Ethnic Conflict and Civil War

"The Islamic civilization rose to prominence by following revelation. It waned by following tradition. How did this happen? Humanity attributes sacredness to different phenomena. The elevation of tradition to revelation attributed sacredness to tradition. The sacralization of tradition was facilitated by the denigration of reasoning. The sacralization of tradition coupled with the rejection of reason triggered a process of disintegration that resulted in a breakdown. The process began with the emergence of tradition, as it began to take on the trappings of revelation. Tradition was eager to “explain” revelation, to become its “custodian.” Reason became a target because it “explained” revelation. The followers of tradition felt threatened by reasoning. To discredit reason, traditionists alleged that the use of reasoning in explaining revelation was kufr. They also shut the door to reasoning and slandered thinkers, especially “free” thinkers, as heretics. Five thousand philosophers were slaughtered by Musa al-Hadi, in an event that preceded the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution by a millennium. Except in this case, the slaughter did not aim to enforce the regime of reason, as in the Age of Reason referred to as the Enlightenment, but the rule of “tradition.” By rejecting reason, the adversaries of reason rejected a blessing from Allah, the faculty of reason. The rejection of reason prevented traditionists from acquiring additional knowledge, and from retaining the knowledge they already had. The demonization of reasoning marked the beginning of anti-rationalism and jahiliyyah. The rejection of reason made it hard to understand revelation. The lack of understanding of revelation is evident even today in the manner in which revelation is recited by many: without understanding. The rejection of reason also made it hard to follow revelation. The contempt for reason, and the reduced comprehension of revelation forced exegetes to fall back upon tradition to explain revelation. The recourse to tradition to explain revelation, facilitated the proliferation of problematic traditions, which are paraphrases rather than verbatim reports of what the prophet  said or did. To enable tradition to explain revelation, it was elevated to revelation. This was a fateful event, a faux pas, as it embedded a duality in revelation that was not there before. Hearsay was elevated to the rank of “divinity,” to an “equal” of revelation. This was analogous to the characterization of the gatherers of traditions as “prophets,” as revelation is relayed by prophets, not lay persons. The process was reminiscent of the elevation of Jesus in Christianity. The designation of tradition as revelation could be perceived as an attempt to “fabricate” revelation. The treatment of tradition as revelation marked the beginning of “traditional Islam.” As an aftereffect of the elevation of tradition to revelation, there was a partial re-orientation from revelation to tradition. This re-orientation amounted to an “eclipse” of revelation by tradition. The elevation of tradition did not stop there. Tradition was elevated to a rank even greater than revelation. Tradition began to “judge” and “abrogate” revelation. The alleged abrogation of the peace verses by the ayah as-sayf  heralded the beginning of “political Islam.” Islam took on a strident character. Muslims embarked on foreign ventures that, while triumphant at first, eventually turned into defeat. Thus, the renewal of Islam requires the rehabilitation of reason, a desacralization of tradition, and the affirmation of the pre-eminence of revelation in relation to tradition. (6 pages)

Kinship in Thucydides is a new contribution to the study of Thucydides and the social history of the ancient Greek world. Drawing on modern anthropological enquiries on kinship and sociology of ethnicity and emotions, and scholarly work on kinship diplomacy and Greek ethnicity, it argues that intercommunal kinship has a far more pervasive importance in Thucydides than has been acknowledged so far. It revisits the stereotype of Thucydides as an ancient theorist of Realpolitik, and seeks to reveal new aspects of his authorial sophistication. Through close reading, contextualization in a variety of sources, and special attention to ancient and modern audiences, Fragoulaki explores the whole spectrum of intercommunal kinship in the ancient Greek world, by studying the various ways in which ancient Greek communities could be related to each other (colonization, genealogies, membership of the same ethnic group, socio-cultural symbols, political mechanisms and institutions) and the preponderantly cultural, emotional and ethical character and expression of these ties.
Kinship in Thucydides provides a fresh and up-to-date discussion of Thucydides’ kinship terminology, and has wider implications for our understanding of terms such as syngeneia and oikeiotes. Through test-cases, organized in terms of geography, ethnicity and kinship categories, it reveals a complex web of intercommunal ties and their interaction with the practical aspects of the War. The kinship theme offers an excellent angle from which to study Thucydides’ artful construction of his narrative, his technique of significant understatement, his challenging silences, his interaction with other genres, and his intense engagement with Herodotus. New readings of much discussed parts of the History are provided, and the problem of Athenian kleruchies is re-opened in Appendix I. Appendix II substantiates the complementary relationship in the amount and distribution of kinship information in Thucydides and Herodotus in the form of a table.

