Over the long history of mankind, various nations have formed and changed, mixing with others and introducing their own characteristics into them. These processes are associated with the settlement and movement of large groups of people.
Concept
In modern society, the formation of nations has become established, although there is still room for local changes. Nations do not exist in isolation; on the contrary, they are in constant interaction. Let's find out what interethnic relations are and briefly consider their varieties.
Interethnic relations are a type of social relations in which different nations are participants.
There are two main types of interethnic relations:
- within one state;
- between nations of different countries.
The study of the problem of interethnic relations began in America. In this country, the question of the relationship between the white and black populations, which, due to the peculiarities of historical development, had to establish joint activities within the framework of one state, became acute.
Problems of interethnic relations
The interaction of nations does not always proceed peacefully; sometimes difficulties and contradictions that arise cause aggression and even military clashes.
The reasons for this may be:
- different levels of development and culture of peoples;
- the desire to survive and achieve privileges, get rid of discrimination;
- struggle for economic resources.
We can give examples of countries in which relations between nations occurred peacefully (Modern America) and non-peacefully (the Conquest of neighboring peoples by the Roman Empire).
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The most acceptable way to establish ties between peoples is the formation of multinational states. They recognize the rights and freedoms of all nations, prohibit discrimination on national grounds, and allow the use of their native language in everyday life and education.
Despite the universal recognition of the right of nations to preserve their traditions and free use of language, in everyday life conflicts between representatives of different nations occur quite often. They occur because some people are not ready to put up with a foreign culture that seems strange and wrong to them. This attitude towards the traditions of other peoples and confidence in the correctness of only one’s way of life is called ethnocentrism.
Racial and national discrimination does not correspond to the principles operating in the modern world community, therefore any forms of its manifestation raise the need to regulate and take measures to prevent such cases.
National politics
In Russia, as a multinational state, in conditions of constant international integration (establishing relations with other states), the issue of national policy is one of the most important.
The state strives to prevent national hatred by destroying and preventing any differences in the rights of peoples. Thus, the use of the native language is permitted, including in educational institutions, as a school subject. Trends in the development of interethnic relations in Russia are associated with the organization of peaceful and constructive dialogue between different cultures, their mutual enrichment, mutual acceptance and respect (tolerance).
What have we learned?
Having studied the topic of 11th grade social studies, we found out that interethnic relations are relations between the peoples of one or several states. The issue of nations and interethnic relations is of particular importance in modern society. It is intended to eliminate any manifestations of discrimination against nations, to open free access to every person to the benefits of society.
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1. Nations and interethnic relations in the modern world.
Ethnic groups- these are historically established large groups of people who have a common culture, language, and awareness of the indissolubility of historical destiny.
A nation is the historically highest form of ethnosocial community of people, characterized by the unity of territory, economic life, historical path, language and culture.
Nation- a historically established community of people with statehood. Nations are formed during the development of commodity-money relations. They are preceded tribe And nationality.
Nation- a historically established community of people with statehood.
The main characteristics of a nation:
National cultural language
National culture (music, theater, cinema, etc.)
Unity of social and economic life
Traditions and customs
Community of territory
National culture- includes all the property of the people, their way of existence, adaptation to the natural-geographical and socio-historical environment in which they live.
National culture includes:
Language, literature, music
Uniforms
All types of food
Construction and interior decoration of the home
Holidays
Traditions, customs
Forms of etiquette
In the modern world, not a single nation can live in complete isolation and must enter into interethnic relations, establishes economic, political, ideological, cultural, legal, diplomatic and other connections.
They can be stable(permanent) and unstable(periodic), based on rivalry and on cooperation, equal rights And unequal.
National question- this is a question of self-determination of the nation and overcoming ethnic inequality. Roots of the national The issue is the uneven socio-economic and political development of different peoples. More developed and powerful states conquered weak and backward ones, establishing a system of national oppression in the conquered countries.
Causes of interethnic conflicts:
Dissatisfaction with a nation that does not have its own statehood
Arbitrarily established national-territorial boundaries
The danger of erosion of ethnicity as a result of the influx of foreign-speaking populations
Restrictions on the use of the national language
Infringement of rights and freedoms based on nationality
When resolving interethnic conflicts, it is necessary to observe the humanistic principles of national policy. relations:
Refusal of violence and coercion;
Seeking agreement based on the unanimity of all participants;
Recognition of human rights and freedoms as the most important value;
Willingness to peacefully resolve controversial issues.
