8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

1/16

Ethnic Conflict in the World Today

Author(s): Stanley J. TambiahSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 335-349Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/645006 .

Accessed: 28/03/2011 12:15

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at  .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black . .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of 

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

 Blackwell Publishing and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

preserve and extend access to American Ethnologist.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=anthrohttp://www.jstor.org/stable/645006?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/645006?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=anthrohttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

2/16

ethnic conflict in

the world

today

STANLEY J. TAMBIAH-Harvard University

A

somber

reality

and

disillusionment

of

our

epoch,

which

emerged

from the ashes of

the

Second World

War,

is

that

although

there

have

been successes

in the

push

toward

development

and

modernization,

eradication

of

disease

and the

spread

of

literacy,

economic and

political

development

programs

have

generated

and

stimulated,

whether

by

collusion

or in

reaction,

in

good

faith

and

poor anticipation,

massive civil war

and

gruesome

interracial and inter-ethnic

bloodshed. The same

epoch

has witnessed the

rise of

repressive

authoritarianism

n

both

mil-

itaryand democratic guises, fortifiedby Western weaponry, and inflamed by populist slogans

and

fundamentalist

doctrines,

and assisted

by

a

flagrant

manipulation

of

mass media which

have

vastly expanded

their reach.

The

optimism

of

sociologists, political

scientists and

anthropologists

who

naively

foretold

the

impending

onset of the

"integrative

revolution" and inevitable decline of

"primordial

loyal-

ties"

such as

kinship,

caste and

ethnicity

in

third world

countries,

has

by

now waned

and

dimmed with

disenchantment. The introduction of

constitutions and democratic

institutions,

enshrining

human

rights,

universal

franchise,

the

party

system,

elected

legislature,

majority

rule

and so

on,

has

often resulted

in

strange

malformations that are far

removed from the

goals

of

liberty,

justice,

tolerance,

and

freedom

that

were

the

ideological

supports

of

Western

European

and North American "liberal-democratic" syntheses. Something has gone gravely awry with

the

center-periphery

relations

throughout

the

world,

and a manifestation of this

malaise is

the

occurrence of

widespread

ethnic conflict

accompanied

in

many

instances

by

collective vio-

lence

amongst

people

who

are

not

aliens but enemies

intimately

known.

My

book,

Sri

Lanka:

Ethnic

Fratricideand the

Dismantling

of

Democracy

(1986),

attempted

to

grapple

with

this

problem

in

my

own

country.

In this

essay

I

hope

to address some

general

issues.'

specification

of

ethnicity

and

ethnic

identity

Ethnic

identity

above all is

a collective

identity:

we

are

self-proclaimed Sinhalese, Malays,

Ibos,

Thais and so on.

It is a self-conscious

and vocalized

identity

that

substantializes and

nat-

uralizes one or

more attributes-the usual ones

being

skin

color,

language, religion,

territorial

occupation-and

attaches them to

collectivities as their innate

possession

and their

mytho-

historical

legacy.

The central

components

in

this

description

of

identity

are ideas of

inheritance,

ancestry

and

descent,

place

or

territory

of

origin,

and the

sharing

of

kinship,

any

one or

com-

bination of

which

may

be invoked as a claim

according

to

context

and

calculation of advan-

tages.

These ethnic

collectivities are

believed to be bounded and to

be

self-producing

and en-

during

through

time.

Although

the actors

themselves,

invoking

these

claims,

speak

as if

ethnic

boundaries

are

clear-cut and defined

for all

time,

and think of

ethnic

collectivities as

self-reproducing

bounded

groups,

it is

also clear that from a

dynamic

and

processual

perspective

there are

many prece-

dents

for

"passing"

and the

change

of

identity,

for

incorporations

and

assimilations of

new

1988 American

Ethnological Society

Distinguished

Lecture

ethnic

conflict

335

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

3/16

members,

and for

changing

the scale

and

criteria

of

collective

identity.

Ethnic

labels

are in

application

porous.

The

phenomenon

of

ethnicity

embodies two

interwoven

processes

which

constitute

its double helix. One

is the

substantialization

and

reification

of

qualities

and attri-

butes as

enduring

collective

possessions,

made realistic

by mytho-historical

charters

and the

claims of

blood,

descent,

and

race.

This

results

in

what

has been

aptly

called

"pseudo-specia-

tion," that is, the collectivities in a certain sociopolitical space think of themselves as separate

social kinds. The

other

contrapuntal

and

complementary process

is that

ethnic

boundary-mak-

ing

has

always

been flexible

and

volatile,

and ethnic

groups

have

assimilated and

expanded,

or,

in

the

opposite

direction,

differentiated

and

segmented, according

to historical circum-

stances and

political-economic possibilities.

Ethnic

identity

unites the semantics

of

primordial

and

historical

claims with

the

pragmatics

of

calculated

choice and

opportunism

in

dynamic

contexts

of

political

and

economic

competition

between interest

groups.

Ethnic

groups, especially

in

contemporary

times

of

widespread

ethnic

conflict,

seem to

be

intermediate

between local

kinship

groupings

(such

as

lineages,

class,

kindreds,

and

so

on)

and

the nation as a maximal

collectivity.

Moreover,

especially

marked in the modern

context,

and

within that context conspicuous in many thirdworld societies, is the mounting awareness that

ethnic

affiliation

and

ethnic

identity

are

overriding

other social

cleavages

and

superseding

other

bases of differentiation

to become

the master

principle

and

the

major

identity

for

purposes

of

sociopolitical

action.

This

state

of

affairs

herefore

raises the

possibility

that

ethnicity

(projected

upon

the

old

bases

of

identity

in terms of

language,

"race,"

religion,

place

of

origin)

as a basis

for mobilization for

political

action

has

challenged

and

is

challenging

the

primacy

for

such

mobilization of social

class

on the

one

hand and nation-state

on the other.

Therefore,

in

a

gen-

eral

analysis

two relevant

issues

that need

to be addressed

are: to what extent

and

in what

way

ethnicity

modifies,

incorporates,

or even

replaces

class conflict as

a

major paradigm

for inter-

preting

social conflict

and

change;

and

also in

what

manner

ethnicity

has

impacted

on the

aims

and activities of nation-making and national integration,which were taken to be the principal

tasks

of the

newly

founded third

world nation-states.

I

cannot

in this

essay

take

up

the matter

of

class,

but

will have

something

to

say

on the

second

issue.

the

ubiquity

of ethnic

conflict

Historians

of the social sciences

are

no doubt

aware of

the manner and

circumstances

in

which,

at different

times,

certain

ranges

of

phenomena grouped

under

embracing

labels such

as "social

class,"

"caste,"

"race,"

"gender

inequality,"

"modernization,"

"the

colonial en-

counter,"

and so

on,

have become

foci

of intensified

scholarly

interest.

Then these

inquiries

fade away not only because of diminishing marginal returnsbut also because the phenomena

themselves,

as reflected

on the

screen

of

history,

either lose

their salience

or are

transformed

into other

events,

which

are more

revealingly grouped

under new

labels.

