the point of view of minority (and perhaps other) ethnic groups, it is typically the state, not the ethnic group, that is the problem, a viewpoint that is at least implicit in several of the contributions in this volume. The case studies in the chapters that follow thus seek to address the issue holistically within particular contexts, but deliberately focus on the state response as the central intellectual issue.

Before going on to look at territorial demands of ethnic groups and the response of the state to these in particular cases in the rest of this volume and on the basis of material in other sources, it is necessary to define the context of these case studies. The first general issue is the character of the challenge faced by the state: the form that ethnic mobilization takes, and the nature of the programmes put forward by ethnic activists. The second is the territorial context within which this mobilization takes place—an issue that has a crucial bearing both on the nature of the demands that ethnic activists may make and on the prospects for a solution that may realistically receive the acquiescence, if not the blessing, of the state. The third issue is an empirical one: it is important to provide some indication of the global pattern in order to indicate the basis of selection of the cases considered here.

ETHNIC MOBILIZATION

Given the great variety of types of ethnic group, it is not to be expected that a simple generalization about the nature of their demands will be possible. Scholars in the area have made several efforts to classify such groups. In one early example, five categories of subordinate ethnic groups were identified: pariahs, the lowest stratum in a caste-based society; indigenous peoples isolated by the process of modernization; groups subordinated to neighbouring groups following a process of annexation; immigrants; and peoples reduced to subordination by the process of colonization.⁶ Subsequent classifications, as will be seen below, have tended to rest on two dimensions implicit in this classification: socio-economic and political status, and geopolitical history. But no matter how we try to simplify in the process of classification, the sheer variety of resulting types draws our attention to the enormous complexity of the phenomenon of ethnicity. It should, indeed, be pointed out that in the present volume this misleadingly simple term has been used to cover a range of types of political conflict that are differentiated not merely by the dynamics of competition between rival groups but also by the very significance of ethnicity itself, in whatever language this is described. The reality is that the same label is used here as an umbrella for a great diversity of types of conflict. While this may be useful in drawing parallels between such conflicts to our attention, the fundamentally different meaning of ethnicity in different types of society must also be borne in mind.

Thus, quite apart from the differential impact of language, culture, religion and perceived descent in the process of ethnic group formation, other factors add to the complexity of the issue. In many cases, for instance, a colonial or quasi-colonial relationship forms part of the picture: some local ethnic groups may have been favoured over others by the metropolitan power, as was the case in varying degrees in Ireland, Cyprus, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Tanzania. In such cases, but in greatly varying degrees, former metropolitan or other external powers may play a continuing role in the conflict. In addition, there may be competing settlement myths, with two or more groups claiming to have ‘got there first’; this was the case between Swedes and Finns in Finland, Germans and Czechs in the former Czechoslovakia, Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, and Sindhis and Muhajirs in Pakistan. At the opposite extreme, although they are not treated in the present volume, there exist many movements made up of recent immigrants who, however influential they may be politically, do not make territorial demands of any kind. In addition, interethnic differences may coincide with strikingly different levels of economic development; elements of a ‘cultural division of labour’ have been extremely common, and stark interethnic differences in lifestyle persist in the territories of the former Soviet Union. But it should not be assumed that minorities rank lower in all aspects of social status than the numerically and politically dominant group: the Muhajirs in Pakistan and the Tamils in Sri Lanka are examples of high-status minorities, and others may be found in Europe, such as the Swedish speakers in Finland.⁷

As in the case of so many other social processes, then, intergroup relations have been conditioned by historical developments. Economic, social and political change rarely (or never) leaves relationships between dominant and subordinate groups undisturbed, and a fundamental change tends to take place in the context of the modern state based on the notion of equality of citizenship. Over a long time-span, the transition to modern statehood is marked by two phases through which subordinate ethnic groups potentially pass. For certain types of group, the first phase is not necessarily relevant. There may also be other types to whom only the first phase is relevant: having made gains in this area, they rest satisfied. It should also be noted that although the discussion below implies a particular attraction of ethnic militants to egalitarian ideologies in the early phase of the ethnic revival, there are also groups which have demonstrated a disposition favourable to ideologies of the right.

