Ethnic Violence as a Socially Constructed Issue - Essay Example

Is violence socially constructed? If so to what extend? The link between violence and the social construction of ethnic identity has long been established. Cultural or discursive systems and discourses have always pictured the ethnic minorities prone to violence. A clear analysis of the narrative texts on ethnic identity convinces one that not only the ethnic identities are socially constructed but the very concept of ethnic violence is socially constructed. Ethnic violence is very often politically motivated and attempts to depict ethnic groups as mutually opposing, warring, and violent are misguided theorizing. This paper seeks to explore how far violence is socially constructed referring to the possible literature on the topic. Fearon & Laitin (2004), in their journal article, unearths the link between violence and the social construction of ethnic identity. The authors argue that just as the ethnic identities are socially constructed to explain ethnic violence, one can notice a link between identity construction and ethnic violence in the case of ethnic minorities. For the authors, on the one hand, cultural or discursive systems and strategic aspects function as ‘agents that construct ethnic identities’, and on the other hand, “some or all discourses of ethnicity create a disposition to violence” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 846). Reviewing the common dominant narrative in texts, the authors identify that very often ethnic violence is politically motivated and is moved by ulterior motives to amass political power. To quote the researchers’ own words, “it is that large-scale ethnic violence is provoked by elites seeking to gain, maintain, or increase their hold on political power” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 846). Very often these elites create divisions and internal conflicts among the members of the same ethnic groups to turn against an out-group and gradually this result in the construction of antagonistic group identities among the various ethnic groups. Even though these reconstructed or newly constructed identities act in favor of the elites who provoked it, they prove to be dangerous and culminate in unwanted violence. One of the reasons why these leaders easily succeed in permeating violence among the ethnic groups is suggested by Kapferer and Prunier when the authors observe that the “ethnic publics are conditioned or constituted by ethnic discourses that predispose them to violence against ethnic others” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 846). Ethnic violence are also being perpetuated by the ordinary folk which are resulted “out of policing efforts of those who are unhappy with assimilation or by marginal members of a group who want to gain status with those whose membership is not in doubt” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 847). Thus, the authors conclude by affirming that violence among the ethnic groups and by the ethnic groups are socially constructed out of three constructivist approaches-“those based on discursive logics, those based on the strategic actions of the elite, and those based on the strategic actions of the masses” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 847). As the ethnic groups are characterized by their common cultural attributes such as religion, language, customs, ethnicity, and shared historical myths, and blindly believe in the naturalness of their social category, the primordialists claim that clashes and conflicts among the ethnic groups are inevitable for the protection of their unchanging, essential characteristics as a unique ethnic social category (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 849). The same case can be applied to hostilities among nations just because each nation is moved by its own unique national identity; however, these may not always contribute to international conflicts so as it is in the case of ethnic violence too. Thus, the authors conclude that “the development of discursive formations can set one group in opposition to another or predispose them to see the other as a threat or natural subject for violence, independent of any more material basis for hostility” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 852). Social constructions by discourses and cultures propagated by individuals, and strategic action by elites, and strategic action ‘on the ground’ by common folk have the potential to ‘define identities and shape or determine actions’ (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 853). Leaders succeed in gaining the trust of their followers; they stir ethnic animosities and fears and convince them that they face some sort of security threats and this can lead to intra-and inter-group violence. Even though the constructivist theorists hold that people are not born imprisoned by their cultures, “the strategic theories linking individuals (whether elites or masses) to ethnic violence and the discursive theories linking discourses to violent behaviors are all constructivist in the sense that they posit the content and boundaries of ethnic groups as produced and reproduced by specific social processes” (Fearon & Laitin 2004, p. 874). Mueller (2000), in his journal article on the banality of ethnic war, clearly demonstrates how the whole concept of “ethnic warfare” is severely misguided and misunderstood with special reference to the violence that took place in former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda in the 1990s. The author purports that “ethnic warfare more closely resembles non-ethnic warfare, because it is waged by small groups of combatants, groups that purport to fight and kill in the name of some larger entity” (Mueller 2000, p. 42). The ordinary people fall victims to such clashes that take place in the disguise of ethnic violence. The author purports that the violent conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia were neither moved by nationalism nor ethnicity; the participants were either street gangs, or criminals who joined under the local authorities. Elaborating on the ethnic Hutus’ genocidal massacres of ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, the author purports that majority of the Hutus were indifferent to the war. The war was actually waged by “a relatively small number of specially trained Hutus who, allying themselves with often-drunken criminal and hooligan opportunists went on a murderous rampage coordinated by local officials acting on orders from above” (Mueller 2000, p. 43). Thus, the author argues that the violence in Yugoslavia and Rwanda has been made by a small group of ill-disciplined