One

such

label

subsuming

a

range

of

phenomena

with

a

family

resemblance

is

"ethnicity."

It is

significant

that

the term

"ethnicity"

has come

into

vogue

and

found its

way

into

standard

English

dictionaries,

especially

since the

1960s. There

is

no

denying

of course

that

linguistic,

national,

religious,

tribal,

racial

(and

other)

divisions

and

identifications,

and

competitions

and

conflicts based

on

them,

are old

phenomena,

yet

the recent

salience of the term

ethnicity

"re-

flects

a new

reality

and

a new

usage

reflects

a

change

in

that

reality"

(Glazer

and

Moynihan

1975:5)

on

a

global

scale

in the latter

half

of the 20th

century,

both in the industrialized

first

world and the "developing" thirdworld.

It seems

that the sudden

resurgence

of the term

ethnicity

in

the

social

science literature of

the

1960s and

early

1970s took

place

not

only

to

describe

certain

manifestations

in the third

world,

but also

in reaction

to

the

emergence

of ethnic

movements

in the industrialized

and

affluent

world,

especially

in the United

States,

in

Canada,

and

in Western

Europe.

(See

for ex-

ample,

Connor

1972, 1973;

Esman

1977).

336

american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

4/16

The late

20th-century reality

is evidenced

by

the fact

that ethnic

groups,

rather than

being

mostly minority

or

marginal

subgroups

at the

edges

of

society, expected

in due course

to

assim-

ilate or

weaken,

have

figured

as

major

"political"

elements and

major political

collective

actors

in

several societies.

Moreover,

if in the

past

we

typically

viewed

an ethnic

group

as a

subgroup

of

a

larger society, today

we are also

faced with

instances of

majority

ethnic

groups

within

a

polity or nation exercising preferentialor "affirmative"policies on the basis of that majority

status.

The first

consideration

that confirms

ethnic

conflict

as a

major

reality

of our time

is

not

simply

its

ubiquity

alone,

but also its

cumulative increase

in

frequency

and

intensity

of

occurrence.

Consider these

conflicts,

by

no

means an

exhaustive

listing,

that have occurred since the

sixties

(some

of them have a

longer history,

of

course):2

conflicts between

anglophone

and franco-

phone

in

Canada;

Catholic and Protestant

in Northern

Ireland;

Walloon

and

Fleming

in Bel-

gium;

Chinese and

Malay

in

Malaysia;

Greek and

Turk in

Cyprus;

Jews

and

other

minorities

on

the one hand

and Great

Russians on the

other

in

the Soviet

Union;

and

Ibo

and Hausa and

Yoruba in

Nigeria;

the East Indians and

Creoles

in

Guyana.

Add to these

instances,

upheavals

that became climactic in recent years: the Sinhala-Tamil war in SriLanka, he Sikh-Hindu,and

Muslim-Hindu confrontations

in

India,

the Chackma-Muslim

turmoil

in

Bangladesh,

the

ac-

tions of the

Fijians

against

Indians

in

Fiji,

the Pathan-Bihariclashes in

Pakistan,

and

last,

but

not

least,

the inferno in

Lebanon,

and the serious erosion

of human

rights

currently

manifest

in

Israeli

actions in

Gaza and

the

West

Bank.

That there

is

possibly

no

end to these

eruptions,

and

that

they

are

worldwide has been

forcibly brought

to

our attention

by

a

century-old

difference

that

exploded

in

March

1988

between

Christian

Armenians

and Muslim

Azerbaijanis

in

south-

ern

USSR.3

Most of these

conflicts have involved force and

violence, homicide,

arson

and

destruction

of

property.

Civilian

riots have evoked action

by security

forces:

sometimes as

counteraction

to quell them, sometimes in collusion with the civilian aggressors, sometimes both kinds of

action in

sequence.

Events

of

this nature have

happened

in

Sri

Lanka,

Malaysia,

India,

Zaire,

Guyana

and

Nigeria.

Mass

killings

of

civilians

by

armed forces

have occurred in

Uganda

and

in

Guatemala,

and

large

losses of civilian lives have been

recorded

in

Indonesia, Pakistan,

India

and

Sri Lanka.

Some

dissident ethnic

groups

have declared

secessionist aims that threaten

to break

up

extant

polities,

and

these aims in turn have

invited invasion of one

country

by

another

(for

example,

the

Somali invasion of

Ethiopia),

or armed

intervention,

as

evidenced

by

India's

recent march

into

Sri Lanka

1987).

Moreover,

ethnic conflict has

also caused massive

displacements

of

peo-

ple,

many

of

them

being deposited

in

refugee camps

in

neighboring

countries,

as

in

Africa,

the

Middle East,India,Sri Lankaand elsewhere. Nor, finally, should we forget large-scale expul-

sions of

people,

as

happened

to Asians in

Uganda.4

The

escalation of

ethnic conflicts has been

considerably

aided

by

the

amoral

business of

gun-

running

and free trade in the

technology

of

violence,

which

enable

not

only

dissident

groups

to

successfully

resist the armed

forces of the

state,

but also

civilians

to battle

with each

other

with lethal

weapons.

An

account of the Karachi

Riots of

December

1986

begins

thus:

Whatwe saw were

bands

of

men

armedwith

kalashnikoves

harging

nto the

homes of

communities

they

have

lived with for a

generation-killing

men,

women and

children

without

mercy,

burning

nd

looting

until

entire

housing

ocalities

sic]

were

left n

charred uins

Hussain

987:1].

The

classical

definition

of

the

state as the

authority

invested with

the

monopoly

of

force

has

become a sick joke.5After so many successful liberations and resistance movements in many

parts

of

the

globe,

the

techniques

of

guerilla

resistance now

constitute a

systematized

and ex-

portable

knowledge.

Furthermore,

he

easy

access

to

the

technology

of warfare

by

groups

in

countries that are

otherwise

deemed low

in

literacy

and

in

economic

development-we

have

seen what

Afghan

resistance can

do

with

American

guns-is

paralleled

by

another

kind of

in-

ternational fraternization

among

resistance

groups-who

have little in

common save

their re-

ethnic

conflict

337

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

5/16

sistance to the

status

quo

in

their own

countries,

and

who

exchange

knowledge

of

guerilla

tactics

and the art of

resistance.

Militant

groups

in

Japan, Germany,

Lebanon,

Libya,

Sri

Lanka,

and

India have

international networks

of

collaboration,

not

unlike-perhaps

more

solidary

than-the

diplomatic

channels that

exist

between

mutually wary

sovereign

countries and

the

great

powers.

Anotherdevelopment, not unknown in the past in the form of mercenaries for hire,buttoday

reaching

a

sinister

significance,

is

the

"privatization

of

war,"

that

is,

the

capability

of

govern-

ments

with extra-territorial

eopolitical

aims to

fight

their

foreign

wars not

by committing

their

own

professional

armies,

but

by

farming

out

contracts

for subversive

military

and

political

ac-

tions to

private professional

groups

willing

to be

hired,

or

capable

of

being

mobilized.

