Who Am I? The Roles of Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism

Who Am I? The Roles of Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism
In the Yugoslavian Conflict
By B.E.N.
October 30, 2005

When examining the genesis of an intrastate conflict, in this case the Balkans and specifically the former Republic of Yugoslavia, the driving originating factors must be assessed and acknowledged. The rallying dynamic, whether it is religious, ethnic or economic, etc, must be broken down into the core elements and examined for their role in mitigating or exacerbating the crisis. This article intends to look at the roles ethnicity and religion play in nationalism, and determine whether they are drivers or enablers to the conflicts experienced in Yugoslavia.

Ethnicity…
Ethnicity, according to the Random House College Dictionary, is defined as, “belonging to or deriving from the cultural, racial, religious, or linguistic traditions of a people or country.”[1] Members of an ethnic group are usually readily distinguishable from other non-members with these distinguishing features holding commonality to the ethnic group claiming them.

Ethnic groups share common origins, possess a continuity of time- in both the past as well as in the future- and maintain an intergenerational transmission of these common traits. A key point about ethnicity is that it is a social concept, which differentiates it from race, which is a biological concept. While race can be part of an ethnic group, it is not the driving factor behind the formation of the group.

Religion…
Referring once again to the Random House College Dictionary, religion is defined as, “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.”[2] This is especially important when the members of different religions use it to define their roles and positions in the universe. Since religion is an intellectual element, the groups based on it are not limited by ethnic or geographical characteristics.

An important and interesting phenomenon that comes with religion is the sense of family that it creates. From the paternal feelings that exist between the supernatural and the corporeal to the lexicon that exists within the institution; there is a strong familial aura that surrounds religion. And religion, in a sense, serves the same purpose that family does. As members within a family benefit from a present tense feeling of “social welfare security”, members of religious ideologies receive a future tense feeling of “social welfare security.”[3]

The impact and importance of this, as will be seen later, cannot be overstated, especially when this phenomenon is used to justify religious member actions. As was wisely put, “no matter how apolitical the act of worship itself may seem, the institutional infrastructure of religion is invariably politicized.”[4]

Nationalism…
So when we focus on the development of nationalist movements, we have to understand what the required elements of a nation are. What are the factors that constitute a nation, and how are these factors determined.

Anne-Marie Thiesse explains in her piece Inventing National Identity[5] that to create a national identity, several key factors must be nourished and universally established. These include a history, to include historical monuments; heroes who embody the national values; language, culture and folklore which characteristically develop a specific national mentality; but most importantly for the purposes of a state is the ties to a distinctive geographical feature or location.

Upon examination of the required elements of nationalism, a similarity to ethnicity is apparent. The definition of nation is typically explained as, “a body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or possess a government peculiarly its own.”[6] This is important because nation is usually synonymous with state, which is defined as, “a politically unified population occupying a specific area of land.”[7] While they are similar in their political overtones, they are different, primarily in the notion of territorial possession. States occupy territory where as nations are associated with territories. This becomes important in examining heterogeneous states and the development of nationalist movements within.

To take this one step further, a major difference between a nation-state and an ethnic group is sovereignty; nation-states have it while ethnic groups may seek it, through nationalist movements.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia…
To properly examine the Yugoslavian situation, a proper starting point in time is necessary. In this case, the best is probably the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.

A result of the Paris Peace Conference, the kingdom was created and ruled by then Prince-Regent Alexander, son of the former king of Serbia, Petar. The kingdom consisted of Serbia, Montenegro, the state of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A host of factors complicated the state’s attempt to politically integrate the government, which will be a common goal of the ruling regimes throughout the state’s history, to include: a diversity of languages, nationalities and varying religions as well as differing histories of the regions and an uneven distribution of economic development between the provinces.[8]

The kingdom was plagued by political crisis after political crisis, but the state managed to pass a Constitution in 1921, which established a unitary monarchy that became very Serbocentric. Croatian resistance experienced political oppression, which climaxed with a member of the governing majority shooting five members of the Croatian Peasant Party including the leader Stjepan Radic, two dieing on the floor and Radic four months later. As a result, the Croatian opposition completely withdrew from parliament and King Alexander on January 6th, 1929, prorogued the Constitution and dismissed the Parliament, establishing what became known as the 6th of January dictatorship. The name of the state also changed at this time to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Macedonian revolutionaries, in collaboration with the Croatian Ustashe, assassinated King Alexander, a Serbian hero, on October 9th, 1934. He was replaced by a regency council of three which was headed by Prince Pavle. This sets the stage for a series of events that will have an enormous impact on the Yugoslavian conflict of the 90s.

World War II and Nazi Germany…
During the Second World War, several events occurred that reverberates today. Germany invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, divided the country and established a puppet Croat regime, the Ustasha, in the newly created Independent State of Croatia. Two primary opposition groups formed; the Cetniks, who were mostly Serbian royalists supporting the exiled monarchy, and the Partisans, who were a communist group and opposed both the Ustasha and the Cetniks.

The Partisans, under the leadership of Josip Tito, were very effective in conducting a guerilla campaign against the Nazi’s, who gave the Ustasha a free hand in suppressing the insurgency. This resulted in a massive loss of civilian life. 10% of the Yugoslavian population or 1.7 million people, primarily the Serbs of Bosnia and Croatia who had been the major supporters to the rebel forces.

