Why have Ethnicities Been Transformed into Nationalities?

Key Issue 2

Nationality

• Identity with a group of people who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular country.

• Unlike ethnicity, to be of the same nationality you practice this connectedness through voting, getting a passport and participating in civic duties

• Every U.S citizen shares the same nationality although may racially ethnically different.

Ethnic-Nation Clash

• Nationality is important as it unites people under a government.

• To categorize people by place of origin helps to document emigrants and immigrants.

• If people were classified by ethnicity, rather than nation, as many would prefer, this could/has lead to great conflict.

Nation State-Review

• Through self-determination there are ethnicities that have been transformed into nationalities.

• Out of this concept a Nation-State was born. • Where the ethnic and cultural values of

people also share a territory on earth. • Territory reflects ethnicity.

Nation States in Europe

• Europe in 1800’s

• Europe 1900

• Europe 1919

• Europe 1940

• Europe 1945

• Europe 2008

No perfect nation state

• With globalization and immigration it is far to difficult to truly be a nation state, with the exception of maybe Japan.

• When you are then forced to unite people not under the shared cultural values but rather under the collective government, Nationalism is born.

Nationalism

• Centripetal and Centrifugal forces!• Loyalty to a nation- a physical place-• U.S.A= #1!!!!• Being American!

What makes people loyal to a nation?

• Media• We believe what we hear • gov’t influences news. –some worse than

others• Flags and songs• negativity towards others• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pjliE37E

NY

Multiethnic/Multinational States

• More than one ethnicity that contribute to the whole of the culture of the nation- Belgium

• More than one recognized ethnicity with traditions of self determination but agree to coexist peacefully while recognizing their own nationalities.– UK

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

• What holds them together? SPORTS! FIFA!!!!

Other Multi-National States

• Former Soviet Union –1991• Made up of 15 republics and based on the 15

largest ethnicities. • Other small ethnicities were not given rank

and power • When the Soviet Union fell, these republics

became 15 independent states.

The Baltic's

The “Europeans”

Central Asians- “stans”

Russia as a Multinational State

• 39 ethnicities are recognized as nationalities inside Russia.

• 20% of ‘Russians’ are not Russian. • The occupy border areas and speak non-Indo

European languages.

Chechnya

• There are a number of independent movements because Russian is less forceful in holding these groups together than the Soviet Union was.

• Chechnya is one example. • Chechens are Sunni Muslims who declared

independence after the 1991 fall but Russia needs them for their rich natural resources---petroleum

• https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chechnya,+Russia/@43.2429394,45.7419021,6z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x4051d57c9d13b971:0x7faadc5dead7e13b

The Caucasus

Revival of Ethnic Identity

• These conflicts in the former republics demonstrate the strength that ethnicity has over nationality.

• Karl Marx said Nationalism was created by the people in power to control those who labored for the country.

• But it is Ethnicity that is more powerful than nationality.

Ethnicity and Communism

• Communism was used to snuff out ethnic identity.

• The communist government of Bulgaria banned the Turkish language and Islamic religious rituals in an effort to unite citizens under a governmental model rather than a cultural one.

• People were ‘encouraged’ through centripetal forces to promote the communist agenda. Media and art.

Rebirth of Nationalism in Eastern Europe

• After the fall of the Soviet Union, majority ethnicities were given the opportunity to create nation-states BUT those who were minority ethnic groups were scattered throughout the newly formed nation states.

• These minorities fought to establish sovereign nation states of their own.

• The fall of Yugoslavia.