The

employment

of

ex-SAS

(Special

Air

Service)

veterans

by

the Sri

Lankan

government

to

help

the

war

against

the

Tamil

militants

is one of

many

such

examples.

Another form of the

phenomenon

can be

stated thus: the lesson that the United States

learned

in Vietnam is now

deployed

with

zest in

Nicaragua

and

Afghanistan,

where

local dissidents

are trained and armed

in

the use of

weaponry

and the arts of destabilization.

The end result is

that

professionalized killing

is

no

longer the monopoly of state armies and police forces. The internationalizationof the technol-

ogy

of

destruction,

evidenced

in

the form

of terrorismand

counter-terrorism,

has shown a

face

of

free-market

capitalism

in

action

unsuspected

by

Adam Smith and

by

Emmanuel Wallerstein.

It is

thus no

exaggeration

to

say

that the

ubiquity,

the increased

frequency

and

intensity,

of

ethnic

conflict,

serviced

by

modern

technology

of

destruction

and

communication,

and

pub-

licized

by

the mass media

makes

such

conflict a

special reality

of the late 20th

century.

Faced

with recent disturbances

in

South

Russia,

Gorbachev

was moved to

say

that

[ethnic]

national-

ism

was the "most fundamental

vital issue

of our

society"

(Time 1988).

And on a recent visit

to

Yugoslavia,

a

country

that has

a

long

history

of

tensions between

"nationalities,"

he

is re-

ported

to have

said "Show

me a

country

without nationalist

problems,

and

I will

move

there

rightaway" (TheNew YorkTimes 1988). Whata shift there has been in historical consciousness

from Victorian times to the

computer

age

of instant information

The Victorian

perception

of

the

people

of the world

was,

as we well

know,

that

they

could

be

placed

on a ladder of evo-

lution and

progress,

with the

Europeans

at the summit.

Other

peoples

were not

really

contem-

poraneous

with the

West,

and

archaeological

metaphors

such as

"survivals,"

the "contem-

poraneity

of the

noncontemporaneous"

(a

phrase

coined

by

Karl

Mannheim)

were used

to de-

scribe a

globe

assumed

to be both

uneven and discontinuous.

Edward

Tylor

gave

a

vintage

expression

to this

consciousness

when

he wrote:

Theeducated

worldof

Europe

nd

America

practically

ettles

a standard

y simplyplacing

ts

own

na-

tionsat one end of the social

series.

The

principal

riteria f classification

re

the absenceor

presence,

highor lowdevelopment, fthe industrialrts . . agricultural,rchitecture,tc., the extentofscientific

knowledge,

he definiteness

f

moral

principles,

he conditions

of

religious

belief and

ceremony,

he

degree

of social

and

political

organization

nd

so forth

Tylor

873,

vol.

1:26].

This Victorian

perspective

in the main

persisted

perhaps

until the

Second

World

War,

and

aside from

a recent

change

in

paradigms, positing

common

world

historical

processes

which

hold

centers

and

peripheries

in one dialectical

and interlocked

field,

there are other

specific

developments

that

have

contributed

to

a shift in historical

consciousness

that makes

our

present

world a

global

village.

The

revolution

in

the

media,

their

instant transmissionof visual

images

and

auditory messages,

linking

metropolitan

centers and

distant

places,

and their wide cover-

age

of

events,

such

that news

broadcasts

(whether

by

NBC,

CBS

or

ABC)

present

diverse

events

occurring at diverse places as a single synchronic and simultaneously occurring reality.These

communication

processes

bind us

in a

synchronicity

of fellow

witnesses

of world events.

We

come to feel that

the worldwide

incidents of

ethnic conflict

are

of the same

order

and are mu-

tually implicated:

the strife

in Northern

Ireland;

the

kidnappings

in

Lebanon;

the

beatings

on

the West

Bank of

Israel;

he

bombings

in

Germany;

the

killing

of

civilians

in Sri

Lanka;

he

riots

against

the

Sikhs

in

Delhi;

the

massing

of Korean

youth

against

a

rightist

government;

the

at-

338 american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

6/16

tacks on the "bush

negroes"

by

the

townsmen of

Suriname,

the

sniping

by

the Contras in

Nic-

aragua,

the

explosive

tensions between

Armenians and

Azerbaijanis-all

belong

to

a

contem-

porary

world

suffused

by

violence.

The internationalization

of violence

and the

simultaneity

of

its

occurrences viewed

on

our

TV screens make us all vicarious

spectators

and

participants

responding

with our

sympathies

and

our

prejudices.

Ibegan this section by reminding the reader that the label "ethnicity" has become salient in

our

discourse

only

since

the 1960s.

Letme conclude it

by saying

that a landmark

book,

Frederik

Barth's

edited volume Ethnic

Groups

and

Boundaries

published

in

1969,

which seemed

to

set

a

relevant

framework for

the

study

of

ethnicity,

seems

now,

scarcely

two decades

later,

too

benign

and

tranquil

for the

study

of the ethnic conflicts

accompanied

by

collective

violence

that

rage today.

The

ethnographic essays

in

that

book-dealing

with the

Fur

and the

Baggar

of Western

Su-

dan,

the Pathans

of West

Pakistan,

and

Afghanistan,

the mountain tribes of Laos and their

re-

lations

with

the dominant

Thai,

the Ladinos and Indians

in

Southern

Mexico,

and the

Lapps

and

Norwegians

in

northern

Norway-as

well

as Barth's

ntroductoryessay, pose

the issues

of

an earlier era when ethnic relations did not manifestas they do today in the eighties, in riots,

terrorism

and civil war.

The

preoccupations

of Barth's

volume were

the manner

in which

boundaries were

maintained between ethnic

groups,

whose

occupation

of

niches,

and whose

maintenance and

persistence

over

time,

were

dynamically

related to

structured and stable

in-

teractions between them

guided by

"a

systematic

set of rules

governing

inter-ethnic social en-

counters"

(Barth1969:16).

The

central

problems posed by

our

present phase

of ethnic

conflicts

are

startingly

different,

arising

out of an

intensified

"politicization

of

ethnicity"

and

issuing

in

conflicts

between member

groups

of

a state and

polity,

which

itself is

thought

to

be in

crisis

("the

crisis of

the

state").

ethnic distributions

in

contemporary

plural

societies

A

distributional

chart

indicating

the number

of

ethnic

groups

and their

demographic

pro-

portions

in

various

contemporary

countries

will

be useful for

appreciating

the

ubiquity

of

ethnic

conflicts.

Among

other

things,

these distributions

crucially

affect

not

only

the

processes

that

produce

conflict but

also the

strategies

and

efficacy

of

coalitions

that are

made

in

plural

soci-

eties,

coalitions

ranging

from

constructive and

relatively

long-lasting

alliances and

bargains

to

temporary

and

fragile pacts

of

convenience

and

opportunism.

The

following

list

constitutes a crude chart

that indicates

some of the

demographic

combi-

nations thataffect the course of ethnic politics.

1.