The Partisans were the de facto rulers of liberated Yugoslavian territory and following the expulsion of Axis forces from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945, they established the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia and Tito, now a national hero, was named the prime minister. In 1963, Yugoslavia was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Tito became the President for Life, which ended on May 4, 1980.
Creating Problems vs. Supporting Them…[9]

In an effort to create unity and overcome the obvious differences of the Yugoslavian population, Tito pushed Yugoslavia towards a Yugoslavian identity and tried to suppress the various ethnic, provincial identities. He was only partially successful in this as he was able to minimize conflicts between the various groups, however, he was not able to supplant the different identities with the state identity.

This is the crux, and the genesis, of Yugoslavia’s conflict- identity. Several factors perpetuated the crisis, all of which revolved around the notion of identity. For one, the identities of the parties involved were persistent. They are possible because of, “socialization with the group and from suffering from discrimination and exclusion by other ethnic groups.”[10] The primacy of an identity is also a contributing factor. The significance of the various identities of the participating groups was a central element of the conflict. Because of the significance of these identities, no one group was willing to compromise on their identity. Because there was no willingness to nurture a collective identity, there was no hope of constructive collaboration or successful settlement.

Two other important elements of identity must also be examined. One is nationalism, which asserts that, “nations or groups of people who share a common history and destiny have the right to have a territory or state of their own.”[11] This becomes especially powerful when the nationalist movement is ethnocentric. The other element is notion of victimhood. This stems from the notion that a certain group, both real and imagined, has been the repeated victim of oppression or domination. It fosters distrust of other non-group members and can generate pre-emptive actions, which then perpetuate the conflict.

So how do these different factors affect the conflict in the Balkans, in particular the former Republic of Yugoslavia? The internal factors of leadership and experience go a long way. The experiences of the Croats, who have been discriminated and oppressed by the Serbs, fostered a victim relationship in their collective identity. However, the Croats treatment of the Serbs during World War II cemented a feeling of victimhood with the Serbian populations and painted them as violent oppressors.

Leadership factors have also impacted the conflict. Consider the message of tolerance espoused by Cardinal Strossmayer that called on the Catholic Croats to have tolerance for the Serbs and the Eastern Orthodoxy. Compare that with the nationalist zeal of Arch Cardinal Stepinac, who supported the growth of the Ustasha, who hated communism and who supported collaboration with the Nazi’s for nationalist reasons.

This spilled over into the relationship the groups had with one another. A history of violence and oppression exists, toughening the resolve the groups and raising the bar for the level of force needed to break that resolve. How the varying ethnic communities characterize one another also impacts their ability to reach peace. Dehumanizing other ethnic groups removes barriers that might normally exist for committing violence on human beings, but if the groups are considered less than human then the same restraints no longer exist.

Finally, the social context for the groups and their thought process impacts the situation. Therefore the parameters and paradigms established by intellectual elements, like religion, go a long ways in the justification of group actions. Religion is especially important in this, as it allows for the indoctrination of a core premise, which is reinforced by regular contemporary updates conveniently translated into current events. Couple this with a self-determinist attitude within a group, and the identity factors become amplified.

Conclusions…
Tito managed to suppress the various ethnic groups enough to prevent these conflicts of identity, and because of this strength, there did not appear any real hope of attaining the goals of self-determination. But at his death, the door of nationalism flew open, and the seeds planted long ago began to sow in the various ethnic communities.

So what is the genesis of the conflict in the Balkans? Ethnicity and nationalism. These groups have fostered, nurtured and strengthened their identities. History in the region only goes to support the different premises they hold. The Croats feels they’ve been oppressed throughout time by the Serbs, the Serbs feel that the crimes committed at Jasenovac by the Croats have never been properly atoned. The Serbs feel that the Bosnian conversion to Islam during Ottoman rule was a sell out, and implied a lack of unity and strength, and so on and so forth. The point is that these groups have not let anything go, so when they examine one another, they dredge up their accounts of history and apply it to the present- whether it is applicable or not.

The conflict in the Balkans has revolved around identity and the nationalist goals these identities maintain, therefore ethnicity is a driver in this conflict. Religion allows a venue for mobilizing and justifying the nationalist identity. It also provides an avenue for expanding the identity of the support base without changing the parameters of the ethnic groups and is therefore an enabler to the conflict. The Balkans conflict is an ethnic conflict.

[1] Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, New York 1982, Pg. 454.
[2] Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, New York 1982, Pg. 1114.
[3] Liotta, P.H., Anna Simons. “Thicker than Water? Kin, Religion, and Conflict in the Balkans”. Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly. Winter 1998. 27 Oct 2005. < http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/98winter/liotta.htm >.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Thiesse, Anne-Marie. “Inventing National Identity”. Le Monde Diplomatique. June 1999. 25 Oct 2005.< http://mondediplo.com/1999/06/05thiesse >.
[6] Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, New York 1982, Pg. 886.
[7] Ibid, Pg. 1282.
[8] Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Wikipedia. 27 Oct 2005. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_yugoslavia >.
[9] The bulk of this section is based on the writings of Louis Kriesberg and his piece on Identity Issues. I consider this article a great example of how identity affects conflict.
[10] Kriesberg, Louis. Identity Issues. July 2003. 27 Oct 2005.< http://www.beyondintractability.org/m/identity_issues.jsp >.
[11] Ibid.