Ethnic Conflicts

Ethnicity
What count as ethnic conflict?
Ethnic conflict is about
- political power in a disputed territory
  - Groups wanting to separate, between ethnic lines
  - Groups wanting to take over the government
Ethnic conflict usually occurs if three conditions are present:
- The state is weak (not unified), isn’t proactive in stopping conflict or picks a side
- The groups’ myth-symbols complex lead them to see each other as hostile.
  - The myth-symbol complex is the gaurantee that myth and symbols like ethnic hostilities, hatred, and discriminative ideas are passed down through ethnic identity. They are not reliant on scientific understanding, but more on generational pass downs. This creates extremist parties who would not stand for coexistance between their group and another ethnic group. [^1]
- There is territorial dispute between the groups.
Characteristics
- These conflicts rarely are ‘religious’
  - One exception is Sudanese government attempt to impose Islamic law
- Though economic grievances are always present, ethnic conflicts expressed in ethnic terms
  - Misconception that ethnic conflicts are ‘merely’ economic
  - It’s also about Social discrimination, different class citizens, different education
  - The rich ones are the activists
- War have about 1,000 battle deaths, but Ethnic Conflicts typically have more than 100,000 deaths

Cases of Ethnic Conflict

Power-sharing and autonomy.
- Sometimes possible through international intervention.
- In most cases, the peace broke down.
- Logical but impossible: ethnic conflict happened because they can’t share power in the first place
Partitioning (rebel minority wins) or government represses the rebellion through military victory. According to Kaufmann, between 1944 and 1994, 59% of peace came from military victory (16 of 27 ethnic wars).
- International intervention can prevent one side from winning decisively.
- As war became protracted, frictions accumulate, casualties is mounting, and the belligerents might be forced to accept power-sharing scheme.
- Problem:
  - If large group win we have a Genocide
  - No one wants half of their country, they want all of it
Prevent the fear-based construction of the myth-symbol complex: to inform people not to adopt the extremist ideology anymore passed on through generations