Countries

that are

virtually

homogeneous

in

ethnic

composition

(with

90-100

percent

being

ethnically

the

same):

Japan,

Korea,

Bangladesh.

2.

Countriesthat have

a

single

overwhelmingly

dominant ethnic

majority

hat

constitutes

75-

89

percent

of the

population:

Bhutan, Burma,

Cambodia,

Taiwan,

Vietnam,

Turkey.

3.

Countries where

the

largest

ethnic

group

makes

up

50-75

percent

of

the

population

and

where there are

several

"minority" groups:

Thailand,

Sri

Lanka,

Laos,

Iran,

Afghanistan,

Paki-

stan,

Singapore,

and

(probably) Nepal.

4.

Countries where there

are

two

large

dominant

groups

of

roughly

the same

size

(with

or

without small

minority

enclaves in

their

midst):

Malaysia

(where

the

Malays

make

up

about 44

percentand the Chinese about 36 percent); Guyana (EastIndians,the largergroup making up

50

percent)

and

the

Creoles;

Fiji (Fijians

and

Indians are

nearly

of the

same

size);

Guatemala

(where

the

Ladinos and

Indians are

about

equal

size).

5. Our

last

category

consists of the

truly pluralistic

countries

composed

of

many

ethnic

groups

where no one

or

two of them are

dominant,

and where

not all

groups

may

be

actively

implicated

in

ethnic

politics.

Examples

here

are

Nigeria

(with

Ibo,

Yoruba,

Hausa and

Fulani

ethnic

conflict

339

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

7/16

being

the

major

entities)

and countries

such as

Indonesia,

the

Philippines

and

India,

whose

populations

are more varied.

However,

within these

complex

societies,

internal

ethnic

politics

may

take dualistic

form within

regions,

as in the case

of

Sikhs

versus Hindus

in

Punjab,

and

indigenous

"hill

tribes"

versus

Bengalis

in Mizoram

(India),

and Christians

versus

Moros

in

the

Philippines.

We may include the USSRin this category. The USSRis said to have more than 100 distinct

nationalities

and ethnic

groups

living

in

15

republics,

and

ethnic tensions

there

are

best

viewed

in

regional

terms.

Horowitz

(1985:30-35)

has

underscored

an

important

distinction

that

affects

the

nature

and

dynamics

of

ethnic

conflict,

namely

whether

the

groups

in

question

are ranked

(in

some

sort

of

hierarchy

or

stratified

scheme

informed

by

asymmetrical

valuations)

or

unranked

or

parallel

groups

divided

by

vertical

cleavages.

Some

examples

of

ranked

ethnic

groups

within

societies

are

Rwanda

(especially

in

1959),

Zanzibar

(in

1966),

and

more

debatably,

Ethiopia

and

Liberia.

However,

by

far

the

most

salient

category

for

a

comparative

study

is the

countries

containing

by

and

large

unranked

ethnic

groups, such as Malays and Chinese in Malaysia; Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka;EastIn-

dians

and Creoles

in

Guyana;

Ibo,

Hausa,

Fulani

and

Yoruba

in

Nigeria;

Christian

Filipino

and

Moro in the

Philippines;

and

the

Thais

and

Muslims

in Thailand.6

While these

contending

ethnic

groups

may

find themselves

unequal

in

demographic

num-

bers,

they

nevertheless

do

not

concede

inequality

in

social,

cultural

and ethnic

terms.

Political

ethnic conflict

in these

societies

shows

certain

commonalities.

the

politicization

of

ethnicity

The main issue that I discuss in the restof this essay is the transitionfrom the politics of the

nation-state

to

the

politics

of

ethnic

pluralism.

It is

useful

at

this

juncture

to take

as our

point

of

reference

Benedict

Anderson's

Imagined

Communities,

in order

to salute

its

important

contri-

bution

and also

to

go

beyond

it

to take

account

of

newer

developments.

We

are

all familiar

with

the

Wallerstein

thesis

that world

capitalism

since

its

inception

in

Europe

n the

16th

century,

has

spread

like

a tidal

wave

released

from the

metropolitan

capitals

and

gradually

innundated

the

peripheries.

The

"dependency"

theory

of world

capitalism

in

all

its

variations

(Gunder

Frank,

Paul

Baran,

Immanuel

Wallerstein,

Samir

Amin,

Claude

Meillas-

soux)

posits

eventually

a monolithic

historical

process

in

global

terms.

However,

it leaves

out

of

account

another

parallel

process

that

consisted

of

the

differentiating,

carving

out

and

frag-

mentation of the same world in terms of "nation-states." The highlighting of this process is

Anderson's

achievement:

how

the

"nation-state"

and

"nationalism"

as modular

ideas

could

and

would

be

easily

pirated

by

the third

world

colonial

and

postcolonial

elites. Under

colonial

experience,

the

"historical

consciousness"

of

19th-century

Europe

was transmitted

to and

im-

bibed

by

local

elites

subject

to

the textbook

learning propagated

by

colonial

schools.

Anderson's

plotting

of the

rise

in

Europe

of

national

consciousness

in the late

18th

and

early

19th

centuries,

inspired

by

linguistic

and

vernacularizing

revolutions,

followed

from the

mid-

19th

century

onwards

by

the

promotion

and

manipulation

of

"official

nationalism"

by

the

Eu-

ropean

monarchies

based

on a

national

identification

projected

onto

vernacular

languages,

leads

him

quite

correctly

to

perceive

that

the

nation-building policies

of the new states

of

the

thirdworld consist of

botha

genuine,popular

nationalist

nthusiasm

nd

a

systematic,

ven

Machiavellian,

nstilling

f

na-

tionalist

deology

hrough

he

mass

media,

the

educational

ystem,

administrative

egulations

nd

so

forth.

n

urn,

his blend

of

popular

nd

official

nationalism

as

beenthe

product

f

anomalies

reated

by

European

mperialism:

he

well-known

arbitrariness

f

frontiers,

nd

bilingual

ntelligentsias

oised

precariously

ver

diverse

populations

1985:104-105]

340

american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

8/16

Anderson's

sequence

(1985:104-105)

could

now be taken a

stage

further:

he

politics

of

the

newly independent

states,

framed

initially

in terms

of

"nation-state"

ideologies

and

policies,

have

by

virtue of

various internal

dialectics

and differences

led to a new

phase

of

politics

dom-

inated

by

the

competitions

and conflicts of "ethnic

collectivities,"

who

question

nationalism

and

"nation-state"

dogmas.

The

politics

of

ethnicity

is

indeed

a

product

of the

interweaving

and

collision of the two global processes we mentioned earlier:world capitalism and its operation

through

multinational

corporations,

and

widespread

nation

building

by

liberated

colonies

now

ruled

by

elite

intelligentsias

who,

however,

have to react to their divided civilian constituen-

cies. These

interacting global

processes,

while

having

certain

homogenizing

effects,

have

si-

multaneously

spawned

differentiation

and

opposition

within the new

polities,

manifested

as

ethnic

conflict.

