Essay Sample on Ethnic Identity: Creating Conflicts or a Sense of Belonging?

Introduction

Ethnic identity is the way a person identifies themselves with a certain ethnic group and tends to only dwell on it in most of their activities. This kind of ethnic identities create conflicts among people as each wants to help their race and see them succeed. In cases where other groups are not represented, then they do no benefit and it creates a rivalry with the other groups that are benefiting by having some of their members in the positions.

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Its basically a sense of belonging which is determined by a person's traditions, cultural heritage, language, ancestry or religion. It's how people identify themselves with their origin and past life (Landis,2012). This might also be the reason conflicts arise as a result of ethnic crush, as when everyone identifies themselves with a given group of people then the feeling of enmity is created and they can no longer live as one. This creates division and the human character cannot help another person who is in need but from a different ethnic group.

Civil conflicts are wars between group who are from the same country. Civil conflicts result from misunderstanding in the groups and lack of concern of how the other person will react after a certain act is done to them. Civil wars affect the living nature of people and how they relate with each other in their day to day activities. There is a relationship between civil conflicts and ethnic identity (McGarry,2013). Most of the civil conflicts arise when people identify themselves with a certain ethnic group. When one is not concerned with which ethnic or tribe they are from, the likelihood of a conflict occurring is minimal. This is because they will identify themselves as one people and thus help each other without discrimination.

Civil conflicts on the basis of ethnic identity is a major threat to both international and states peace. These conflicts are basically not on the ethnic differences but over economic, political, territorial, cultural and social issues within a state. Ethnic conflicts affect the living status of people and their correlation with one another. The following are known effects of ethnic conflicts;

Civil conflicts lead to violation of human rights in cases like genocide which is against humanity. These conflicts create a condition in which certain acts can be committed and no charges are taken against the person who commits them. This affects the humanity existence as they will live in fear and not carry out their activities or advocate for the end of civil conflicts.

Civil conflicts lead to economic failure on the affected state. This is because people concentrate on fighting one another rather than growing the states economy. Most of the states resources ae used in the civil wars, rather than making investments that will help the state to grow economically (Phinney, 2010) . This in turn leads to decline of the economic status of the state as even most of the resources are destroyed in the event of the civil conflicts.

Civil conflicts lead to increase in refugees and thus increase in human suffering. People are displaced from the places they live and the places to which they escape to are not any better. The run for their lives but instead of making it safer, it becomes even worse and they cannot even provide for themselves (Landis,2012). This refugee camps ate congested and insecure in ways that they might not find themselves there tomorrow. There is also exposure of different kinds of risks such as diseases as the sanitation in these areas is not maintained. This leads to human suffering as a result of civil wars.

To understand ethnicity and how and how it leads to civil conflicts then we must get a better understanding of the different types of ethnic groups. These types are as discussed below keeping in mind that not all ethnic groups are political in nature and they use different ways to air their demands

Indigenous groups are those with typical traditional social, economic and cultural beliefs that separate them from the rest of the people in the society. They are known to be the original descendants of their original place of inhabitation. despite being the original descendants, this group is poorly organized and have poor connection among themselves and they thus are unable to voice their demands (Phinney, 2012). They thus tend to be the most marginalized groups in the states they inhibit.

Ehnoclasses group, this are the descendants of immigrants and are physically and culturally different group. They strive for equal treatment and opportunities and mobilization of its people varies widely. They have pursued their interests and demands successfully but they still remain somehow unorganized in their states of inhabitation.

Ethnonationalists group is relatively large and concentrated ethnic group with a history of separate struggles. They are never organized and they all tend to struggle for their own interests separately. They do not join hands and they thus have a difficult time when airing their interests and demands.

The communal contenders group. Its composed of culturally distinct people and groups that desire to play a role in the states power. They opt for separatism and independence seeking. This group faces both political and economic discrimination. they opt for power sharing but the arrangements to exercise power sharing are very hard to achieve.

Religious sect group that differs from the rest of the people in the society due to their religious beliefs and cultural related factors. The religious group tend to be organized and possess an organizational structure which makes it easy to mobilize the members. They have faiths that separate them but their political interests are similar and the advocate for participation in the government.

