Mercado on Ethnicity

 

The present debates on ethnicity and self-determination are tied up to the issues of ancestral domain, distinct cultural identity, progress and development, and participation in governance at all levels.

 

Rightly or wrongly, ethnicity, cultures and self-determination are issues that can be addressed through piecemeal legislation (unless done through victory in a revolution). The state and the dominant ethnicity whether in the national level (National Government) or regional level (like ARMM), tend to be EXCLUSIVE albeit some TOKEN of inclusion is granted through minor appointments.

 

There are three strands that converge in the discussion of ethnicity:

 

First is the issue of Ethnicity as identity phenomenon, that is, as the expression of group identity/identification;

 

Second is the issue of ethnicity as culture; and

 

Third is the issue of ethnicity as strategy, that is, a strategy to get political and economic advantage.

 

The consciousness of Bangsa or "nation" does not happen as in miracle. It is, to say the least, a long process often associated to struggles (plural). Thus it is possible to have one nation composed of many ethnic groups. In the post colonial era, the birthing of nation or bangsa is associated to the struggle for independence vis-à-vis the colonial powers. Many of these new nations with plural ethnicities occurred post World War II.

 

In the pre-conquest time Philippines, anthropologists and historians tell us that the archipelago was composed of autonomous and diverse baranggay, ili, bansa/bangsa. During the centuries of Spanish colonization, there was a sort of interplay of integration and differentiation manifested in the establishment of pueblos and mission stations. And during the American Period, there was   a process of Integration and Assimilation forming ONE national body politic. And this was continued in the Post 1945: Isang Bangsa and Isang Republika.

 

Ethnicity

 

When the idea of ethnicity first emerged, the concept referred to character, quality or condition of ethnic group membership based on identity, and for a consciousness of group belonging that is differentiated from others by symbolic markers (including cultural, language, biological or territorial) and is rooted in bonds of a shared past and perceived shared interests. (Burgess, M. Elaine. The Resurgence of Ethnicity: Myth or Reality? Vol. 1 no. 3 July 1978.).

 

Ethnic and Sectarian Identity

 

The new emphasis on ethnicity is based on the awareness that ‘Identity Matters’. Ethnicity involves a loyalty to a community, which is perceived as a community of ‘cultural sameness’, which employs markers of language, race, religion and/or homeland, among others. It also depicts itself as a community of common ancestry or common kinship. Such beliefs maybe mythical or may not even be true. These beliefs are powerful not because they are true, but because they offer a sense of emotional security to individuals who would otherwise feel lost.

 

Ethnicity is, therefore, a term with a clear core meaning, but with gray-area boundaries. Religious communities function as ethnicity insofar as they develop as communities believing that they share some relevant cultural sameness and use symbols of common kinship or myths of common spiritual ancestry, and begin to demarcate themselves as an Us community vis-à-vis some Other community.

 

Ethnicity is conceptually distinct from civic/political national (or supra-national) identity, which does not rely on cultural sameness or myths of common kinship/ancestry; but which instead rely on visions of a common future. Empirically however, understandings of the nation as an ethnic community, or as a civic community, may intertwine or be used to camouflage each other

 

Critique

 

I will begin with a widespread ‘poli-eco’ assumption (instrumentalism, political economy, economics and religious) that inter-communal conflicts are essentially rivalries for scarce resources. This implies that individuals with common material interests (seen as objective/real) employ ethnicity because it is a useful tool for the pursuit of their economic and power interest-goals. It is the interests of the self, not the identity of the self, which is at the core of the dispute.

 

There are serious inadequacies with this political-economic view of ethnic conflict on various grounds. These are the following:

 

(a) That individuals pursue moral and ideological goals alongside their interest goals. Indeed it is the moral and ideological goals that define the interest goals.

 

(b) That ethnic communities might sometimes begin as aggregations of individuals with common interests, but they develop as moral communities (i.e. communities sharing moral values, not just communities sharing common interests) which are constructed by individuals interacting with each other, in order to offer the security, identity and moral certainties which individuals need in order to function in the world.

 

Coexistence and Multiple Identities

 

Why is there Peace or simple co-existence, sometimes?

 

The intensity, potency, content and causal role of ethnic/sectarian/national identity varies greatly. One starting point is that individuals tend to develop multiple identifications/loyalties to the various interactive communities that they inhabit. “Interactive communities” are networks of social interaction which extend beyond face to face communities, and which are the arenas within which individuals function in pursuit of their material, power, status, moral, ideological or other goals.

 

These interactive communities might be at locality, regional, language group, religious group, state, or other levels. These identities are fluid and overlap, to the extent that the groups within which people interact are similarly fluid and are integrated with each other.

 

It is the overlapping or intertwining of various identity communities, and the fact that individuals subscribe to various identity communities, which promotes social cohesion and inhibits ethnic confrontation.

 

Conflict (tensions between identities)

 

There are various factors that lead individuals to act violently according to their ethnic or sectarian identification. Some of these factors are related to power struggles between elites, external actors, state interventions, and socio-econ change. There are numerous case studies that evidence that different factors influence identity so as to generate identity tensions.

 

In extreme cases individuals become anomic and then seek security in absolutist and exclusivist identities, directed against a demonized ‘other’.

 

Identities therefore play two roles. First, conflicts of interests (which would otherwise be minor or emerge merely as class or economic rivalries) will tend to become intense and potentially violent, when they generate situations where individuals with multiple fluid identities feel they have to choose one identity against another.

 

Second, once a society has become divided into antagonistic identity-communities (each side having developed conflicting identities and ideologies), this itself becomes a cause of conflicts of (ideologically perceived) interests, so that conflict is exacerbated or renewed.

 

Thus, ethnic conflicts are identity conflicts because they are confrontations between groups competing not just for material advantage, but also for the defense of the moral values that define their identity.

 

Further, they involve tensions for individuals who feel forced to choose one identity against another. Lastly, they involve conflicts within each ethnic identity community as to the ‘true’ meaning of the identity label (militants and moderates within the ethnic us, accusing each other of betraying the true us).

 

Conflict Resolution

 

The ending of such ethnic conflicts needs measures that reassure each side that their material interests can be protected. They are also the measures that begin to facilitate the de-polarization and re-intertwining of identities.

 

The core prescription is for government/global policies (and social changes) which contribute to the building of new communities (cultural or political, territorial or non-territorial) which can transcend or transform antagonistic ethnic communities. The various possibilities for conflict resolution are focusing on the building of a civic national identity based on existing state boundaries, the possibility of boundary change (secession, etc), the development of larger transnational polities (ASEAN), and/ or virtual communities.

 

The implication is that peace processes which focus on the institutionalization of fair power-sharing /resource sharing between ethnic communities, are FLAWED to the extent that they thereby institutionalize the conflicting and ideologically entrenched identities.

 

Ethnic identification should be seen as the results of effort by underprivileged groups to improve their lot through collective mobilization or conversely the efforts of super ordinate groups to preserve the privileges by exploiting subjected groups. (Adam, Herbert. Modernizing Racial Domination. Berkeley 1971.)

 

Very few peace processes in the world have prospered beyond the thin veneer of co-existence and state of "truce" simply because the paradigm is FLAWED! It is a paradigm that simply institutionalizes the ideological and conflicting entrenched identities. Cuidate!