I

have

adopted

the

phrases

"politicization

of

ethnicity"

and

"ethnicity

of

politics"

as

short-

hand

expressions

to

characterize

and

signal

some of the

primary

ssues and

processes

that

pro-

pel

the current

wave of ethnic conflicts. As

Tagil

has

put

it,

the

main

problem

to be

explained

is

"why ethnicity

becomes more

easily politicizable

in

modern

society

and

in

those societies

on the threshold of modernization, as compared with earlier phases of history"(Tagil1984:36).

The

present

context

of

politicized ethnicity

is

distinctly

a

marked

phase

in

the

political

and

economic

history

of

newly independent

countries. If we

take the colonial

legacy

as our

point

of

departure

it is

possible

to

identify

roughly

three

sequential

and

overlapping phases.

the colonial

legacy

Let us

begin

with the colonial

experience

itself,

the

British

raj

in

India,

Sri

Lanka, Burma,

Malaya,

the

Dutch rule

in

the Dutch

East

Indies,

the French in

Algeria,

Indochina,

and

so on.

The

colonial

experience

was of course

many-faceted

and

complex,

but for

our

theme of ethnic

conflict the following features of the colonial legacy are relevant.

The

colonial

powers

more often than not

aggregated people

and

territory

nto

larger polities

than

existed

before,

sometimes

arbitrarily

o,

at

other times

by

attempting

to follow

social

and

demographic

constellations on the

ground.

The whole

process

was

further

compounded

by

geopolitical

competition

between

imperial

powers

in

laying

claim to their

own

territories. In-

dia,

despite Emperor

Asoka and the

Mughal Empire,

reached its

maximal

aggregation

under

British

rule;

so

did

Sri

Lanka,

Malaya,

Burma,

Nigeria,

Kenya,

and so on.

The Dutch

control of

Java

and

Sumatra

and

the

other

islands was likewise a

unification

never known

before.

The

internal

policies

of

the colonial

powers

in

complex

ways

both

consolidated

existing

dif-

ferences and

stimulated bodies of

people,

primarilysocially

separated,

to interact in

common

areas. While colonial powers, like the British,codified "regional," "tribal,""caste" or "com-

munal" bodies

of customs

relating

to

marriage,

inheritance,

religious

practices

and so

on,

for

the

most

part

not

interfering

with

these sociocultural

differences,

they

also

introduced

and

standardized

colonywide

commercial and criminal

law codes

and

regulations.

This

standard-

izing

and

homogenizing process

went

hand

in

hand with

imperial

economic

policies

and ven-

tures,

which

brought

the colonies in

their own

dependent

manner into

the orbit of

world

cap-

italism. The

policies

related to taxation

and

preferential

trade,

and the

ventures

took

the form

of

plantations,

or business firms

(agency

houses),

which

in

turn

stimulated

occupations

such

as

those

practiced by lawyers,

engineers,

doctors

(in

Western

medicine),

accountants,

and

so on.

These

particularizing

and

standardizing policies

were a

double-edged

sword,

used

in

the

interest both of development and progress and of divide and rule. They produced in diverse

tropical

colonial

contexts from

the

Netherland

Indies to

Jamaica

varieties

of

"plural

societies"

that

became the

subject

of

analysis

from

J.

S.

Furnivall to

M. G.

Smith.7 Of the

process

of the

enlargement

of

territorial

horizons

and

subgroup

amalgamations

that took

place

in

Asia

and

Africa

in

the

colonial

period,

Donald

Horowitz

has

remarked

in

his

recent

comprehensive

and

impressive

work,

Ethnic

Groups

in

Conflict:

ethnic

conflict

341

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

9/16

The

colonistsoften

created erritoriesut of

clustersof

loosely

linked

villages

and

regions....

Out of

the

welding ogether

f localenvironments

great

many

new

groups

ppeared,

mong

hem he

Malays

in

Malaysia,

he Ibo in

Nigeria,

he

Kikuyu

n

Kenya,

he

Bangala

n

Zaire,

and

the Moro n

the

Philip-

pines.

Somesuch

groups

were "artificial"reations f colonial

authorities nd

missionaries,

ho

cata-

lyzed

he slow

merger

f

related

peoples

nto

coherent ntities

1985:66-67].

It is

interesting

hat

the

Malays

for

example,

who

vociferously

claim to be

bhumiputra,

the sons

of the soil, are the outcome of a coalescence not

only

of a

major

component

from

Malaya

but

also

of various

groups

from as far afield as

Sumatra,

the

Celebes,

Borneo and

Java.

The

claim

itself is

a

highly

emotive and

embracing

identity

developed

vis-a-vis the

large

numbers of

Chinese

immigrants

who found

their

way

into

their midst

(see

also

Nagata

1979).

the

three

phases

of the era of

independence

I

would like

to delineate three

phases

in the

political history

of

a number

of

third world coun-

tries like

India,

Sri

Lanka,

Malaysia, Guyana

and

Nigeria,

which

received

their

independence

soon

after the end of the

Second

World War. The characteristic issues

of

each

phase

are stated

in terms of the ideological rhetoric and distinctive labels used by politicians and academic

commentators

alike.

(I

do not intend these

phases

to be taken as discontinuous

shifts but

merely

as

showing

different

emphases.)

1.

The

first

stage

is the actual

"decolonization"

process

itself,

when Western

imperial

pow-

ers,

following

the Second

World

War,

"transferred

power"

to local

elite

groups.

While

the

whole

colonial

period

created certain

dislocations,

decolonization

itself was

preceded

and

ac-

companied

by

violence

when,

as was the case with

Algeria,

the

colony fought

a

"war of lib-

eration." In

other

colonies such as

Sri

Lankaand

Burma he transferof

power

was more

peace-

ful

though

not

entirely

without the

staging

of civil disobedience

movements and other forms of

resistance, as,

for

example,

those

mounted

in

India

by

the Indian

National

Congress

or in

Ma-

laya by the Chinese communist guerillas.

2.

The second

phase, spanning

the late 1950s

and

gathering

momentum

in

the

1960s,

was

characterized

by optimistic

and even

strident claims

made

in

these

newly

independent

coun-

tries

concerning

their

objectives

of

"nation

making,"

strengthening

"national

sovereignty,"

creating

"national culture"

and "national

identity,"

and

achieving

"national

integration."

The

slogans

of the time accented

"national"

dimensions,

and

in

doing

so

played

down

and wished

away

internal

diversity

and

social

cleavages

in

favor of

the

primacy

of

nation-states

as the ac-

credited units

of the

United

Nations

and the

modern world

system. Interestingly,

Franz Fanon's

The Wretched of the Earth

1968)

belongs

to

this

phase

with its

programmatic

celebration

of

"national

consciousness,"

"national culture" and

"national literature"

in

the African

States,

newly delivered from the chains of colonialism. Fanon proclaimed that "to fight for national

culture

means

in

the

first

place

the

fight

for the

liberation

of

the

nation,

that material

keystone

which makes

the

building

of a

culture

possible"

(1968:233).

