Civic culture In Yugoslavia Essay

Identity continues to be a major cause for many wars, both within and without a country. History has proven that conflicts within the borders mostly involve people with very little difference between them. Most of civil wars in nations often start as ethnicity feuds and end up to full scale wars. In the chapter, The Narcissism of Minor Differences, Blok argues that it is often the small differences that lead up to prolonged struggles (p115, 2000). Somalia is an example of a nation where majority of its people share the same cultural and religious background but for a third decade now, members

One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after the war controlled them for 45 years. When the Communist system failed, the old rivalries reasserted themselves; and in the early 1990s the nation was rent by secessionist movements and civil war. Within several years these conflicts

Living in a diverse community while maintaining a state of accord is onerous. It is innate to regard that one self’s unrivaled conduct and notion are factual, which leads society to become perplexed by that which they deem foreign. Thus, when one denounces another's truth - chaos ensues. Fr. Gregory Boyle offers that compassion and kinship are necessary to live in harmony yet, kinship cannot stand alone, and compassion must be present to create unanimity. Kinship implies that compassion is present, but that is not always correct yet, with compassion a perceived kinship is always present. To live in a community ridden with diversity can be problematic, but despite the moments in which the novel’s anecdotes were difficult to relate to Tattoos on the Heart informs its readers about what their responsibilities are when it comes to different ideas.

Humans instinctively separate into groups resembling themselves. “‘In our school there were different groups you would run with, depending on your station in life… The poor kids... We were called Nutters… The most important rule was that there was no mixing. Do you understand what I mean?’... ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In India they have something called the caste system. Members of different castes cannot marry or even eat together. The lowest caste is called the Untouchables.’” (Kingsolver, 133). Despite living distant childhoods, both Estevan and Taylor understood social division and its rules of disconnecting from other circles.

This does not mean to exclude those economic and other related institutions, but focuses this dissatisfaction on the political institutions as key to this process. This dissatisfaction is only exacerbated by the government’s inability or unwillingness to engage with this segment of the population in order to resolve the emerging conflict early in its development. Instead, the government ignores or even attempts to repress this expression of dissatisfaction, resulting in allegations of human rights abuses, among other symptoms. This only fuels a greater desire for secession in this marginalized and underrepresented segment(s) of society, as secessionism is seen as the only option available for the group to alleviate the injustices it feels is levied against it. This results in a “balkanization” of ethnic and religious groups as the

From 1992 to 1995, Bosnia experienced an extended period of turbulence due to a Serbian nationalist movement that resulted in violent upheaval. After many years of being part of an empire or another country, Bosnia finally gained the opportunity to be independent in 1992. Yet there was little reason to rejoice independence when many non-Serbs were dispossessed of their home in Bosnia. Although this genocide was coined “ethnic cleansing,” in the early stages, the devastating casualties and human rights violations mark this event as one of the worst mass killings since the Holocaust.

Everyone knows someone, and that someone knows someone else. Even in isolation, one still has past connections, whether with forgotten friends, deceased relatives, or estranged parents or children. Sometimes these connections are infinitely intricate; the delicate dance between fussy in-laws, or the deep emotional bond between a mother and her children. Sometimes they are more casual; insults tossed between old friends with no venom to the words, or the mutual acceptance of the “we must work together, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it” relationship between annoyed co-workers. Our massive web of connections is like the unfathomably huge network of connections between the pieces and parts of a cell. But unlike a spiderweb or a cell, we do not know every individual strand of our connections, just as the girl in Griffin’s essay does not know every connection, no matter how vague, that she has with her Jewish friend. Nevertheless, the two children are connected—through their friendship, through their heritage, and through hundreds or even thousands more that neither of them know—and neither do

The overall goal of partition is to eliminate conflict and produce long-lasting safety via the separation of the conflicting communities (Kaufmann as cited in Tir 265). Safety is in the form of the removal of threats relating to ethnic murder, expropriation, or expulsion (Kaufmann as cited in Tir 265). As, in situations where ethnic communities do not have a strong and impartial centralized state, ethnic groups in fear of upcoming civil conflict rally together and become defensive (Posen as cited in Kauffman 122). Furthermore, this creates a security dilemma, as ethnic groups cannot provide for their own safety and security without undermining the safety and security of other groups (Posen as cited in Kauffman 122). This dilemma stems from