The First Phase

Quite commonly, then, the process of ethnic mobilization is kick-started by a sense of economic and social grievance and by allegations of discriminatory treatment by the state authorities. This phase is, thus, characterized by a demand for equality of all citizens: for individual rights, resting on an assumption of a fundamental identity of all humans. This phase often begins in a period in which the subordinate group’s identity is other-defined (i.e. it is the dominant group which is most anxious to highlight and maintain the ethnic boundary) and in which it is discriminated against. The history of the Jews and of the Romany populations of Europe provides numerous examples of subordinate groups of this kind, but there are others, as in the European colonial empires and the United States in the slave-owning era. In Ireland, Catholics were at one stage similar outcasts, prohibited by law from owning or bequeathing property, from voting and from occupying a whole range of public sector positions. In some cases, the criterion for exclusion was social in theory, but ethnic in effect; thus, prior to the ending of serfdom, Estonian and Latvian peasants were formally subjected to their German masters. This form of subordination was frequently accompanied by the stigmatization of the subordinate group, whose ethnic name was used as a term of abuse and in which sub-human characteristics were detected.⁸

An essential component of the transition to modern statehood was the removal of formal disabilities, the extension of citizenship and the establishment of the principle of individual equality before the law. This typically had the effect of thrusting certain ‘rights’ on everyone, whether or not they wanted them, though in some cases this process took place too slowly for the minorities, and the struggle for equality of treatment with the members of the dominant group became the first step in a campaign of ethnic assertiveness. This campaign also depended, of course, on a changed definition of identity: ethnicity now became self-defined, with the subordinate group drawing attention to the boundary separating it from the dominant one and complaining of inequalities in the treatment of the two.

In many cases, though, the institutionalization of formal equality before the law was not sufficient to remove de facto patterns of apparent discrimination that survived from the period of formal inequality. These patterns could be maintained by the use of surrogate criteria of ethnic selection (such as literacy tests, wealth thresholds or residency requirements), by leaving large sectors of public administration and private enterprise open to unregulated management by institutions controlled by the dominant ethnic group, or by simply leaving established patterns of social and economic inequality to continue under their own momentum. In such cases the initial, ‘individual rights’ phase might extend into the contemporary period, as in the case of Blacks in the United States or Catholics in Northern Ireland. Right up to the present, then, subordinate ethnic groups have demanded equality—in effect, full implementation of their basic human and civil rights, the rights first codified in the French ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ in 1789, subsequently incorporated in most western constitutions and reformulated in the UN-sponsored Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.⁹

The Second Phase

Some groups may be happy with the gains made in the first phase; for others, the agenda may shift to a new set of demands; and for yet others political mobilization may begin at this point. In this phase, the subordinate group’s characteristic demand is for recognition of its separateness.¹⁰ While its members may be satisfied with the attainment of at least f ormal equality, ethnic self-consciousness may, depending on concrete circumstances, propel subordinate groups to make an additional set of demands. In important respects, these demands are based on ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• TABLES AND FIGURES
• MAPS
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
• 1. INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE
• 2. CANADA: THE CASE FOR ETHNOLINGUISTIC FEDERALISM IN A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY
• 3. NORTHERN IRELAND: RELIGION, ETHNIC CONFLICT AND TERRITORY
• 4. BELGIUM: FROM REGIONALISM TO FEDERALISM
• 5. SOUTH AFRICA: THE FAILURE OF ETHNOTERRITORIAL POLITICS
• 6. ISRAEL: ETHNIC CONFLICT AND POLITICAL EXCHANGE
• 7. PAKISTAN: ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND COLONIAL LEGACY
• 8. SRI LANKA: ETHNIC STRIFE AND THE POLITICS OF SPACE
• 9. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION: FEDERATION, COMMONWEALTH, SECESSION
• 10. THE DISSOLUTION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA: A CASE OF FAILED STATE BUILDING?
• 11. THE DISSOLUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA: SECESSION BY THE CENTRE?
• 12. CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A SOLUTION?