This

phase

of

optimistic

nation

building

was enacted

as the work

of "national

coalition

gov-

ernments,"

examples

of which were

Nehru

presiding

over a

monolithic

Congress

Party;

Cheddi

Jagan,

an

East

Asian,

and

L.

F. S.

Burnham,

a

Creole,

in the

early

1950s

heading

the

People's

Progressive

party

in

Guyana;

Tengku

Abdul

Rahman

presiding

over

the

Malaysian

Alliance,

again

in

the

1950s,

and

D. S.

Senanayake

at

the same time

over the United National

Party

in

Ceylon.

Political

parties

seemed

willing

to collaborate

rather than

emphasize

their

separate

interests and their

special

constituencies.

This phase was also marked by confident expectations of expanding economic horizons,

instanced

by

faith

in

economic

planning

and

growth,

and

the

spawning

of

"five-year

plans"

funded

by foreign

aid,

whose

smooth

flow

it was

hoped

would make

the world safe for

capi-

talism

and

democracy.

3.

In a

dislocating,

and sometimes

disconcerting

manner

this

hopeful

expansive phase

of

nation

building

has been

put

to the

test,

seriously

questioned,

imperiled

and even reversed in

342

american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

10/16

the

third

phase,

from

the

1960s

onward,

by

the

eruption

of ethnic

conflicts. The

divisiveness

has

revolved around issues

of

language,

race,

religion

and

territory. Accordingly,

there

has

been a

shift

again

in

slogans

and

concepts.

"Ethnic

groups"

and "ethnic conflict" are the

salient

labels for

talking

about these

events.

The terms

"plural society,"

"devolution

of

powers,"

"tra-

ditional

homelands,"

"self-determination"-old

words

given

new

force and

urgency-have

begun to frame the political debate and academic analyses. The central political authority,the

state,

which in

the

previous

phase

of

nation

building

and economic

growth

was

designated

as

the

prime

actor and

central

intelligence

in

initiating, directing

and

controlling

the

country's

future

and

historical

trajectory,

is

now,

after

years

of

escalating

ethnic divisiveness and

plur-

alistic

awareness,

counseled to be a

"referee"

adjudicating

differences and

enabling regional

cultures

and

societies to attain their "authentic" identities

and

interests.

the

politics

of

ethnicity

A partof the answer to the story of the politicization of ethnicity lies in our tracking of the

manner

in

which

large

numbers

of

people

in

the

new

polities

have

become,

or been made to

become,

conscious of ethnic

identity,

and how

in

turn

they

have been

energized

as

collectiv-

ities to

engage

in

political

action. The awareness that collective ethnic

identity

can

be used and

manipulated

in

political

action

is of course related to the

increasing possibilities

of contact

through

the

improvement

of

transport,

of the

quick adoption

and

deployment

of

modern

media,

and

of the

raised levels of education and

literacy

and the

spread

of

what Benedict

Anderson

has

called

"print

capitalism."

Another

explanation

lies in the

proliferation

and

popularization

of street

theaters and

public

arenas,

occasions

for

collective

massing

of

people,

ranging

from

political

rallies and

elections and referendums to

strikes,

demonstrations, sit-ins,

and

mass

pro-

tests. All these capabilities for large-scale political action have occurred in tandem with pop-

ulation

explosions

in

third world

countries,

the

migration

of vast numbers

of rural

peoples

to

cities and

metropolitan

centers,

and to locations where industries or where

peasant

resettle-

ment

schemes have been established.

Another

significant

factor is the

proliferation

of

schools,

colleges

and

universities,

which

have

provided

sites,

just

as factories had

done

in

the

history

of

industrial

development,

for the mobilization and

massing

of activists for

engaging

in

political

action.

One

of the

settings

for the

politicization

of

ethnicity

is

the

evolution

of

the

welfare state

in

the more

advanced industrial economies of

the

world,

and the

advent of the

socialist

state,

or

states

committed to welfare

policies,

in

the

"developing"

third world. In

both contexts the

state

has become "a crucial and direct arbiter of economic well being, as well as of political status

and

whatever

flows from that"

(Glazer

and

Moynihan

1975:8).

The

welfare and

socialist states

appear

to be

especially

responsive

to ethnic

claims. Within

democratic

governmental

systems

there

are

many

occasions at

municipal, regional

and

central

levels for

like-minded ethnic members to mobilize

and make claims on

behalf of

groups,

both

small

enough

and

conspicuous

enough

to

experience

real

gain

from

concessions

made.

This

"strategic efficacy"

(as

Glazer and

Moynihan put

it

[1975:101)

of

ethnicity

in

making

claims on

the

resources of the modern state

inevitably

in

turn

reinforces and

maintains ethnic

political

machinery-patron/client

networks,

bossism and

patronage

structures-through

which

affirmative actions or

pork-barrel

distributions

are

dispensed.

As much or

more of the

monies earmarked for social services and welfare may end up in the hands of those who dis-

pense

them as

those

who

receive them.

While

these

considerations

apply generally,

there is

a

special

chain of

circumstances

that has

led third

world

democracies

in

particular

o enact

their

politics

on

the basis

of

ethnicity.

At the

time of

decolonization in

the

Caribbean,

in

many

parts

of

Africa,

and

in

South

and Southeast

Asia,

the

grant

of

independence

and

the transfer

of

power

were

packaged

with

constitutions

ethnic

conflict

343

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

11/16

that

were

framed in

terms of

Western

principles

of "natural

rights,"

and civil

liberties and

West-

ern

procedures

and

institutionsof

"representative

government."

These charters

from the West-

ern

point

of

view,

framed

in

the secular

political

language

of

universal

rights

and

government

by

representation,

conferred on the rural

masses and the

migrants

to

fast-forming

cities a

mas-

sive

dose of

rights,

and the

opportunity

for

involvement

in

the

political process

(to

a

degree

not

previously experienced). Quickly transformed from a "passive" existence into political actors

and

voting

banks,

with the

power

to

elect

politicians

and vote

parties

to

power,

they

discovered

that

they

could

even demand or extort

rewards,

reformsand

privileges

from their

elected

parties

who

constituted for a while the "central"

political

authority.

But

increasingly

it

became clear that the

alleged

secular constitution and

institutions of

rep-

resentative

government predicated

on

the

individual

rights

of

citizens,

and the

willingness

of

"one-man-one-vote"

citizens to

form

parties

on the basis of

competitive

interests,

did

not

gen-

erate the

expected

outcomes.

Instead,

collectivities,

which

we

may

call ethnic

groups,

have

become the

political

actors,

seeking

affirmative

action for the

achievement or restoration of

privileges

and life

chances

in

the name of ethnic

(or racial)

equalization.

Ethnic

equalization

rather han freedom and

equality

of the individual is the

principal

charter of

participatory

de-

mocracy

in

many

of

the

plural

and

multiethnic

societies of our time. It has been the

experience

in

India,

Sri

Lanka,

and

Malaysia,

that once

political

demands are made on the basis of ethnic

affiliation for the

distribution

of

economic

rewards,

occupational positions,

and educational

privileges,

the

norm of

"equality

of

opportunity"

is

progressively

and

irreversiblydisplaced by

the

norm

of

"equality

of

result."8 It is

commonly

the case that affirmative

action

and

quota

allocations on

the

basis of

depressed

or backward status do not

speedily produce

results

through

the ladder of

equality

of

opportunity

and increased access to schools

and educational

institutions.

