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Study On Ethnic Separatism In Western Countries

Posted on:2013-12-31Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:N XuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2246330371489222Subject:International relations
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Ethnic separatism occurs in the multi-ethnic countries, which plays a significant impact on theinternational community as an important political phenomenon. It has a close relationship with nationality,national characteristics, national consciousness and nationalism. In essence, the nation is a kind of identifycoming from human group that has obviously different from other groups, and this identity is differentfrom other populations as a human community. The characteristics that are different from other humangroups are shared by all members, which are called the national characteristics. The most important of thediverse national ethnicity is the relative homogeneity of culture that is different from "the other", which iscalled the cultural identity of the nation. It is called the national consciousness that national members canrecognize the difference between "self-nation" and "other-nation". The essence of nationalism is selfishdepartmentalism, and it tends to be a kind of psychological reaction and behavior that members of thenation show the caring and concern towards self-nation transcending. Ethnic separatism is a specific formof nationalism, which first manifested as a certain nation of a multi-ethnic state (often the weak nations inthe minority status) to establish a political community for themselves in a portion of the existingcommunity of nation states. Therefore, ethnic separatism is often closely connected with the territory.Ethnic and national identity is neither the source of conflict of ethnic relations nor the necessary leading toseparatism. The harmony of ethnic relations depends on the nature of ethnic interaction, the judge to thenature of the national community, as well as the consideration of the economic prospects of their materialinterests, but not entirely depends on the existence of national identity and national. Many countries in the world are faced with the threat of national separatism by far, such as RussiaChechnya secessionist activities, Tamil ethnic separatist movement in Sri Lanka. Even the earliest westerndeveloped countries that are established national state are also faced with ethnic separation problems, suchas the national problems of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, national problems of Quebec inCanada. This paper is a research on the strategies to deal with the ethnic separatism adopted by westerncountries on the basis of above introduction of ethnic separatism, using the examples of ethnic separatism:Northern Ireland and Quebec. The ethnic separatism movements of Northern Ireland Catholics in UnitedKingdom have a reason of long history, so does the Quebec ethnic separatism in Canada. United KingdomGovernment and Canada has taken the appropriate measures in order to prevent splitting of the country andthe Government of national unity. They adopted the means of negotiating compromise, provided the ethnicgroups with a certain political concessions and economic support. They had the same background of theintervention of foreign forces,but the measures taken by Britain in response to the Northern Irelandseparatist are more tough, and Catholics in Northern Ireland also took some violent measures to seek theseparation of United Kingdom and Ireland’s reunification. The measures that taken by Canadian Frenchresidents of Quebec is relatively modest, generally the measures within the system.Canada took morelegal and political measures in order to avoid a split of the country.To solve the complex international political phenomenon of ethnic separatism at the present times, themeasures taken by the United Kingdom and Canada to prevent secession is undoubtedly advisable.However, these measures can not be completely effective to solve the problem. Personally I think that theroot cause of ethnic separatism is caused by the multi-ethnic phenomenon. While the nation is a socialphenomenon constructed by the historical practice and people’s subjective consciousness, the basic way tosolve the ethnic issue are the active, constructive man-made construction made by the multi-national states, remodeling the recognition of a relatively homogenous culture and new community shared by all ethnicgroups and the reduction of the natural or man-made, substantive inequality among the various ethnics.
Keywords/Search Tags:ethnic separatism, nation characteristics, territory
PDF Full Text Request
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