2. Family. Legal basis of marriage.
The family is recognized by scientists as the main carrier of cultural patterns inherited from generation to generation, as well as a necessary condition for the socialization of the individual.
Family- a group consisting of two or more people related to each other by marriage, blood or adoption, leading a joint household, interacting in family roles and preserving the inherited culture, adding to it new common features developed jointly.
Family and society are small and large parts of the same system. The family regulates gender relations and prevents promiscuous sexual relations. Its main tasks are: giving birth to children; formation and education of the younger generation; emotional release; physical, economic and psychological protection of family members; establishing close economic relations.
There are two main forms of family organization - marital And related.
In a married family, the participants in the relationship are the husband, wife and their children. They live separately, have their own household, and are quite independent financially. Relations with other relatives may be more or less close, but in any case there is no strong dependence on them.
In a kinship family organization, spouses and their children live together with other relatives and run a common household. This tradition is typical for many eastern peoples.
Marriage- this is a socially recognized union of two adults of different sexes; they become relatives. Exists "open marriage" (civil)- a form of cohabitation, a union of two people without official registration. Main forms of marriage are:
monogamy(monogamy) - a person can have one wife or one husband at the same time;
polygamy(polygamy, group marriage, polygyny or polyandry) - husband or wife
have more than one spouse.
Russian legislation on marriage and family
In Russia for marriage necessary: mutual voluntary consent of those entering into marriage, reaching marriageable age - with 18 years(but there may be exceptions by decision of local authorities - from the age of 16), the absence of another registered marriage, the absence of close family relations (in a direct line) between those entering into marriage, the legal capacity of those entering into marriage, conclusion in the civil registry office (MARRIAGE REGISTRY). A marriage contract can be concluded (in writing and with notarization) on the rights and responsibilities of spouses to support the family, property conditions for divorce.
With the mutual consent of the spouses and the absence of minor children, the marriage can be dissolved at the registry office. This can also be done at the request of only one of the spouses, if the second spouse is declared incompetent, declared missing by the court, or convicted of committing a crime by a court sentence to imprisonment for a term of more than 3 years. In case of disputes (about children, division of property, etc.), the matter is resolved in court.
A marriage is declared invalid if the conditions of its conclusion are not met, if the marriage is fictitious, or if one of the spouses has HIV infection or sexually transmitted diseases.
Family law rules regulate:
Conditions for marriage
The procedure for concluding and content of a marriage contract
Rights and responsibilities of parents and children
Registration procedure for full name baby
Divorce in the registry office or in court
Restriction or deprivation of parental rights
Forms and procedure for placing children without parental care into a family
Procedure for registering marriage
Rights and responsibilities of spouses
Property of spouses and property of children
Conditions for recognizing a marriage as invalid
The protection of family rights is carried out by the court according to the rules of civil proceedings and in some state cases provided for by the Family Code. authorities, or guardianship authorities.
Rights and responsibilities of spouses:
Each spouse is free to choose their occupation, profession, place of stay and residence
During marriage, spouses choose their surname according to their wishes
Issues of motherhood, paternity, upbringing and education of children, other issues of family life
spouses decide independently by mutual agreement
Property acquired by spouses during marriage is their joint property (income from
their work activity, pensions, benefits, other cash payments purchased with general
income movable and immovable things, securities, deposits, shares in capital and other property,
regardless of which of them it is in the name of or which of them contributed funds)
Before or during the marriage, a marriage contract may be concluded between the spouses, defining
their property rights and obligations in marriage and (or) in case of its dissolution
Liability of spouses for harm caused to their minor children is addressed to
common property of the spouses.
In accordance with Art. 38 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, motherhood and childhood, the family are under the protection of the state. As part of the declared worldwide support for motherhood, childhood and family by the state, Russia operates a unified system of state benefits, compensation and benefits for citizens with children, issued in connection with their birth and upbringing, which provides state-guaranteed material support for motherhood, paternity and childhood. The state provides benefits for the birth of children; provides various types of assistance and provides benefits to pregnant women, women with children, large families, families with sick children; establishes the procedure for granting maternity leave, determines the responsibility of officials in case of violation of the rights of women and children, and establishes guarantees for the protection of their rights.