Thus,

in

time

disadvantaged groups push

toward

equality

of

results,

by

fiat if

nec-

essary,

and for direct

redistributive

policies

in

order

to

equalize

income,

living

conditions and

such on

a

group

basis. But

equality

of

result,

or

redistributive

politics,

are

essentially

zero-sum

games,

in which

there are distinct losers and winners. And

inevitably

these invidious

outcomes

lead to more

open

political

competition

and

conflict.

Finally,

as

a

result

of the

revolution

in

rising expectations,

the more

successful

constituencies are in

achieving

their

political

rights

to

vote,

to elect

parliaments,

to wield the stick

of

accountability,

the

more

assiduously

will

they

advocate the

enjoyment

of social

rights-such

as

the

right

to a

job, adequate

health

care,

un-

employment

insurance,

and so on as entitlements

from the

state.

The

equalization

on a

group

basis of

opportunities

and rewards

in

the

expanding

universe of

redistributive

politics may equally

be

the

slogans

of

majorities

or minorities

in

a

plural society.

The

language

of claims is best described

as that

of

ethnic

group

entitlements

on the basis of

relative

comparison

and relative

deprivation.

The entitlement claims of rewards

equalization

are

contentiously

sought

through

a

privileged

use of one

language,

or

the additional use of

a

language

so

far

excluded,

or the

imposition

of

special quotas providing privileged

access to

higher

education,

job

opportunities,

and business

entrepreneurship.

The "zero-sum" atmos-

phere

of these

quintessential

entitlement claims

reflects a restrictive worldview that has sur-

faced with

a

vehemence

precisely

at a time

when

certain

expansionary

and massive

move-

ments of

people

to urban

places

and to

peasant

resettlement

schemes have and

are

taking

place,

and when mass

educational

and

literacy programs

are

being implemented.

The

futuristic

ex-

hortation

that a

national

effort of

productive expansion,

which increases the

opportunities

and

rewards for all, will obviate

or

mitigate

the need for ethnic

quotas

falls on deaf

ears, partly

because

employment

and

income levels rise

only slowly,

and income distribution

disparities

continue to

persist,

and because distributive

equality

on ethnic lines

is a

politically

rousing

demand that

promises rapid

material results.

A

Weberian

might

be

tempted

to

say

that the

post-

ponement

of

present

gratification

for the

sake of future

profit,

the

sterling

ethic of

capitalism,

is

less

effective

than immediate ethnic

aggrandizement

as

the

stimulant of the masses.

344 american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

12/16

In

countries

engaged

in

postindependence

participatory

democracy,

and

in

which the elec-

toral

process

acts

as

a

political

marketplace,

different scenarios

can be

sketched

regarding

the

cleavages

and

trajectories

of ethnic

conflict,

depending

on the ethnic

distributions

and their

relative

standing.

The

relevant

factors

are

how

many groups

are

involved,

their

demographic

proportions,

their residential

locations,

their

cultural,

legal

and institutional

distinctiveness,

their levels of economic and educational achievements, the degree of their participation in

common

institutional

systems

and

of their common

membership

in

corporate organizations.

For

purposes

of

systematic

discussion

the

different scenarios and

trajectories pertaining

to

ethnic

conflict should be

brought

within

the

ambit of an

interpretive

ramework9 hat addresses

questions

of

how ethnic

groups

in an

arena see

themselves

as

acquiring,

maintaining,

and

pro-

tecting

their

claimed-to-be-legitimate

group

entitlements

(1)

to

capacities

and

"symbolic

cap-

ital" such

as education and

occupation,

(2)

to material rewards

such as incomes and

commod-

ities,

and

sumptuary privileges

that enable

distinct

styles

of

life,

and

(3)

to "honors"

such

as

titles and

offices,

markers of ethnic or

national

pride,

and

religious

and

linguistic

precedence

and esteem. These honors are accorded

by

the state

and/or other authorities who are the

prin-

cipal arbitersof rank.In this version of invidious and comparative "groupentitlements," power,

prestige,

occupations,

material

goods,

aesthetic

judgments,

manners and

morals,

and

religious

convictions come

together

and

naturally implicate

one another.

"Religion"

is

not

purely

a matter of

belief and

worship

but also

has

social

and

political

res-

onances;

"language"

is not

a mere communicative

device but has

implications

for

educational

advantage,

occupation

and

historical

legitimation

of social

precedence.

We have to

compre-

hend

an arena of

politics

where,

as

Horowitz

puts

it: "Fundamental

issues,

such as

citizenship,

electoral

systems, designation

of

official

languages

and

religions,

the

rights

of

groups

to

'special

position'

in

the

polity,

rather han

merely

setting

the framework for

politics,

become the recur-

rent

subjects

of

politics"

(Horowitz

1985:187).

The

quests

for

group

worth,

group

honor,

group

equivalization, and so on are central foci in the politics of ethnicity, and are a critical ingredient

in

the

spirals

of intense sentiments

and

explosive

violence that ensue.

I

can

envisage

three

overlapping

scenarios

which,

although

they

are

parts

of a

larger

mural,

can

be

presented

as

posing

different issues and

different outcomes.

They

cover a fair

range

of

major

ethnic conflicts

occuring

in recent times:

1.

Especially applicable

to

the

political

economies of colonial countries under British or

Dutch

rule in West

Africa,

East

Africa,

the

Caribbean,

Indonesia and

so on

is

the

picture

of

a

plural society

that Furnivalland

Boeke

among

others

sought

to characterize.

In

these societies

certain ethnic

groups may occupy

special

economic

and social niches as merchants and traders

(Lebanese

and

Syrians

in West

Africa,

Indians

in

Uganda,

Chinese

in

Malaya

and

Indonesia,

Indians in Fiji),as plantation labor (indentured Indian labor in Guyana or Sri Lanka),or as

"bankers"and financiers

(Nattukottai

Chettiars

in Burmaand

Ceylon).

Again, especially

in co-

lonial

capitals,

there could

be more

complex

mosaics: certain

trades,

certain

crafts,

certain

local

"banking"

and credit activities

being

the

monopoly

of both

indigenous

and

foreign

com-

munities.

The

occupation

of niches and

specialization

in

certain activities tend

to

create

a

seg-

mented

labor

market,

and militate

against

social class solidarities that cut across ethnic lines.

Ethnic

division of labor stunts

working-class

action and middle-class associational links.

Such a

colonial

heritage

tends to

crystallize expectations

of "entitlements" as

collective

eth-

nic

privileges.

The colonial rulers

helped

to create these

political maps

when

they

distributed

status

honors,

according

to

their calculations of which

groups

should be

rewarded,

protected

or encouraged. But these ethnic specializations and expectations, having persisted into the era

of

independence,

have tended to

generate

ethnic

conflicts when certain

strains

develop

to

im-

peril

the maintenance of boundaries.