Given at international conference "STRATEGIES XXI. TECHNOLOGIES, MILITARY APPLICATIONS, SIMULATION AND RESOURCES" (18-19 March 2021) of the National Defense University 'Carol I', Bucharest, Romania

A paper on the importance of religions and religious infrastructures in crisis situations, whether as pretext for starting conflict, as a mean to weaken the enem, or as mediation stategz in the name of religious values. Military leadership in war zones, especially within NATO and UN presence, must incorporate awareness of religious situation in the deployment area. Religious infrastructure means first and foremost the material: religious buildings, holy places, sacred sites, sacred objects and relics. Material infrastructure concretely visualises invisible features such as religious convictions, transcedental views and beliefs.

Nigeria has become highly divided along religious and ethnic lines and is drawing closer to another civil war. Ideally, museums should represent history through objective exhibitions, which can contribute toward addressing Nigeria’s ethnic and religious tensions. It is contended here that the representation of history must reflect reality, and museums cannot represent reality without being objective. Hence, this research aims to assess the level of objectivity in the representation of the Nigerian Civil War (NCW) by the National War Museum, Umuahia (NWMU). It also ascertains the representational problems confronting the museum. This research employed the mixed-method approach, primarily involving key informant interviews and quantitative analyses of the texts, images, and objects in the museum’s exhibition. A model to check for objectivity in museums was also developed. The study found that the NWMU’s representation of the NCW is skewed in favor of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the NWMU is unable to effectively address objectivity concerns in its exhibitions due to the influence of the military on its current management framework. The study addresses misrepresentations of history in museum exhibitions by offering a way for both the museum and its audience to check for objectivity.

The waning days of the twentieth century brought increasing awareness of the globalized nature of large-scale armed conflicts in Africa. In both the academy and the popular media, the term globalization became nearly ubiquitous as scholars made heady pronouncements about ...

The situation of Christians in Iraq has undergone a radical transformation in recent years.  The emergence of the Islamic State terrorist organization, which view Christians from Libya to Iraq as its enemies, opened a new chapter in the persecution of indigenous Christian communities. The terrorist campaign of August 2014 forced the Christians living around Mosul and the Nineveh Plateau to flee. In the first part of this analysis, the authors review the political trends relevant to the Christian community of Iraq  and examine the current security challenges which influence the repatriation process. They review the reorganization of the Islamic State and the presence of Shiite
militias. In addition to a survey of the literature, the authors also incorporated the experience of their research trips and interviews in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Nineveh Plateau into this analysis paper

Scholars of civil conflicts are quick to dismiss the importance of ideology in civil wars. In this survey of emerging empirical research, we argue that ideology is a framing mechanism that articulates the complexity of national crises and collective grievances into simple narratives about ingroups and outgroups, alternative sociopolitical institutions, and belonging to the state. We call these three dimensions of ideology conflict framing, ideal polity, and territorial aspirations. Conflict framing helps establish a common understanding of the social categories in conflict, which in turn defines who is the main enemy and who are possible allies in the civil war. Ideal polity envisions the desired post-conflict order and defines who qualifies as a legitimate participant in this political system. Territorial aspirations specify the physical boundaries of this desired state, which can range from maintaining the territorial integrity of the country to abrogating its existing borders through secessionism or irredentism. These three components of ideology help conceptualize the degree of political homophily between armed actors and incumbent regimes; rebel organizations and their factional counterparts; and combatants and their external state sponsors. Political homophily is an important microfoundation for ideology in collective action. It helps structure social networks prior to conflict onset, and shapes the composition of conflict networks during civil wars. We illustrate how our disaggregation of ideology into three components can help explain key dynamics in civil war, such as legitimating violence, factional fragmentation, rebel alliances, and external sponsorship-.