About 40 thousand years ago, a new biological species appeared on Earth - Homo sapiens, which for thousands of years settled across the entire surface of the land. All the diversity of modern types of people can be explained by various natural factors that influenced people depending on their geographical location (place of settlement on Earth). Scientists studying large groups of people separately distinguish such concepts as people, nation, nationality.
Concepts: tribe, people, nation, nationality
Scientists identify different ethnic communities (ethnic groups)- historically established stable groups of people that differ from each other in biological characteristics, common territory of residence, language, religion, traditions. Ethnic communities include tribes, peoples, and nations. The formation of ethnic groups occurred in stages, as people settled around the planet and in the process of developing social relations between them.
In primitive society, people lived in communities - large consanguineous groups. Communities consisted of several dozen families living together to increase their chances of survival. Communities were the first types of ethnos; they represented the first stable communities of people.
Each community had its own customs, people in the community remembered their ancestors and revered them. Over time, some communities were forced to unite with each other in order to protect themselves from warlike neighbors. This is how tribes appeared - the predecessors of ancient peoples.
Tribe- this is a relatively stable group of people living in a common territory, with their own language, traditions, and organization of power. The tribes, in turn, began to unite into tribal unions, from which ancient states were subsequently formed.
With the birth of statehood, a new stage in the development of the ethnic group began, and tribes were replaced by peoples. Peoples- these are large historically established groups of people with a common territory of residence, common biological and social characteristics. The biological characteristics of different peoples include:
- Color of the skin;
- Eye shape;
- Height;
- Features of body structure.
However, biological properties are not decisive; social characteristics are much more important, which include:
- Traditions and customs of peoples. Eastern peoples have strong customs of hospitality and respect for elders; traditionally, men are more respected in society than women. Western peoples also honor their traditions, passed on from generation to generation. However, over time, a people can forget about their own traditions and adopt the traditions of another people or nation.
- Features of life. Different peoples of the world have their own way of life, which was formed depending on the area in which people lived. For example, people who lived on the coasts of rivers and seas traditionally began to engage in fishing, fish dishes began to predominate on their menu, and among all types of transport, sea or river vessels developed.
- Common language of the people. Although language is the hallmark of a people, different peoples can use the same language. For example, peoples living in Russia (Kazakhs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Bulgarians, Buryats and others) can use the Russian language to communicate with each other.
- Behavior and communication style.
- National identity- this is a feeling of spiritual unity of a person with his people, self-identification with them.
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Nation call a set of peoples living on the territory of a certain country and being its citizens. A nation is more numerous than an individual people; the main unifying force for a nation becomes the unified political structure of the country, its economic structure.
Interethnic relations develop between individual peoples and nations. The development of interethnic relations can take peaceful forms, or it can lead to major military conflicts.
Interethnic relations in the past and today
The histories of peoples are closely intertwined with each other, since diverse ethnic communities did not live separately, but were constantly in contact with each other and entered into various relationships. Relations between individual tribes, peoples, and nations developed according to two main scenarios:
- Along the path of integration - rapprochement, unity, unification of individual peoples and nationalities.
- Along the path of disintegration - separation of peoples, conflicts between diverse tribes, ethnic groups or nations.
Among the processes of uniting representatives of different ethnic groups and nations, scientists highlight:
- Consolidation- the unification of several groups of ethnic groups related to each other into one larger nation. Processes of consolidation took place in the territories of the most ancient states, in most countries of the world. Tribes or peoples close to each other in traditions, religious beliefs, and languages gradually merged into one whole.
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Example. Numerous East Slavic tribes: Tivertsy, Ulichi, Drevlyans, Volynians, Polochans, Vyatichi and others united into the Old Russian people. These tribes had a similar way of life, religious beliefs (paganism), language, and traditions. The process of consolidation was accelerated by close economic ties between individual East Slavic tribes and intertribal marriages.