One

such strain occurs

when the

importation

of

a cate-

gory

of manufactured

goods

from the industrial West threatens

a local

craft

or makes

a local

service

group

redundant and

dispensable.

A fall in

fortunes

may

threaten the

group's

ability

to

have

access to

the

basic

consumption

goods

of

everyday

life,

and it

may

therefore face famine

ethnic

conflict

345

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

13/16

in

a

market

of

plenty

and

a

depression

in status

in a

political

climate

of

expanding "develop-

ment."

But the most severe erosion

of

niche-equilibrium

has come from those

governments

of

the

new

states

that

have tried to

open

up

what

they

consider to

be

the

privileged monopolies

of

ethnic

enclaves,

which

are accused

of

restrictive

practices

as

regards

recruitment and

pro-

vision

of

services. The

dispossession

of

Natukkottai Chettiars

in

Rangoon,

and the

expulsions

of Indianmerchantsfrom Uganda are examples of the new civilian authorities invading what

they

consider

to be rich

preserves

to

enrich

themselves

and their

civilian

supporters. Foreign

specialized

minorities are

thus vulnerable

to the

policies

of

forcible

ejection

and/or

disposs-

ession

by

governments promoting

the interests of

"indigenous"

minorities.

2.

The

second scenario relates not

so

much

to the

declining

fortunes of

well-placed

com-

munities,

but

to the

rising

expectations

and

capacities

of

satellite

minorities on

the

periphery

who

find

themselves under the domination of

majorities

entrenched at

the

center,

and some-

times are in

addition faced with the

majority advancing

into their

frontier "homelands." In

Burma,

Thailand,

Laos and in

northeast

India,

a shorthand

phrasing

of this

collision is "hills

people"

or "hill

tribes" versus the

"valley

people."

This bifurcation

carries other

contrasts in

agricultural

styles (sedentary

versus slash and

burn),

in

written versus oral

languages, espousal

of

Hinduism

or Buddhism

versus

the

religion

of

spirit

cults.

Sometimes these satellite commu-

nities have

sought

advance

through

the

ministrations

of

Christian

missionaries,

and

in

any

case,

in

the new

postindependence

polities, they

have

requested

"affirmative

action,"

proportionate

to

their

demographic

numbers,

with

regard

to

their

participation

in the task

of

nation-state

mak-

ing

and in the

education

programs

of the dominant

centers. These satellite

ethnic/tribal minor-

ities tend to

be

potential

secessionists,

and as Horowitz

puts

it "the

largest

number of seces-

sionists can be

characterized as backward

groups

in

backward

regions"

(Horowitz

1985:36).

Examples

are Karens and

Shans

in

Northern

Burma,

Muslims

(Moros)

in

the

Philippines,

the

Nagas

and Mizos in

India and the Kurds

n

Iraq.

3.

The third scenario

represents

the kind of ethnic

conflict and

tensions with which I

am

especially

concerned in this

essay.

I

have

adapted

some

concepts

coined

by

M.

G. Smith

(1969)

in

order to

characterize them.

In

a

situation in which there

exists

a

fair amount

of "cultural

pluralism"

(the

diverse

popu-

lations have

distinctive markers of

dress,

marriage

customs and so

on),

and

a

fair amount of

"social

pluralism"

(the

ethnic

populations

have

roughly equivalent

standings

in

the

polity

as

a

whole,

and

for some

purposes

aggregate

as

corporations

and collectivities

such as

political

parties

or

religious congregations), political

moves

may

be

made

by

a

demographically

domi-

nant

ethnic

population

to

gain advantages

over

minority groups,

and to

introduce

elements of

sociopolitical

and even

religious

discrimination and

asymmetry,

and

thereby incorporatingthe

groups

into the

polity

on

unequal

terms. Smith

has

discussed how

processes

of

"differential

incorporation"

lead to

the outcome

of

"structural

pluralism."

Plural

societies manifest differ-

ential

incorporation

within

the

larger polity

when certain

collectivities within it are

subject

to

sectionally unequal

distributions of

legal, political,

educational

and

occupational

rights

and

are

thus reduced to a subordinate status.

The

"second-class

itizenship"

f a social

category

dentified

y

common

disabilities nd

disqualifica-

tions,

whether

acial,

religious,

conomic,

or other

grounds

s

merely

one

commonmode

of differential

incorporation.

ommunal

olls,

restrictive

roperty

ranchises,

nd similar

arrangements

lso

express

and

maintainhe differential

ncorporation

f

specific

collectivitieswithin

a

wider

society.

Suchmech-

anismsare

generally eveloped

o

enhance he

power

of the

ruling

ection

[Smith

969:430].

South

Africaand Guatemala are extreme and

notorious

cases of

asymmetrical incorporation,

but

there are more

benign

forms;

the

Malays,

the

Sinhalese

in

Sri

Lanka,

are

current

examples

of

the

majoritarian

laims to

"affirmativeaction"

defended

on

demographic

strength

and

leg-

itimated

by

mytho-historical

sons-of-the-soil

claims. These

claims

lead

inevitably

to

structural

asymmetrical

pluralism

and

are

inevitably

resisted

by

the minorities.

An

instructive

example

of

346

american

ethnologist

8/17/2019 Tambiah_conflito étnico hoje

14/16

this

special

pleading

on behalf of a

majority

in

place

is

Prime Minister

Mahathir

bin

Mohamad's

political

tract,

The

Malay

Dilemma

(1970).

Such

attempts

to subordinate

previously

unranked and

equal groups

who wield

considerable

capacities

and

skills,

and

to

incorporate

them

unequally

in

the

polity

as

inferior

citizens,

invite

retaliationsand

counteractions.

Alert to

the

threats

of

discrimination and

subordination,

and in

the first instance fightingfor inclusion within the polity on equal terms, they may gradually as

their

situation

worsens,

as has

happened

in

Sri

Lanka-gravitate

toward

the

politics

of

devo-

lution,

and

even

secession. Horowitz

aptly phrases

the

options

thus:

"Unlike ranked

groups,

which

form

part

of

a

single

society,

unranked

groups

constitute

incipient

whole

societies"

(1985:31).

Let

me

conclude

this

essay by returning

o

a

general

theme

that

applies

to all

three scenarios

I

have

outlined.

The

present plethora

of ethnic

conflicts,

whether

viewed

negatively

as

divisive

and

destructive

of the

state,

or

positively

as a

drive toward realistic

devolutionary

politics,

co-

incides

with an

increasing

sense

of

shrinking

economic horizons

and

of

political

embattlement.

Many

things

have

gone awry

with economic

development:

the

declining

terms

of

trade

dictated

by the industrializedWest; internalbottlenecks; agriculturalunderemployment and migration

to

cities;

increasing

disparities

of

income

distribution;

rising unemployment

among

the

ex-

pectant

participants

n

the

literacy explosion;

the

visible

pauperization

of

the urban

underclass;

the

feminization of

poverty;

the

entrenchment

of

b