quarrelsome people and it is a general misguided assumption that the wars were stemmed from mutually opposing ethnic groups. In fact, the ethnic hatreds in Yugoslavia were under control by the communist regime during the war and the violence was a reaction of the militant nationalism to the dangerous nationalist propaganda raised by the politicians and the media. The author also repudiates the notion that there is a deep bond of affection existing within each ethnic or national group by stating that the Serbs in Serbia had little empathetic consideration for the rural Serbs who fled to them from the war-torn Croatia and Bosnia. Similarly, the author notes that “the most dynamic (and murderous) Serbian units were notably composed not of committed nationalists or ideologues, nor of locals out to get their neighbors, nor of ordinary people whipped into a frenzy by demagogues and the media, but rather of common criminals recruited for the task” (Mueller 2000, p. 49). The author concludes by restating that it is a mistaken notion to believe that an entire ethnic group is behind the destruction of another ethnic group. Milgram (1963) in his behavioral study of obedience view obedience as “the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose” and for him there is a behavioral trait in individuals that prompt them to offer obedience to systems of authority which very often is manifested in the form of aggression towards others (Milgram 1963, p. 371). He conducted a study on 50 participants where he ordered a naive subject to administer electric shock to a victim and to his surprise he found that the subjects blindly obeyed the authority without even worrying about the consequence of their actions. The author observed that the subjects had complete faith in the experimenter (here the Yale University) and they were moved by a sort of obligation and commitment. The undercurrent of the study is that when it comes to violent actions people tend to obey and follow the people in authority even when there is conflict that stems from “the opposition of two deeply ingrained behavior dispositions: first, the disposition not to harm other people, and second, the tendency to obey those whom we perceive to be legitimate authorities” (Milgram 1963, p. 378). McEvoy (2002) shows how factors such as human xenophobia and ethnocentrism play pivotal roles in understanding violence and social constructions of identity. While ethnocentrism refers to the “conscious or unconscious belief that ones own culture/community/race is truly superior to all others and the tendency to be unaware of the biases involved” (McEvoy 2002, p. 42), history has shown that ethnocentric attitudes have resulted in xenophobia and subsequent violence. People, ethnic groups, or tribes that are moved by ethnocentric attitudes tend to show more of reciprocal relations within their culture/community/race whereas they develop a sort of mistrust and hatred towards the non-participating foreigners. There is a general feeling among the community members that ethnocentric feelings would keep them united and offer them protection against a common enemy taking advantage of them. Thus, McEvoy argues that xenophobia “is a logical component of ethnocentrism” and “should be viewed as the active behavioral extension of ethnocentric thinking” which will create a tension or conflict between the in-group and out-group members (McEvoy 2002, p. 44-45) Dennen, in this respect view aggression as a learned behavior and many societies have promoted and have been motivated by aggression as it offered benefits for the aggressor. Drawing conclusions from Bandura’s Social Learning Theory of Aggression, Dennen argues that aggressive responses are highly influenced and determined by social learning experiences. Similarly, there is a self-absolving tendency to neutralize aggression through reconstructing aggression by palliative comparison, justifying aggression by euphemistic labeling, displacement of responsibility of aggression, diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization of victims, attribution of blame to victims, misrepresentation of consequences, and through graduated desensitization (Dennen 19-22). The author concludes by restating that concepts such as hostility, aggression, annoyance, power and force are socially and culturally perpetuated. It is also worthwhile to consider Sterling-Folker’s concept of realism and the constructivist Challenge in rejecting, reconstructing, or rereading social practices and human identities. For him, “the act of discrimination based on group membership is not learned behavior” according to realist rereading; on the other hand, such behavior stems from “process of group formation that operates ontologically before both social interaction and the specific practices human beings create” (Sterling-Folker 2002, p. 84). Thus, he argues that group discrimination prove to be the basic parameter for social reality where group competitions govern social practices and institutions. To conclude, it can be stated that the literature reviewed clearly shows that violence is socially constructed. The ethnic groups are characterized by their ethnocentrisms and human xenophobia, their innate tendency to succumb to authorities, and they can be easily manipulated and provoked into violence by the elites, politicians, and ordinary individuals. However, most of the ethnic violence is politically motivated and is perpetuated by a minority while the majority of ethnic groups are indifferent to violence. As Bandura suggests their violent responses are determined by their social learning experiences. Thus, even though, it is a fact that the ethnic groups can easily be misled into violence, the perpetuation that ethnic groups are aggressive, hostile and violent by nature and that they indulge in large scale violence is a socially and culturally constructed myth. References Fearon, J.D & Laitin, D.D 2000, ‘Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity’, International Organization, The MIT Press, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 845-877. McEvoy, C.J 2002, ‘A Consideration of Human Xenophobia and Ethnocentrism from a Sociobiological Perspective’, Human Rights Review. Milgram, S 1963, ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 371-378. Mueller, J 2000, ‘The Banality of "Ethnic War"’, International Security, The MIT Press, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 42-70. Sterling-Folker, J 2002, ‘Realism and the Constructivist Challenge: Rejecting, Reconstructing, or Rereading’, International Studies Review, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 73-97. Van Der Dennen, J.M.G, Aggression as Learned Behavior. Read More