- Assimilation- dissolution of one small ethnic group into another, larger people. At the same time, the small ethnic group lost its identity, completely lost its distinctive features and independence. Assimilation could occur peacefully, or it could take the form of a violent takeover of one people by another.
Example 1. The Slavs, who moved to the Greek islands in ancient times, eventually lost their national identity. They adopted the writing and culture of the Greeks and completely dissolved into another nationality - the Greek population.
Example 2. At the beginning of the 15th century, the peoples of Bulgaria and Serbia came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Some of them adopted Turkish customs, language, and religion. Thus, those who adopted Turkish culture separated from the main part of the Serbs; they formed a separate ethnic community, which they called the Sanjakli. From the Bulgarians who assimilated with the Turks, another ethnic community emerged - the Pomaks.
- Interethnic integration- interaction in a multinational state of the largest ethnic groups, significantly different from each other in culture, language, and religious views. Thanks to interethnic integration, different nationalities did not merge into one people, but they had some common features in culture and way of life.
Example. On the territory of British India (from 1858 to 1947), Iranian and Indian people lived together. These peoples did not unite with each other, did not lose their national identity, but over the years of interaction they developed some common traditions and developed similar living conditions.
In addition to the processes of bringing together the nationalities of the world, history knows many examples of the disintegration of peoples. The basis for the disunity of a single people is the desire of a separate ethnic community to gain independence, to sever economic, political and cultural ties with the main part of the nation. A striking example of the disintegration of a nation of people is the collapse of Yugoslavia. Having once become a single whole, the inhabitants of Yugoslavia decided to separate from each other in 1991. So the large state split into 6 parts, which became small independent states: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro.
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Important! The processes of integration and disintegration of the peoples of the earth continue today. They occur over a long period of time and have a huge impact on the fate of all humanity.
Causes of interethnic conflicts
Sometimes irreconcilable contradictions arise between certain nationalities, which lead to interethnic conflicts. Interethnic contradictions can arise both within one state and between different states. Therefore, interethnic conflicts can be domestic or international.
Interethnic conflict- this is confrontation (confrontation), competition, rivalry between different nations, which lead to a clash of nations with each other.
A number of factors contribute to the aggravation of relations between nations, which often become causes of interethnic conflicts:
- Competition for mastery of natural resources;
- Differences in religious views;
- Disputes over the location of borders, territorial disputes;
- Competition in trade, politics, education or sports;
- National discrimination (restriction or complete deprivation of a nation or ethnic community of rights and freedoms).
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In addition, a common cause of interethnic conflicts is a sense of national pride. National pride- this is a feeling of respect for one’s own nation, awareness of one’s inextricable connection with it, admiration and love for one’s own people, their national traditions, customs, religion, language, history.
The problem of national pride is that some nations consider themselves the best, do not respect the feelings of other nations, and strive to rise above them. The most striking example when the pride of a nation led to a global tragedy is the Second World War. Hitler declared that the German people are representatives of the only purebred and superior nation on Earth - the Aryans. All other nations, according to Hitler, were inferior and were subject to partial destruction and enslavement. Jews and Gypsies were subjected to special persecution, being killed in the millions.
Due to national and racial intolerance, the problem of interethnic conflicts arises again and again, since many interethnic contradictions are not resolved for tens and sometimes hundreds of years.
Ways to overcome interethnic conflicts
Modern politicians identify three main ways to resolve interethnic conflicts:
- Recognition of the need for non-violence and the willingness of different nations to compromise (mutual concessions); It is now very easy to realize that violence is not the solution; you just have to think about the consequences of using nuclear and other modern weapons.
- Application of sanctions (various types of prohibitions by the world community against the aggressor state);
- Creation of interethnic unions.
Resolving interethnic conflicts is an important task for every country, since such conflicts pose a serious danger to the well-being of individual states and often the entire world.
Ethnic groups are large groups of people, distinguished on the basis of a common culture, language, and awareness of the indissolubility of historical destiny.
Social communities defined by ethnicity are diverse. First of all, these are tribes, nationalities and nations.
Nations are the most developed ethnic entities that arose on the basis of linguistic, territorial, cultural, economic, socio-psychological community. They are most characteristic of the modern world, in which there are at least two thousand different ethnic groups.
