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34Oriental Journal of History, Politics and Law
ORIENTAL JOURNAL OF HISTORY, POLITICS AND
LAW
journal homepage: https://www.supportscience.uz/index.php/oihpl
NATIONAL AND ETHNIC CONFLICTS OF XXI CENTURY
R.Z. Djumaev
Doctor of political sciences, professor Tashkent University of Oriental studies Tashkent, Uzbekistan E-mail: rustamjuma1960@yandex. ru
ABOUT ARTICLE
Key words: conflict, ethno-confessional factor, ethnic communities, socio-economic factor, national minorities, multi-ethnic states, nationalist public organizations.
Received: 14.05.22 Accepted: 16.05.22 Published: 18.05.22
Abstract: Conflicts related to the contradiction between ethnonational interests play an "extremely important" role in our time. The nature of ethnonational conflicts follows from the nature of ethnic groups and nations as state-political, socio-economic and socio-cultural communities of people, complex, multilateral relations between them. This article is devoted to the study of ethnonational conflicts of our time. The article analyzes the types of multinational states, religious, socioeconomic and geopolitical factors in ethnic conflicts.
XXI ASR MILLIY VA ETNIK NIZOLAR
R.Z. Jumaev
Siyosiy fanlar doktori, professor Toshkent sharqshunoslik universiteti Toshkent, O'zbekiston E-mail: rustamjuma1960@yandex. ru
MAQOLA HAQIDA
Kalit so'zlar: konflikt,
etnokonfessional omil, etnik o'xshashliklar, ijtimoiy-iqtisodiy omil, milliy kamchiliklar (ozchiliklar), ko'p millatli davlatlar, millatchi jamoat tashkilotlari".
Annotatsiya: Etno-milliy manfaatlar o'rtasidagi ziddiyat bilan bog'liq bo'lgan konfliktlar biznig davrga kelib "muhim rol" o'ynamoqda .Etnomilliy konfliktlarning xarakteri XXI asr milliy va etnik nizolar. Etno-milliy qarama-qarshiliklarning tabiati etnik guruhlar va millatlarning davlat-siyosiy, ijtimoiy-iqtisodiy va ijtimoiy-madaniy birlashmalari sifatidagi tabiatidan, ular o'rtasidagi murakkab, ko'p tomonlama munosabatlardan kelib chiqadi. Ushbu maqola zamonaviy davrning etno-milliy ziddiyatlarini o'rganishga bag'ishlangan. Maqolada ko'p millatli davlatlarning turlari, etnik nizolardagi diniy, ijtimoiy-iqtisodiy va geosiyosiy omillar tahlil qilinadi._
НАЦИОНАЛЬНО-ЭТНИЧЕСКИЕ КОНФЛИКТЫ XXI ВЕКА
Р.З. Джумаев
Доктор политических наук, профессор Ташкентский университет востоковедения Ташкент, Узбекистан E-mail: rustamjuma1960@yandex. ru
О СТАТЬЕ
Ключевые слова: конфликт, этноконфессиональный фактор, этнические общности, социально-экономический
фактор, национальные меньшинства, полиэтничные государства,
националистические общественные
организации.
Аннотация: Конфликты, связанные с противоречием между этнонациональными интересами, играют «исключительно важную» роль в наше время. Природа этнонациональных конфликтов вытекает из характера этносов и наций как государственно-политических, социально-экономических и социокультурных общностей людей, комплексных, многосторонних взаимоотношений между ними. Данная статья посвящена исследованию этнонациональных конфликтов современности. В статье анализируются типы многонациональных государств, религиозный, социально-экономический и геополитические факторы в этнических конфликтах._
INTRODUCTION
Conflicts of interethnic relations have become an indispensable attribute of the modern world. They break out on all continents of our planet: in both developed and developing countries, in the areas of spreading any religious teachings, in areas with different levels of wealth and education.
Numerous hearthes of ethnic conflicts - from global (Kurdish, Palestinian, Kosovo, ...) to local and pinpoint (everyday contradictions between people of different nationalities within a city, town, village) - give rise to instability, which is increasingly difficult to restrain within state borders.
To one degree or another, neighboring ethnic groups, and often remote centers of power, including such large-scale geopolitical players as the USA, Russia, Great Britain, India, China, are always involved in the confrontation of ethnic groups.