Lastly the national minority groups who have a political autonomy history and they try to reinstate it. They have kins in the neighbouring state but they are the minority group in their country of residence.

This groups are the key factors that determines the civil conflicts that may arise in the state and how it should be handled. They do not only cause the civil conflicts but they are also the determinants of which ways they can be resolved (Hecht, 2013). Focusing on ethnic identity will help in understanding contemporary civil conflicts and thus help device a way to prevent and curb them. Solutions on the political, economic and social conflicts will devised and ensure that they do not affect the running of the state.

There are different theories of ethnicity and to understand ethnic difference there is need to understand these theories. They are as discussed below;

The primordialist approach which basically explains ethnicity as a fixed characteristic of individuals and communities that live in a certain state (Horowitz, 2012). This theory explains that ethnicity is determined by the inherited biological attributes or the cultural differences that are practiced by different communities. The ethnic divisions that arises there after are considered as inherent and are a common phenomenon.

The second is the instrumentalist approach which explains ethnicity as a device used as a unity tool by individuals and groups to mobilize populations and achieve greater goals. This goals major on political issues and economic issues which includes access to resources. Instrumentalists suggest that ethnicity has no major effects on other issues concerning the states like it affects the political issues (Esteban,2011). Ethnicity is the basics of the political nature of a state and its people. Ethnic conflicts arise due to political issues and are just similar to any other political interest conflict.

Psychocultural approach of ethnicity describes ethnicity to emanate from deep psychological and cultural roots of the people which in turns makes the ethnic identity of the people more persistent. The ethnic identity of people in a community cannot be changed, but can in a way be made more tolerant and have people with an open mind of how to deal with the differences that might emanate. Ethnic conflicts due to these differences creates drama and thus challenges the very existence of a group of people and this makes ethnic conflicts very hard to resolve.

Different ethnic groups have different ways in which they identify themselves. Some groups are deeply rooted to the cultural existence while others are not so much concerned with the culture. This clearly outlines why a conflict may arise within a certain state. While others want to be recognized in the political setting of the state, others only want to have access to the economic resources in the state (Jesse, 2010). This may make one ethnic group to be marginalized than the others and due to this an ethnic related conflict may arise. These conflicts are not easily resolved as dealing with the human character who has interests may be difficult and at the end more conflicts may arise rather than resolving the existing ones.

Conflict is a situation in which two or more persons or groups pursue incompatible goals. tension, fear and dispute are evident since a conflict does not always have to be violent (Weiner,2010). When a conflict becomes violent its termed as a civil war and may disrupt the peaceful situation that is experienced before.at this point of conflict, military is used so as to achieve the political goals of a state. Ethnic conflict is thus based on the ethnic dimension of people or a group in a given state. The solutions reached at in order to solve ethnic conflict is based on ethnic lines but mainly on the political, economic and social issues of a state.

In most countries and states the ethnic identity determines how one is served and treated together with the leaders of the country's government (Weidmann, 2010). People tend to elect leaders based on the ethnic group they emanate from and not on the leadership skills they possess. People don't try to evaluate how this would affect their lives but they only think of how they will have someone of their ethnic tribe as the leader. These decisions later cost them in many ways which will later be discussed in the paper.

There are different causes of ethnic conflicts and are related to ethnic identity. this causes could be underlying or proximate causes. The underlying factors include political issues, economic and social factors while the proximate factors are the real triggers of conflicts (Taras,2015). These triggers are of four stages which are, internal mass level, external mass levels, external elite levels and the internal elite level factors.it takes both the proximate and the underlying factors for ethnic conflict to evolve.

Underlying Factors

Political factors in which a country or state lacks enough representation in both public and political institutions. Ethnic conflicts may arise as discrimination of certain groups may arise. The political factors cause violent conflicts which even lead to violation of human rights as brutality is practised (Harff, 2018). The military is involved so as to safeguard the political interests of those in positions. This thus makes it hard to solve an ethnic conflict that has the causal factor being political as a lot of resources are used and more are even destroyed in the process of trying to solve the conflict.

Economic and social factors such as slowdowns, complete collapse causes destabilization in the state or country leading to tension increase and competition by the ethnic groups. This will cause conflict as all people want to achieve and gain independency over certain economic and social resources.in the process of carrying out their day to day activities, the...