The nature of national relations is determined by two interrelated trends: towards differentiation and towards integration.
Every nation strives for self-development, to preserve its national identity, language, and culture. These aspirations are realized in the process of their differentiation, which can take the form of a struggle for national self-determination and the creation of an independent national state.
On the other hand, the self-development of nations in the modern world is impossible without their close interaction, cooperation, exchange of cultural values, overcoming alienation, and maintaining mutually beneficial contacts. The trend towards integration is intensifying due to the need to solve global problems facing humanity, with the successes of the scientific and technological revolution. It must be borne in mind that these trends are interconnected: the diversity of national cultures does not lead to their isolation, and the rapprochement of nations does not mean the disappearance of differences between them.
Interethnic relations are a particularly delicate matter. Violation or infringement of national interests, discrimination against individual nations give rise to extremely complex problems and conflicts.
In the modern world, including in Russia, there are interethnic conflicts caused by various reasons:
1) territorial disputes;
2) historically arisen tensions in relations between peoples;
3) the policy of discrimination carried out by the dominant nation against small nations and peoples;
4) attempts by national political elites to use national feelings for the purpose of their own popularity;
5) the desire of peoples to leave the multinational state and create their own statehood.
It should be borne in mind that the international community, when resolving interethnic conflicts, proceeds from the priority of state integrity, the inviolability of established borders, the inadmissibility of separatism and related violence.
When resolving interethnic conflicts, it is necessary to observe the humanistic principles of policy in the field of national relations:
1) renunciation of violence and coercion;
2) seeking agreement based on the consensus of all participants;
3) recognition of human rights and freedoms as the most important value;
4) readiness for a peaceful resolution of controversial issues.
Interethnic relations, due to their multidimensional nature, are a complex phenomenon. They include two varieties:
– relations between different nationalities within one state;
– relations between different nation-states.
The forms of interethnic relations are as follows:
– Peaceful cooperation.
– Ethnic conflict(from lat. conflictus - collision).
The methods of peaceful cooperation are quite diverse.
The most civilized way to unite different peoples is the creation of a multinational state in which the rights and freedoms of every nationality and nation are respected. In such cases, several languages are official, for example, in Belgium - French, Danish and German, in Switzerland - German, French and Italian. As a result, it is formed cultural pluralism (from Latin pluralis - multiple).
With cultural pluralism, no national minority loses its identity or dissolves into the general culture. It implies that representatives of one nationality voluntarily master the habits and traditions of another, while enriching their own culture.
Cultural pluralism is an indicator of a person’s successful adaptation (adaptation) to a foreign culture without abandoning his own. Successful adaptation involves mastering the riches of another culture without compromising the values of one’s own.
In the modern world, two interrelated trends are visible in the development of nations.
Interethnic conflict
In the modern world there are practically no ethnically homogeneous states. Only 12 countries (9% of all countries in the world) can be conditionally classified as such. In 25 states (18.9%), the main ethnic community makes up 90% of the population; in another 25 countries this figure ranges from 75 to 89%. In 31 states (23.5%), the national majority ranges from 50 to 70%, and in 39 countries (29.5%) barely half the population is an ethnically homogeneous group.
Thus, people of different nationalities one way or another have to coexist on the same territory, and peaceful life does not always develop.
Interethnic conflict - one of the forms of relations between national communities, characterized by a state of mutual claims, open confrontation of ethnic groups, peoples and nations with each other, which tends to increase contradictions up to armed clashes, open wars.
In global conflictology there is no single conceptual approach to the causes of interethnic conflicts.
Social and structural changes in contacting ethnic groups, problems of their inequality in status, prestige, and remuneration are analyzed. There are approaches that focus on behavioral mechanisms associated with fears for the fate of the group - not only about the loss of cultural identity, but also about the use of property, resources and the aggression that arises in connection with this.
Researchers based on collective action focus their attention on the responsibility of elites fighting for power and resources. Obviously, the elites are primarily responsible for creating the “enemy image,” ideas about the compatibility or incompatibility of the values of ethnic groups, the ideology of peace or hostility.