THE MAIN RESULTS AND FINDINGS
Signs of a conflict are manifested in a clash of forces, parties, interests. The object of the conflict can be both a fragment of material, socio-political or spiritual reality, as well as the territory, its bowels, social status, distribution of power, language and cultural values. In the first case, a social conflict is formed, in the second - a territorial one. The ethnic conflict that takes place between ethnos - groups of people who have a common historical and cultural foundation and occupy a certain spatial range - is a territorial conflict.
The whole complex of related problems is studied by geographic conflictology - a scientific direction that studies the nature, essence, causes of conflicts, the patterns of their course and development based on interaction with spatial (geographical) factors. Geographic conflictology uses knowledge of philosophy, history, sociology, jurisprudence, political science, psychology, ethnology, biology, economics, political geography and geopolitics, physical and social geography.
Any conflict is characterized by uneven development over time. Periods of its latent (hidden) development are replaced by segments of open confrontation between the parties to the conflict; at this time, its actualization takes place, when the activity of the opposing sides sharply increases, the number of political actions increases many times over, and the transition to armed actions occurs.
The transition of the latent period to the actualized one usually begins with a statement by one of the parties about dissatisfaction with their position and the intention to change it. The announcement of dissatisfaction is the first phase of the actualized conflict. It is followed by the phase of refusal, that is, denial by at least one of the parties to the conflict of the very existence of the problem, the phase of escalating the conflict, the phase of the meeting (recognition of its
existence by both parties, the beginning of consultations and negotiations) and the phase of conflict resolution.The latter phases can be recorded only in conflicts that have faded, reduced their destructive potential.
Like any other socio-political phenomenon, ethnic conflict develops according to certain laws and is initiated by specific factors, including objective and subjective ones. The objective group includes those factors that exist relatively independently from public consciousness. The most striking example of this kind is the natural factor.
Everything that contributes to the development of the conflict is linked into a single complex. An active manifestation of one or two factors without the support of the rest is not capable of forming any serious ethnic conflict.
An important and often decisive role in the processes of the emergence of conflicts is played by the ethno-confessional factor. The main component of any ethnic conflict is the crisis of ethnic identity (political scientists and conflictologists call it an identity crisis).
It manifests itself in a change in the ethnic, confessional (religious) and political self-identification of people, in the strengthening the influence of nationalist groups and associations, in the growth of their political activity.
Many states of the world are interested in creating a single supranational nationwide identity, which, on the basis of a single language, common symbols and traditions, would be able to consolidate all ethnic, confessional and social groups of the country.
In one-nation (mono-ethnic) states, such as Japan, Norway or Portugal, this problem has already been practically resolved. Since the end of the 19th century, these countries have been at such a level of ethnic consolidation which in the West has received the name "nation-state", that is, there is an almost complete coincidence between ethnic and state (civil) self-identification.
The term "nation state" was first used at the end of the 18th century in relation to France. The essence of this concept is that the entire population of a country is defined as a single nation that does not have ethnic differences within the framework of a single state.
The slogan under which this process is taking place reads: "Every nation has a state. Each state has a national essence. "It should be noted, however, that this idea is far from widespread implementation. As many researchers rightly point out, an ethnically homogeneous nation state is an ideal idea, since in reality almost every state has more or less pronounced minorities and in the modern ethnically mixed world the task of building a textbook model of a nation state can be called utopian.
The life situation shows that today ethnic groups are artificially divided into two groups. The smallest part of them is the elite club, identified with the international community and all its institutions. Representatives of another, larger group of ethnic groups exist on the rights of ethnic
minorities in multinational states and are limited in their ability to directly participate in the activities of the international community. The existence of several international organizations of ethnic minorities, like the Association of the Peoples of the North or the Organization of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples (it includes 52 members, including Abkhazia, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Gagauzia, Kosovo, Iraqi Kurdistan, Taiwan), is perceived as a weak consolation for the peoples unrepresented in the foreign policy arena.
Interethnic relations are most complex in multinational (multi-ethnic) states.
In some, centralized, some ethnic groups are so large that they are constantly in the center of social and political life, dictate their interests, put forward a standardized culture built on their own national and cultural foundation, and try to assimilate minorities. It is in such states are developing the greatest potential for conflicts, since the dominant group makes claims to exclusive control of state institutions, which causes a response from national minorities.
