Centripetal/Centrifugal Forces

• Centripetal force: an attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state

• Centrifugal force: an attitude or force that divides people and states

• Balkans

  • Yugoslavia: Croatia & Serbia

    • Nationalism acted as both centrifugal and centripetal force

    • Centrifugal because it led to different nationalities dividing from each other and Yugoslavia as a whole

    • Centripetal because it brought people together for a common cause, both Serbs and Croatians were drawn closer to each other and felt united over their hatred for the other state

  • Kosovo: Serbs vs Albanians

    • Serbia gained control of Kosovo after the breakup of Yugoslavia, and they then began ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority (90%)

    • As a result, NATO launched an air attack against Serbia

    • Differences between ethnicities led to a feeling of superioriy from the Serbians (wanted to rid Kosovo of its Albanian majority)

  • Ethnic cleansing: process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region

  • Religion

    • Ireland: Northern Ireland vs Republic of Ireland

      • Ireland wanted to separate from the UK, Northern Ireland did not 

      • After separation, most in Republic of Ireland adopted Roman Catholicism whereas Protestantism remained the religion of the majority in N. Ireland

      • Roman catholics in N. Ireland are discriminated against (excluded from higher paying jobs and better schools)

      • Extremists on either side keep conflict alive

    • Israel vs Palestine

      • Israelis are mostly Jewish whereas Palestinians are mostly Muslim

      • Jerusalem is a holy city for both religions, thus leading to both feeling as if they have a claim to it

      • After the Arab-Israeli War, Israel cized ½ of Jerusalem and part of the land delineated to Palestine in the original plan by the UN

      • Now, Palestine has no territory of their own, which has led to great tension between the two

    • Either side

      • Ethnicity may bring people together over a common ethnicity or draw people apart who are of different ethnicities

    • Religion: can bring people together with a shared system of beliefs, or seperate those who adhere to opposing religions

    • Language: gives groups of people a form of communication, but also makes it difficult for others to feel as if they can relate

Legacy of Colonialism/ Imperialism in Africa

• Colonialism: state takes possession of a foreign territory, occupies it, and governs it

• Imperialism: state directly or indirectly controls another (usually economic control)

• Impact on culture, language, religion, political landscape

  • Culture take influence from colonizers especially with religion because of influence from their European colonizers

• Language: English and French both have many speakers in Africa

  • English is an official language in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, and more

  • French is spoken in many states such as Rwanda, Niger, and Burundi

• Conflicts

  • Superimposed boundaries: European states dividen Africa during the Berlin Conference with little regard to the different ethnicities that live there, but rather to their own personal gain from resources and trade

    • Has lead to fighting and violence between different ethnicities forced to share a state

    • Has also led to the creation of many landlocked states with little hope for economic development due to a reliance on surrounding states and lack of coast for trading/finding sources (oil)

• Ethnic cleansing, genocide

  • Sudan

    • non -arab ethnicities tend to live in West, South, and east of Sudan which has led to conflicts throughout the states

    • South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, but its many ethnicities make centralization difficult

    • After darfur’s black africans led a rebellion in 2003, due to discrimination and were crushed by the
      Sudanese govt, which killed 480,000 and sent 2.8 million to live in refugee camps, many countries considered Sudan to have commited a war crime, genocide

  • Rwanda

    • Hutus led a genocide which murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis beginning in 1994

    • Conflict occurred because hutus opposed the idea of seeking peace between the Hutus and Tutsis

  • Ethiopia and Eritrea

    • Un granted Ethiopia Eritrea after WWII 

    • Ethiopia then unexpectedly began ethnic cleansing by dissolving the Eritrean legislature and banning the use of their native language

    • Civil war that lasted 30 years

  • South Asia

    • British created India, Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) to separate the different religions (Islam and Hinduism) after giving them their independence

    • Now the two constantly fight over Kashmir, a region whose borders were never officially established

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

• Ethnic Cleansing: process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region

• Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation

  • Difference is that genocide is mass killing that is intentional instead of just trying to remove an ethnic group by force

• Impact on major regions

  • See legacy of colonialism/imperialism in Africa (Darfur, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Rwanda), centripetal./centrifugal forces (Kosovo)

  • Genocide in Western Europe: the Holocaust

    • Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews in an attempt to create a “pure”, Aryan race

  • South Asia: Sri Lanka

    • Sinhalese(Buddhists) discriminate against the Tamils( Hindu) through their power in the government

      • 
        Tamils fear that the Sinhalese will try to convert Sri Lanka into a nation-state rather than a multi-ethnic state

    • Conflict causing factors

      • Religion

      • Nationalism

      • Political beliefs

Nation-State and Multi-Ethnic State

• Nation-state: a state whose territory corresponds to that of a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality

• Multiethnic state: state that contains more than one ethnicity 

• Nation-states

  • Denmark(90% ethnic Danes & nearly all Danes speak Danish)

  • Japan (more that 98% ethnically Japanese & nearly all speak Japanese)

• Multiethnic states

  • US: comprised of whites,blacks (African Americans), Hispanic Americans , and Asian American

• Role in self determination

  • Self determination: concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves

    • Multinational states such as Russia have multiple ethnicities/nationalities within them that seek their own sovereignty

• Federalist vs Unitary State

  • Federalist

    • Government system used to prevent conflict between ethnic groups because it divides power between national and state governments 

    • Flemish and Walloons is why Belgium has a federalist gov’t

  • Unitary

    • Works best in nation-states, ut is also sometimes adopted in multiethnic states so that the values of one nationality can be imposed on others

    • Japan has unitary and is a nation-state, but Kenya and Rwanda are multiethnic and are unitary