In situations of tension, ideas are created about the characteristics of peoples that prevent communication - the “messianicism” of the Russians, the “inherited belligerence” of the Chechens, as well as the hierarchy of peoples with whom one can or cannot “deal.”
The concept of the “clash of civilizations” by the American researcher S. Huntington is very influential in the West. She attributes contemporary conflicts, particularly recent acts of international terrorism, to sectarian differences. In Islamic, Confucian, Buddhist and Orthodox cultures, the ideas of Western civilization - liberalism, equality, legality, human rights, market, democracy, separation of church and state - do not seem to resonate.
The main cause of conflicts, friction, and various kinds of prejudices between representatives of different nationalities is ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism - a set of misconceptions (prejudices) of one nation in relation to another, indicating the superiority of the first.
Ethnocentrism is confidence in the correctness of one’s own culture, a tendency or tendency to reject the standards of another culture as incorrect, low, or unaesthetic. Therefore, many interethnic conflicts are called false, since they are based not on objective contradictions, but on a misunderstanding of the positions and goals of the other side, attributing hostile intentions to it, which gives rise to an inadequate sense of danger and threat.
Modern sociologists offer the following classification of the causes of interethnic conflicts.
Causes of interethnic conflicts
– Socio-economic– inequality in living standards, different representation in prestigious professions, social strata, and government bodies.
– Cultural and linguistic– insufficient, from the point of view of an ethnic minority, the use of its language and culture in public life.
– Ethnodemographic– a rapid change in the ratio of the numbers of contacting peoples due to migration and differences in the level of natural population growth.
– Environmental– deterioration in the quality of the environment as a result of its pollution or depletion of natural resources due to use by representatives of a different ethnic group.
– Extraterritorial– discrepancy between state or administrative boundaries and the boundaries of settlement of peoples.
– Historical– past relationships between peoples (wars, former dominance-subordination relationship, etc.).
– Confessional– due to belonging to different religions and confessions, differences in the level of modern religiosity of the population.
– Cultural– from the peculiarities of everyday behavior to the specifics of the political culture of the people.
Sociologists distinguish various types of interethnic conflicts.
Interethnic conflicts do not arise out of nowhere. As a rule, their appearance requires a certain shift in the usual way of life and the destruction of the value system, which is accompanied by people’s feelings of confusion and discomfort, doom and even loss of the meaning of life. In such cases, the regulation of intergroup relations in society comes to the fore. ethnic factor as more ancient, performing the function of group survival.
The action of this socio-psychological factor is realized as follows. When a threat appears to the existence of a group as an integral and independent subject of intergroup interaction, at the level of social perception of the situation, social identification occurs on the basis of origin, on the basis of blood; Mechanisms of socio-psychological protection are included in the form of processes of intra-group cohesion, intra-group favoritism, strengthening the unity of “we” and out-group discrimination and isolation from “them”, “strangers”.
These processes can lead to nationalism.
Nationalism (French nationalosme from Latin nation - people) - ideology and politics that put the interests of the nation above any other economic, social, political interests, the desire for national isolation, localism; distrust of other nations, often developing into interethnic hostility.
Types of nationalism
Ethnic– the people’s struggle for national liberation, gaining their own statehood.
State-state– the desire of nations to realize their national-state interests, often at the expense of small nations.
Domestic- manifestation of national feelings, hostility towards foreigners, xenophobia (gr. hepov - stranger and pKobov - fear).
Nationalism can develop into its extremely aggressive form - chauvinism.
Chauvinism (French chauvinisme - the term comes from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, the literary hero of the comedy of the brothers I. and T. Cognard “The Tricolor Cockade”, the guardian of the greatness of France in the spirit of the ideas of Napoleon Bonaparte) – a political and ideological system of views and actions that substantiates the exclusivity of a particular nation, contrasting its interests with the interests of other nations and peoples, instilling in people’s minds hostility, and often hatred towards other nations, which incites hostility between people of different nationalities and religions, national extremism .
One of the manifestations of state nationalism is genocide.
Genocide (from Latin genos – genus and caedere – to kill) – the deliberate and systematic destruction of certain groups of the population on racial, national or religious grounds, as well as the deliberate creation of living conditions calculated to bring about the complete or partial physical destruction of these groups. An example of genocide is the Holocaust - the mass extermination of the Jewish population by the Nazis during World War II.