This model of interethnic relations prevails in Iran, Indonesia, Myanmar and a number of other countries. In some of them, the desire to consolidate the entire population of the country into a single nation on the basis of a dominant ethnic group casts doubt on the very existence of other ethnic groups (for example, in Turkey the Kurds are officially called "mountain Turks").
In a dispersed type of multinational state the population consists of a small number of ethnic groups, each of which is too weak or small in number to dominate. As a result, the only option acceptable to all is the achievement of interethnic consent (though at times rather fragile and often violated). Such a system has formed, for example, in many African countries, where an extremely heterogeneous ethnic composition is the legacy of colonial borders (Nigeria, Tanzania, Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc.).
Discrimination against national minorities can take various forms: restriction or even prohibition of the national language and culture, economic pressure, resettlement from an ethnic territory, reduction of quotas of representation in the administrative structures of the state, etc. In almost all countries of the East the share of representatives of different ethnic groups in the power system does not correspond to the specific weight of this ethnic group among the entire population.
As a rule, numerically dominant ethnic groups (Persians in Iran, Punjabis in Pakistan, Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, Malays in Malaysia, Burmese in Myanmar, etc.) at all levels of government have a disproportionately high representation and most other ethnic groups are disproportionately low.
The main requirements of most of the national movements involved in ethnic conflicts are reduced to three areas:
1) cultural revival (the creation of broad cultural autonomy with the use of the native language in local government and education);
2) economical independence (the right to dispose of natural resources and economic potential localized within an ethnic territory);
3) political self-government (institution of national self-government within the boundaries of an ethnic territory or part of it).
The range of demands of these movements is determined by the degree of development and complexity of the ethnos structure, its internal social differentiation. Leaders of more "simple" ethnic communities that preserve remnants of tribal relations usually come out with unequivocal demands for independence and / or the expulsion of all "outsiders" (for example, leaders of the national movement in Assam). For larger and more developed ethnic groups, the range of demands put forward is much wider: they are dominated by the requirements of cultural and nationalterritorial autonomy, the provision of economic independence and political self-government, which is confirmed, for example, by the situation in Catalonia.
A number of ethnic groups demand the expansion of rights up to the formation of their own statehood. However, if in practice we are guided by the principle of complete self-determination (up to secession) for each ethnic group, then this implies a low-optimistic prospect of the gradual disintegration of all multinational states of the world until every ethnic group on the planet (and there are 3-4 thousand of them) has their state. According to the American scientist S. Cohen, in 25 - 30 years the number of states may increase by half. As a result, there will be more than 300 sovereign states on the world map.
The difference between the confessional form of conflict formation from the ethnic one lies in the fact that it is not ethnic self-consciousness that comes to the forefront but religious one. Often, adversaries in a conflict even belong to the same ethnic group. For example, adherents of Sikhism ethnically are Punjabis. They are in conflict with Hindu Punjabis (in India) and Muslim Punjabis (in Pakistan).
Religion has a significant impact on the entire culture of an ethnic group. Sometimes confessional differences play a decisive role in ethnogenesis. For example, the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats living in Bosnia and Herzegovina speak the same language even before the ethnic cleansing of the first half of the 1990s., they lived in stripes within a single area. It is not excluded that the Punjabi ethnos, which still retains its unity, will split in a short time on religious grounds. At least now, Punjabis practicing Sikhism speak Punjabi, Punjabis Hindus speak Hindi, and Muslim Punjabis speak Urdu.
Classic centres of ethnic conflicts with a pronounced dominant role of the religious factor are Palestine, Punjab, Kashmir, and the Southern Philippines (areas where Moro Muslims live).
The religious component of the conflict is mixed with the ethnic one in Cyprus (Muslim Turkish Cypriots versus Christian Greek Cypriots), Sri Lanka (Tamil Hindus versus Sinhalese
Buddhists), Northern Ireland (Irish Catholics versus Protestants from England and Scotland), in the Indian state of Nagaland (Naga Christians against the main population of India - Hindus), etc. There are, however, many hotbeds of conflict where the opposing sides are co-religionists: Catalonia, Transnistria, Baluchistan, etc. Closely interacts with the ethnic-confessional socioeconomic factor. In its pure form, it is not capable of leading to the emergence of a serious ethnic conflict, otherwise, any economically different area would be a hotbed of inter-ethnic confrontation. The dependence of the intensity of the conflict on the level of economic development cannot be determined unambiguously. There are centres of ethnic conflicts in the world, both relatively economically developed (Catalonia, Quebec, Transnistria) and economically depressive (Chechnya, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Chiapas, Corsica). The motivation for the dissatisfaction expressed by the ethnos with their economic position can be different. Ethnic groups living in relative prosperity and well-being often show dissatisfaction with the established practice of unjustifiably high contributions from their region to the national budget. According to the leaders of these national movements, under the guise of declarations on the harmonious and balanced economic development of the country, the region is being robbed.
