Ethnic Separation in Our Time

November 14, 2006

This past weekend I read a review for a new book by Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West. The reviewer for the New York Times calls it "a hugely ambitious panorama and moral analysis of the military-industrial slaughter of the 20th century.." And there is lots to write about when it comes to war and slaughter through the 20th century. I wonder, though, whether the focus on slaughter does not distract us from another theme: ethnic separation.

I often run into ethnic separations that I had no idea existed. Just last week I realized that over 1 million settlers were relocated into France from Algeria in the early 60s. After World War I Greece and Turkey exchanged populations. India and Pakistan also swapped a large number of citizens. Occasions of genocide.. from the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust.. were a particularly ugly version of ethnic separation. Then one can count out the contemporary conflicts that have been driven by ethnic hatreds.. from the whole Balkan mess to the current fighting in Iraq between Sunnis and Shi'ites. What I propose is that all these conflicts be seen in the light of a longstanding worldwide trend toward ethnic separation.. by whatever means necessary.

What might be the cause for this trend? I wonder if it is just coincidence that through this same period the system of nationhood was adopted worldwide. This is not to say that nations did not exist in Europe before then, but the global demarcation of borders and the rise of nations as the only legitimate actors, superseding tribes, cities, or any other form of large-scale social organization.. this was the result of the last century. Africa was carved up into national entities; the Middle East was likewise divided after World War I.

What happens when a nation is defined? The nation comes to be a primary form of personal identification for its inhabitants.. a citizen is English or German. That works fine when the population is mostly unified in its language and ethnic composition.. or comes to see itself in that way. But even in Europe, the home of the nation-state, the fit is not exact between "people" and "nation." In the rest of the world, the fit has been even worse. Various tribal groups and distinct peoples find themselves enfolded within a single nation.. and then inevitably people get around to defining what it means to be "Jordanian" or "Nigerian".. and that definition can be used as a basis for excluding those who are not seen as part of the nation.

I guess this is a way of saying that the word "nation" tends to goad a population into looking for some form of purity. Tribal groups may not mind living next to each other, but they may intensely dislike the idea that some other tribe is part of their nation, and holds power. This argument opens up the question of whether the violence of the preceding century is not a result so much of deep human evil, as of a changeover to an awkward and fudging worldwide system.. a system whose very words push people into drawing distinctions they would not have otherwise thought about.

After reading a little bit of Ibn Battuta a few weeks ago, I asked my students to come up with some suggestions for a medieval travel guide.. and they quickly commented on the lack of passports and distinct borders. There once was a multiplicity of large-scale social organizations.. from powerful central states with a reasonably coherent identity, to city-states with a much smaller catchment area, to tribal groups that had control of a certain area of land, to trading outposts ruled by a strongman. Islam made for a global system that could be navigated by a traveler or merchant.. allowing for multiple systems. It sure sounds a lot more fun than the system we now have..