Special report in two chapters written by: María Rebeca Ibarra Neri, Levi Basave Sánchez, José María Arrieta Laborde and Jimena Hernández Escoto
Last week we discussed the aim of this set of research papers titled Postcolonial social violence outbreak: Genocide in Rwanda, a contribution between María Rebeca Ibarra Neri, Levi Basave Sánchez, José María Arrieta Laborde and Jimena Hernández Escoto, who are students of International Relations at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus. Likewise, they gave a brief description about Rwanda. Today we will learn about the background of social constructions based on race, ethnicity and the conflict that arouses from it. This is particularly important in order to understand what has happened in this African country.
When a person is asked the difference between race and ethnicity, usually he or she answers the following: race is biological, and ethnicity is cultural. This is because throughout history we have been taught that race has to do with the physical features of a group of people. Though this is true, it is not natural. In fact, both race and ethnicity are socially constructed.
Race
It is said that race is a modern concept. However, in terms of discrimination, racism has existed since Ancient times. Benjamin Isaac and Denise McCoskey “contend that the ancient Greeks and Romans did hold proto-racist views that applied to other groups which today might be considered white” (James, 2016). It was until the end of the Middle Ages when race began appearing in the mind of European societies. Since 711 CE till 1492, the Iberian Peninsula lived what was later called “the Golden Age”. It was a time when, under Muslim rule, Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together. This came to an end with the Reconquista which was the regain of the territory by the Catholic kings.
Both Muslims and Jews were expelled or forced to convert to Christianity. Yet, conversion was not enough. They wanted to make sure that every person living in Iberia would be a faithful believer. Thus, they established the Inquisition. Lead by Torquemada, the concept of “purity of blood” was established. This meant that only those whose families had been Christian for at least four generations prior to them were “pure blood”. It was also there that African slavery was introduced in Europe following the example of the Arabs who commanded their worst tasks to those of darker skin.
As Europe began its expansion to the rest of the world, they encountered more people who were not white nor black. That is the case of the Native Americans. They even doubted their humanity and used them as forced labor until Bartolome de las Casas, a friar in the New Spain, began pledging in favor of the Indians. His solution was to bring African slaves to America. For this reason, while many see him as the savior of the Indians, others harshly criticized him for being the starting point for one of the major atrocities in the history of America.
Years later, the concept of race began to take shape in the form that we see it today. In 1684, Francois Bernier published A New Division of the Earth. In it, he distinguished five different races. The first one was the European and North African race, which went all through the Middle East till Indonesia. After came the Sub-Saharan African race, followed by the East Asian race from China to Eastern Russia. The fourth race was Northern Scandinavian. Finally, he talked about an indigenous American race, which was later included in the first one. (James, 2016).
Racial discussion saw a division in both religion and philosophy. There were the ones who believed in polygenesis, meaning that men came from multiple ascendants, thus creating different races. This theory was supported by David Hume in his work Of National Character. Here, he stipulates that the differences among Europeans are not natural but cultural. One the other side there were those who defended monogenesis. This theory followed the Biblical story that God created the human species in his own image. Therefore, men have only one ascendant. Kant was one of the philosophers who backed this idea. He stated that European was the common lineage of humanity, but that environmental factors, plus migration, geographic isolation and inbreeding created the physical differences. He established four races: the “Noble blond” from Northern Europe; the “Cooper red” from America; the “Black” from Africa; and the “olive-yellow” from Asia and India. He went on saying that it was not natural for these races to mix since they are not environmentally stimulated.
Another supporter of monogenesis was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who instead of categorizing them for their skin color; he named the races considering their places of origin. Contrary to Kant, he did accept mixing. Darwin too, argued in favor of this theory with his own theory of evolution. Though he did not applied natural selection to racial differentiation, he did spoke about sexual selection.
As these theories continued to emerge, racial discrimination began to become scientific. In 1916, Madison Grant wrote The Passing of the Great Race allowing segregation. Furthermore, Franz Boas, a German Jewish living in the USA, took the discussion to another level when he compared cranial sizes. His results told him that there was no difference. Ashley Montagu was another anthropologist who refuted the idea of biological differences. He argued that sometimes physical traits could be due to genetic mutation.
As we can see, even when race is commonly identified by the biological features, the idea of differentiating between one another was a social process that took decades. Moreover, racial discrimination existed much earlier than the actual concept. It was not exclusive from white Europeans. And, through history we can notice how people tried to justify the segregation using scientific studies and philosophical approaches. This allowed societies to interiorize the concepts until it seemed natural to classify someone based on their skin color and establishing a stratification that persists to this day.
Ethnicity
While some ethnic identities were once based on “inherent biological, cultural, or racial traits”, these boundaries have for the most part shifted. Rather, the features of ethnic groups, as they exist today, are overwhelmingly subjective and have taken on a “presumed identity” (Mishali-Ram, 2006).
As much as ethnicity is characterized by a shared identity within a group, it is simultaneously defined by its dissimilarity with other groups. While members of an ethnic group share an identity based on a common trait or belief, their ethnic characteristics (such as language, race, and religion) are generally not all identical and if they have these features, on their own, are certainly not unique to that group. The variation in the combination of traits that forms an “ethnic identity” means that an individual usually shares commonalities with more than one ethnic group. Furthermore, what are the specific boundaries that define an ethnic group, when its members have common traits with each other but also with other communities (Sambanis, 2001).
Ethnic conflict
As the dialogue on ethnic conflict continues to expand, it has perhaps become increasingly arduous to develop consistent theory that accounts for the features, causes and prevalence of this category of warfare.
Not surprisingly, numerous definitions of ethnic conflict, with opposing explanations, have been put forth and subsequently many have questioned whether ethnic warfare even exists or should be used as a concept by which to analyze conflicts. It is clear why Gilley can argue so adamantly “against the concept of ethnic conflict”, when he conceives of it as a “political or social conflict involving one or more groups which are identified by some marker of ethnic identity” (Crawford & Lipschutz, 1998 cited in Gilley, 2004).
References
Gilley, B. (2004). Against the Concept of Ethnic Conflict. Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 6.
James, M. (2016), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/race/
Mishali-Ram, M. (2006). Ethnic Diversity, Issues, and International Crisis Dynamics, 1918-2002. Journal of Peace Research, pp. 583-600
Comments