At the same time, the more noticeable the economic disproportions between the most and the least developed regions of the country, the larger amounts are withdrawn from economically prosperous regions, which causes a sharp rejection by them of "freeloader regions".
Ethnic groups inhabiting economically lagging areas complain that governing structures or international organizations do not take into account the deplorable situation in their economy, do not give loans for its development, do not see the needs of the common population.
Raising the bar of economic demands, which at times turns into direct economic blackmail, according to the calculations of the leaders of the conflicting ethnic group, can lead to the more profitable redistribution of budgetary funds, international aid, and a more equitable tax policy. Sometimes the parties to the conflict rely on non-traditional economic sources, such as income from the smuggling of various types of goods, including weapons and drugs, hostage-taking for ransom, extortion from fellow tribesmen who have achieved business success.
The socio-economic factor plays an important role in the formation and development of the Basque conflict knot, it is clearly expressed in Indian Assam and Indonesian Irian Jai.
In the processes of the origin and evolution of ethnic conflicts, the natural factor is of no small importance. Basically, its action is manifested in the form of natural boundaries, which often serve as barriers between neighbouring ethnic groups, boundaries of interethnic clashes and wars.
Mountain ranges, large rivers, sea straits, and rugged land areas (deserts, swamps, forests) can act as such natural boundaries. On the one hand, natural boundaries minimize contacts between warring ethnic groups, which reduce the conflict of relations, on the other hand, they contribute to
the psychological alienation of ethnic groups living on opposite sides of the barrier. Natural boundaries were previously one of the main factors that laid the direction of ethnic boundaries, thereby determining the ethnic map of the region. Natural accessibility of the territory determines the level of economic development.
If the state does not have the level of welfare of Switzerland, within which, by the way, there are a lot of various natural boundaries, then the natural boundaries will lead to certain difficulties in contacts with some territories, which will negatively affect their economic development.
In comparison with other conflict-generating factors, natural boundaries are the least plastic and practically unchanged. "In reality, it is only possible to slightly improve the connections between opposite sides of the natural boundary (construction of mountain and sea tunnels, construction of bridges, creation of sea and air routes, the transformation of deserts and tropical jungles, etc.), however, it is hardly possible to eliminate the differences in economic and geopolitical positions.
The geopolitical factor plays an important role in the formation of large hotbeds of ethnic conflicts. The main form of its manifestation is geopolitical faults between extended civilizational-historical and military-political arrays. The concepts of geopolitical faults of various directions and configurations have recently become popular in the scientific community.
The most famous is the model of American S. Huntington. Fault zones are characterized by political instability, opposition to the strategic interests of the largest geopolitical forces, and conflicts often arise here. A vivid example of this factor is the Balkan mega-conflict and its components - ethnic conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Western Macedonia, and Montenegro. The uniqueness of the Balkan knot lies in the fact that three geopolitical faults pass through it at once: between the Orthodox-Slavic and Islamic civilizations (currently the most conflict-prone), between the Orthodox-Slavic and European-Catholic civilizations and between the European-Catholic and Islamic civilizations
Each of the three sides of the conflict node experiences strong interference from external forces. The United States, Britain, Germany and other NATO countries support the Croats and Muslim peoples (Kosovar, Albanians and Bosnians). The Orthodox Serbs actually found themselves in isolation, since their traditional foreign policy patrons (including Russia) less persistently and consistently defend their interests in the international arena.
In every major ethnic conflict, the opposing sides observe collective interests, the development of which is possible only if there are an organizing and governing entity, such as the national elite, a more or less large public organization, armed formations, a political party, etc.
Such closely involved political organizations exist in many countries of the world. This, for example, The Kurdish Workers' Party in Turkish Kurdistan, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
in the Tamil north of Sri Lanka, the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, etc.
In countries with developed parliamentary democracies, national movements operate openly, freely participating in elections at various levels. However, some of the most odious and extremist organizations in respect of which their involvement in bloody crimes have been proven are prohibited. Nevertheless, even in these cases, national groups have the opportunity to openly express their interests.
