Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268 ’
Ethnic Conflict Within Western Europe
Colin H. Williams
Research Professor,
Department of Welsh
University of Wales
College of Cardiff;
Honorary Professor,
Center for Ethnic and Geolinguistic Research
Division of Geography,
Staffordshire University
Introduction
Ethnic conflicts that challenge the existing order are a
recurrent feature of the European political landscape.
A critical feature of European history, which has pro-
duced successive periods of ethnic conflict, has been
the relative lack of congruence among population, set-
tlement patterns, and the political organization of
space and territory. Sovereignty over European terri-
tory was initially determined by church and dynastic
settlements following periodic warfare and population
transfer. Indigenous majorities usually, albeit not nec-
essarily, fonned the constituent population of essen-
tially multiethnic states and often discriminated
against nonnationals.
Central to the process of legitimizing some cultures
and alienating others has been the rise of the “territo-
rial nation-state.” Most histories of state fonnation
and nation building have involved the institutional
denial of minority rights—initially justified on reli-
gious grounds and more recently reflecting the exigen-
cies of state nationalism. During the period of
chauvinistic nationalism and state expansion-
roughly 1789 to 1919—the destmction ofethnic
minority cultures was deemed a necessary concomi-
tant of modemity and progress. As the uneven effects
of capitalism penetrated into the marginal, ethnically
differentiated peripheries of Europe, outmoded cul-
tures were considered to be anathema to the realiza-
tion of a fully integrated national market. “Nation
states” often sought to socialize their citizenry through
a number of pivotal agencies—-principally the educa-
tion system, conscription into the anned forces, and
legislation. These new state-controlled domains struc-
tured the range of identities that were to be recognized
and sanctioned in the public realm. As a consequence,
many of the current conflicts based in part upon ethnic
considerations are the result of this historical lack of
congruence among self-determination, economic
development, and political representation.
I will address several types of ethnic issues facing
contemporary Westem Europe, highlight the most
pressing, and draw implications for multiethnic
accommodation and adjustment to a changing global
order. My concern throughout will be to emphasize a
spatial perspective at urban, regional, and continental
scales.
Ethnic Tensions Along a Frontier Divide: Northern
Ireland
The Northern Ireland prob1em—misguidedly labeled
a religious conflict—is a classic illustration of the jux-
taposition of two ethnic groups, a common feature of
European borderlands. It is also the most persistent,
intractable ethnic conflict at present within the Euro-
pean Community. As a result of the English coloniza-
tion of Ireland, a process that was contemporary with
the English colonization of North America (see
R. Sack, 1986, pp. 138-140), a major “shatter belt”
was created in Ulster. This belt divided Catholic from
Protestant, Celt from Anglo-Saxon, the gavelkind
from the primogeniture inheritance system, and an
agrarian economy from an industrial one (see T. Jor-
dan, 1988, pp. 89-146, 393-407).
A cultural border is evident in Belfast; the neighbor-
hood divide equates to a national, if not an interna-
tional, divide. The divide is a permanent focus of
stress and violence because it is not only a place-
specific frontier zone but also the cultural interface
between two opposing systems. In an excellent over-
view of the political geography of Belfast‘s main
troublespot, the Shankill-Falls divide, Boal and Liv-
ingstone (1983, pp. 138-58) examine the context in
which the conflict takes place.
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268