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Us and Them
Summary --
Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.
Related
Response, Jul/Aug 2008
James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel Posner, Jeremy Weinstein, Richard Rosecrance, Arthur Stein, and Jerry Z. Muller
Critics refute Muller’s assumptions about ethnic conflict; Muller responds.
Response, Nov/Dec 1995
Responding to Charles G. Boyd on the Balkan crisis, author Noel Malcolm, professor Norman Cigar, and journalist David Rieff argue the Serbs bear the primary guilt; William E. Odom sees an opportunity that nato must seize; Boyd replies.
Review Essay, Jul/Aug 1995
How did Marshal Tito keep Yugoslavia in one piece? He didn't, really. A new biography portrays the Yugoslavian dictator as a mild, reluctant autocrat who unified his people. The truth is that Tito pursued many policies that exacerbated ethnic tensions. His "genius" rested in his willingness to use raw military and police power, not in his penchant for conciliatory politics.
Comments
Us and them, revisited
The ethnic arrangements negociated in Belgium over the past decades remain precarious indeed. The past 2 years have been lost in futile negociations, which never really started and brought the Flemish 60 % of de the population to despair. The Flemish majority is sending year after year over 12 billion EURO as income transfer southward to the Walloon fellow Belgians.
With the wordwide economic crisis grinding deeply, the generosity of the Flemings is swindling and the breaking up of Belgium is not any more a mere phantasy. Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) is making its way into the hearts and minds of the people. The case for independence is spreading and the fact that the USA (1776) and many other countries gained their selfdetermination through UDI has not escaped scholars and politicians here.
Multiethnic Belgium seceded from the multiethnic United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, that was created by the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleontic Wars. The Belgian UDI dates from october 4, 1830. Eight other member-states of the 27 country strong European Union reached independence after a UDI.
If such things happen in the remote Balkans, e.g. Kosovo, the world does not stop. But if it happens in the heart of Europe, at the seat of the European institutions and of the Atlantic Alliance, the world will notice.