First of all, it is important to consider the whole aspect of ethnicity as it has other elements such as race and culture which goes

The country of Serbia and its people have endured a turbulent and violent time as a country. Having both, a strong bond and difficult conflicts with the countries that surround them on the Balkan Peninsula have created their culture. Due to violent and ethnic clashes throughout its history, Serbia has found it difficult to gain a firm footing to establish itself as a country. If ithe government of Serbia does not continue to put forth the effort, especially now with the influx of refugees, this could become the next breeding ground for extremist and or terror organizations

“Us and Them” by Jerry Muller discusses the pervasive, historical, and growing significance of ethnic nationalism in politics; “Is Ethnic Conflict Inevitable?” contains two responses to Muller’s article by James Habyarimana et. al. and Richard Rosecrance et. al. Muller and his critics reach radically different conclusions the role of ethnic nationalism. Such differences can be explained by their assumptions of ethnic identity formation. The three’s disparities on ethnic conflict result from different theories of identity, namely: Muller to primordialism, Habyarimana to constructivism, and Rosecrance to a rational instrumentalism.

In this day and age, we find ourselves at odds with our “identity” as we find that not only are we representing ourselves, but we also have ties to religion, sect, tribe, and family (Angrist). This shows that despite the cohesiveness and threads that attach us, it has the power to pull people, families, and in some cases countries apart. This conflict comes to a head when religion and ethnicity are interwoven. Hence when divisions occur, this can lead to violent wars that destroy trust between individuals. This can ingrain a sense of uneasiness and distrust that plagues people’s ideas and leaves a country divided. This is particularly evident in Lebanon. Ethnic and religious division led to the festering of feelings of marginalization and discrimination, which boiled over into the Lebanese civil war, a war that claimed the lives of 150,000 people (Szekely). The anger and frustration birthed from this to chaos, and conflict has in turn increased the division between ethnic and religious factions and led to the crumbling of Lebanese nationalism. This essay is specifically aimed at assessing the relationships between ethnic and religious divisions in Lebanon and explores how it contributed to the civil war. This is done by identifying and analyzing the main actors and makes an explanation of the historical divisions stemming from the National Pact, branching out to include the consequences of the civil war on the political structures and the identities of the

The toughest and bloodiest conflict of the Yugoslav wars would soon occur in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia is a country that borders between Serbia and Croatia. Unlike the country of Slovenia (north of Croatia), which is majority Slovenian, Bosnia is a mixed country. Bosnia possesses three main groups of people. The three groups are Bosnians (Muslims), Croats (Catholics) and Serbs (Orthodox). Before the war, the three groups lived in harmony. However, once nationalism grew, the relationship between the three groups would not be the same. The method that would be used in this war would be ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing would involve eliminating community leaders, prominent people, intellectuals and civilians (Silber and Little, 1997). The

Known as Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, the Yugoslav Wars (also known as the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, the Yugoslav Civil War, or the War in the Balkans) were a series of wars fought in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Though the entire conflict can be divided up into four distinct wars, they are related due to their common origin and the presence of the same ethnoreligious groups in the multiple wars. These wars have become notorious due to the atrocious war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Henry Hale’s article “Divided we Stand: Institutional Sources for Ethno federal State Survival and Collapse”. Hale’s attempts to respond to the criticism leveled against ethnofederalism, which posits that ethnofederal institutional arrangement leads to secession and consequently failure of central state. He argues that existence of a core ethnic region facilitates separatism and secessionism, which if addressed will resolve the misconception about ethnofederalism. His theory of a state’s collapse is solid and well argued. However, there are some contradictions in its casual mechanism, which can be perfected with further research. This review proceeds as follows. The first section provides a brief summary of the article. The second section discusses the articles methodology, and the last section provides critique of the article.