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The Violence Of A Multi Ethnic Society

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Samuel Huntington famously stated that the fiercest clashes have become battles between civilizations, according to him these clashes are neither ideological or economic, but rather cultural. Huntington couldn 't have been more mistaken. In reality, the modern world has become plagued with an increasing presence of intra-state wars as modern conflict has become synonymous with clashes between "individuals, groups, and communities that differ very little". Freud attempted to explain this perplexing occurrence as a "narcissism of minor differences" by stating that group solidarity requires the existence of an 'Other ', a minority, which through its suppression validates the identity of the majority. According to this logic, all communities despite their homogeneity must seek a minority within themselves in order to validate their existence. Bosnia 's cosmopolitanism prior to the Yugoslavian War provides us with a vivid example that this 'narcissism ' is a superficial explanation as to why 'fraternal ' conflict occurs. Prior to the war, Bosnia was not only the most ethnically integrated Yugoslavian republic, it was the poster-child of a multi-ethnic society in which various ethnicities not only coexisted but rather intermingled. This peaceful coexistence was disrupted by Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia 's president, who used Yugoslavia 's economic and political crisis of 1988 in his favour by essentializing the crisis along the lines of ethnic national identity. Through his

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