Why does ethnic conflict often accompany decolonization?

Résumé du document

The use of ethnicity concept over last decades has been linked to the multiplication of conflicts between ethnic groups in the wake of decolonization process. The existence of ethnic conflicts in many new independent states is a contemporary issue which underlines the complexity of former colonial societies, generally organised along to ethnic lines to serve the interests of colonial powers. The organisation of indigenous societies on such basis has had strong influence during the decolonization period and was a key feature in the collusion of concepts of ethnicity and politics through the "politicization of ethnicity"; whose emergence results in the interweaving of various internal and external factors.

This notion may be seen as core in the explication of ethnic conflicts in new third world countries, but it must be put into perspective with the role played in this process by ex-colonial powers.Since then, to what extent should colonial powers be considered as liable for the apparition of ethnic conflicts within their former respective colonies? This question sheds light on the weight of the colonial factor in the outbreak of ethnic conflicts; even if this vision should be nuanced by various external features which have played a certain role in this process.

Extraits

[...] All these values give to ethnic groups the strong feeling that they share a range of kinship, codes and moral principles which leads its members being aware of their particularity compared to other ethnic groups. Here, it is interesting to look at the comparison which was made by Donald Horowitz, an American scholar, between concepts of ethnicity and social class. He makes a distinction between ethnic groups which correspond or not with social classes of the society within which they are evolving; arguing that “Where the two coincide, it is possible to speak of ranked ethnic groups; where groups are cross-class, it is possible to speak of unranked ethnic groups” (Horowitz; 2000: 22). [...]

[...] Thus, this phenomenon has showed the significance of political action for citizens of recently decolonized democratic states; highlighting the passage from a “passive” to an existence in the political sphere. As a matter of fact former colonies inherited from “Western principles of “natural rights”, and civil liberties and Western procedures and institutions of “representative government”” (Tambiah; 1989: 344) which has spurred the political debate; but unfortunately in favour of ethnic groups which seek to assert their individual rights. This vision on the origin of ethnic conflicts in postcolonial period is shared by Arjun Appadurai who put the blame on “ideas about democracy and the free market which have produced severe new struggles over enfranchisement and entitlement in many societies” (Appadurai; 2006: 90). [...]

[...] Hence, the sources of conflicts between ethnic groups may be numerous and complex and cannot be reduced to the consequence of one single key factor. Nevertheless, it would be useful to look at the influence of colonisation by European empires to understand the origins of many contemporary ethnic conflicts. The case of Northwest Ghana is relevant to this point since it emphasises on the strategy through which British divided indigenous into several ethnic groups a region which in the pre-colonial period was neither politically centralised nor knew distinct tribes” (Lentz, 2000: 137). [...]

[...] Why does ethnic conflict often accompany decolonization? The use of ethnicity concept over last decades has been linked to the multiplication of conflicts between ethnic groups in the wake of decolonisation process. The existence of ethnic conflicts in many new independent states is a contemporary issue which underlines the complexity of former colonial societies, generally organised along to ethnic lines to serve the interests of colonial powers. The organisation of indigenous societies on such basis has had strong influence during the decolonisation period and was a key feature in the collusion of concepts of ethnicity and politics through the “politicization of ethnicity”; whose emergence results in the interweaving of various internal and external factors. [...]

[...] Indeed if groups are ranked, ethnic conflicts oppose ethnics groups marked along political, economic and social status that is, super-ordinate and one subordinate” (Horowitz; 2000: 22). For example, Rwanda was organised on a system of ranked ethnic groups at the independence with Hutus who ruled political and economic life in the country at the expense of Tutsis; however in 1994 the genocide, perpetrated on ethnic lines by Hutus, killed more than 800000 Tutsis and moderated Hutus between April and June. [...]