The unification of a group based on ethnicity occurs on the basis of:
– preference of their fellow tribesmen to “strangers”, newcomers, non-indigenous people and strengthening the sense of national solidarity;
– protecting the territory of residence and reviving the sense of territoriality for the titular nation, ethnic group;
– demands for the redistribution of income in favor of “our own”;
– ignoring the legitimate needs of other population groups in a given territory, recognized as “strangers”.
All these signs have one advantage for group mass action - the visibility and self-evidence of the community (in language, culture, appearance, history, etc.) compared to “strangers”. An indicator of the state of interethnic relations and, accordingly, their regulator is an ethnic stereotype as a type of social stereotype. At the same time, the regulation of intergroup relations with the help of an ethnic stereotype acquires a kind of independent existence and psychologically returns social relations to the historical past. When the interests of two groups collide and both groups lay claim to the same benefits and the same territory (such as the Ingush and North Ossetians), in conditions of social confrontation and devaluation of common goals and values, national-ethnic goals and ideals become leading socio-psychological regulators of mass social action. Therefore, the process of polarization along ethnic lines inevitably begins to express itself in confrontation, in conflict, which, in turn, blocks the satisfaction of the basic socio-psychological needs of both groups.
At the same time, in the process of escalation (expansion, build-up, increase) of the conflict, the following socio-psychological patterns objectively and invariably begin to operate:
– a decrease in the volume of communication between the parties, an increase in the amount of misinformation, a tightening of aggressive terminology, an increasing tendency to use the media as a weapon in the escalation of psychosis and confrontation among the broad masses of the population;
– distorted perception of information about each other;
– developing an attitude of hostility and suspicion, consolidating the image of a “cunning enemy” and dehumanizing him, i.e. exclusion from the human race, which psychologically justifies any atrocities and cruelties towards “non-humans” in achieving their goals;
– formation of an orientation towards victory in an interethnic conflict by force through the defeat or destruction of the other side.
In acute conflict situations, one of the first intermediate phases of its resolution is legalization of the conflict.
The signing of any agreements in itself does not guarantee the settlement of the conflict. The determining factor is the willingness of the parties to implement them, and not to use them as a “smoke screen” to continue attempts to achieve their goals by illegal means. For this, in turn, it is necessary to at least partially overcome the conflict of interests or at least reduce its severity, which can lead, for example, to the emergence of new incentives in relations between the parties: severe economic necessity, the parties’ interest in each other’s resources, “bonuses” “for resolving the conflict in the form of international or foreign assistance - they can (though not always) switch the interests of the conflicting parties to a different plane and significantly dampen the conflict.
Thus, in socio-political terms, the path to overcoming interethnic conflicts lies either through at least partial satisfaction of the demands of the parties, or through reducing the relevance of the subject of the conflict for them.
Existing interethnic problems (territorial disputes, the desire for sovereignty; the struggle of ethnic minorities for self-determination, the creation of an independent state entity; discrimination against language, lifestyle; the problem of refugees, internally displaced persons, etc.) require significant efforts to resolve them.
Ways to resolve interethnic problems
– Recognition of interethnic problems and their solution using methods of national policy.
– Awareness by all people of the unacceptability of violence, mastery of the culture of interethnic relations, which requires the unconditional implementation of the rights and freedoms of persons of any nationality, respect for identity, their national identity, language, customs, excluding the slightest manifestation of national mistrust and hostility.
– Using economic leverage to normalize the ethnopolitical situation.
– Creation of cultural infrastructure in regions with a mixed national composition of the population - national societies and centers, schools with a national-cultural component for teaching children in their native language and in the traditions of national culture.
– Organization of effectively functioning international commissions, councils, and other structures for the peaceful resolution of national disputes.
Sample assignment
C6. Name two trends in the development of modern interethnic relations and illustrate each of them with an example.
Answer: The following trends in the development of modern interethnic relations can be named and illustrated with examples: Integration; economic, cultural and political rapprochement of nations, the destruction of national barriers (for example, the European Community). The desire of a number of peoples to preserve or gain cultural and national independence, autonomy (for example, the Korean minority in Japan).
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