Nationalist public organizations reflect the interests and sentiments of the peripheral elites striving to expand their influence. Such ethnocratic elites are formed mainly in three ways. First, the state and administrative nomenclature that existed under the previous regime can transform into a new national elite (examples: most of the CIS countries, the countries of the former Yugoslavia). Secondly, such an elite can be represented by a new nationalist intelligentsia (teachers, writers, journalists, etc.), which did not previously possess power, but at a certain moment felt the possibility of acquiring it (the Baltic countries, Georgia). Thirdly, the ethnocratic elite can be formed from a conglomerate of warlords and mafia leaders fighting for national independence, as happened in Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Myanmar.
Sooner or later, a charismatic leader of the national movement appears among the ethnocratic elite, such as, for example, Y. Arafat for Palestine or A. Ocalan for Kurdistan, who concentrates in his hands all the forces involved in fulfilling the intended goals. The leader represents the interests of his movement at various levels, leads negotiations with the opposing side, achieves international recognition.
However, it is wrong to make the leader's role absolute in the process of a territory's struggle for sovereignty. Without a wide circle of like-minded people, a clear hierarchical party structure, the support of the national elite, the leader remains an alone rebel.
Among the factors contributing to the development of separatism, one cannot fail to mention the historical factor. If an ethnic group that puts forward demands for self-determination or autonomy previously had its own statehood or self-governing institutions, then it has much more moral reason to revive them.
In many respects, it is for this reason that the Baltic republics of the former USSR have been the region of the most clearly defined nationalist processes throughout their existence. Similar problems can now face the Russian Federation, several subjects of which, for example, Tatarstan, Tyva, Dagestan (the latter in the form of fragmented feudal possessions), previously had their own statehood.
None of the factors of separatism has such decisive importance for the transition of the conflict from latent to actualized form, as a factor of social mobilization.
Without the active participation of the population, any area of manifestation of disintegration tendencies hardly has grounds to become a hotbed of separatism. The mobilization of the population is understood as the ability of certain political groups to take active steps to achieve their economic, political and national interests. The higher the political consciousness in a society, the higher its mobilization.
The growth of mobilization also entails an increase in the political activity of the population, the indicators of which are an increase in the number of demonstrations, rallies, strikes, picketing and other political actions. As a result, high mobilization of the population can lead to destabilization of political life and even outbreaks of violence.
The level of mobilization in different social groups usually differs. Particularly irreconcilable positions on ways to resolve the conflict - extremism - dominate the marginal segments of the population. It is in them that the lack of culture and education is felt; first of all, these social groups are most susceptible to partial or complete unemployment.
As the conflict develops, the field of action for public mobilization expands. At the moment of its emergence, the most mobilized group is the national intelligentsia, which, by influencing broad strata of the population through the media, increases the mobilization of the entire ethnocultural community.
Interestingly, in such situations, a particularly strong destabilizing role is played by the ethnic revival-oriented humanitarian intelligentsia, while the technical one most often acts as a stabilizing factor.
Of great importance in the study of the centres of instability is the concept of "threshold critical level of mobilization", exceeding which is followed by the open phase of the conflict. In general, this threshold is higher in more developed regions of the planet (Europe, America) and decreases in less developed regions (Africa, Asia). Thus, the ethnic and cultural discrimination against Tamils in Sri Lanka led to a major armed conflict, and such actions carried out by the Estonian government against the Russian-speaking population did not generate even a reaction that was close in intensity.
CONCLUSION
The mobilization of a certain group of the population usually depends on the number of resources under public control (mainly labour) and the political organization. The forms of group organization are diverse and include both political parties and other social structures: national-cultural movements, liberation fronts, etc. In any case, for each social group capable of increasing its mobilization, the following conditions must be met:
1) general identification of the group;
2) a common self-name, well known to both members and non-members of the group;
3) certain symbols of the group: emblems, slogans, songs, uniforms, national clothes, etc .;
4) the presence in the group of a certain circle of persons whose authority is recognized by all members of the group;
5) its own controlled space assigned to the group;
6) the presence of common property (money, weapons and other means of struggle);
7) exercise by the top of the group of control over the activities of all members of the group. All hearthes of ethnic conflicts in the world were formed as a result of the combination of
the above factors.
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