At the end of the XX century the problem of  functional re-thinking of ethnic contradictions took  much of attention  in the scientific  and political life in  many countries. The general factors that have determined and shaped  the specific  ethno-national development of many Eastern  countries are usually considered as diversity and combination of various social structures - from tribal to mature forms of market relations avoiding  discourse  of ethnic processes led by non-state actors in contrdiction to the    state actor activities  towards integration and "nation building", establishment of  modern political institutions, shaping  political elites. We should not discount also those external factors and actors, whose role has increased with the intensification of international relations.
Being a typical example of a Nation-state, Turkey purposefully pursued a policy of implementing a national and at the same time  specific ideology, where, in fact, the "nation-state" as a community is the highest value, almost a sacred symbol in a common set of values. The Turkish national doctrine still  postulates of Kemalism view of a nation as an  entire existence of the state have turned into a kind of dogma and in many ways have become a stumbling block and the cause of the confrontation between the Turks and the Kurds appealing to their  national rights. Since the beginning of the 80s, after the last military coup  d'Etat  Turkey found itself in the epicenter of an intractable conflict, with guerilla war as a  clean manifestation of it, led by armed  Kurdish rebels mostly assosiated with  the Kurdistan Workers' Party ( PKK, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan). It is sufficient  to say that already in the mid-nineties in the east of the country, where historically Kurds lived compactly turned the conflict inter-ethnic in nature, into  a real civil war, which the Turkish authorities persistently called an "anti-terrorist operation."
The PKK at this backgound for those  Kurds  living in the country's  southeastern region has become  the main force of rising Kurdish nationalism. The last decade of the twentieth century has become very stormy with events related to one or another form of political actions of the Kurds of Turkey (or more precisely, the most politically active part of them), whose demands ranged from complete independence from Turkey in the eastern regions of the country to the recognition of cultural rights. Turkey has become a  target of criticism  by  European democracies, which drew the attention of the world community to the violation of human rights in this country. In view of Turkey's intention to join  EC, these "remarks" insisted on revision of  the whole range of relations with the Kurds in the country.
From the point of view of the such democratic concepts recognized in EC and USA, the situation with the Kurds inTurkey seemed strange and sometimes difficult to be explained. The Kurdish question has a long history and is expressed primarily in determining the political status of the people for their  own statehood.  Within the chronological framework that is included in the title of this book, Kurdish nationalism in Turkey has reached the highest point of its rise. Soon after the 1980 coup d'état, the "Kurdish issue" became the most painful problem in  the country's internal life. The restriction of civil liberties, as well as the continuation of the policy of a complete ban on any manifestation of Kurdish identity (language, proper names, names of settlements), combined with poverty of  the southeast of the country  provoked armed resistance let by  the Kurdish rebels , which has become  a destabilizing factor in the country's political life at the end of the twentieth century. Despite the dramatic nature of events, during this period  for the first time in the history of Turkey, signs of a more or less realistic approach to solving the Kurdish issue have appeared.

The Lebanese War (1975-1990) appears to have been investigated extensively but what lacks today is a social
history of the war focusing on not merely facts or stakes behind facts, but what drove different groups to
participate in the conflict: fear, schemes, deeply embedded sectarian memory, etc. These factors contribute to
polarisation and strife between groups. Furthermore, a study of the different roots and kinds of war violence must
be conducted in order to ask the question of Lebanese War specificity and the way it could anticipate the violence
of other post-Cold War conflicts such as in ex Yougoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc.. The dialectical link between
violence and memory could also be examined, as well as the shaping of social sectarian memories. While building
a sectarian memory ensures a group’s cohesion, it also allows the perpetuation of its leadership, through patronclient networks. Moreover, among the events that have not yet been studied thoroughly are intra-sectarian wars
and those of the last period of the war. These conflicts show that the reasons behind the eruption and continued
armed hostilities were not necessarily sectarian but political, and linked to different agendas, including struggle
for power. Addressing these events offers a greater understanding of the conflicts within Lebanese society, both
past and present, and contributes to the deconstruction of widespread misconceptions, myths, and simplistic
interpretations of the wars and conflicts in Lebanon.

¿Qué explica la violencia contra los civiles en las guerras civiles? ¿Por qué hay grupos que matan a civiles en zonas donde gozan de un pleno control militar, sin presencia militar enemiga? Este innovador libro conecta la política de preguerra con los patrones de la violencia durante las guerras civiles. Sostiene que tanto la rivalidad política local como la venganza desempeñan un papel en la violencia contra los civiles. Los grupos armados perpetran la violencia directa junto con civiles, que colaboran con ellos si la violencia puede ayudarles a ganar o a consolidar el control político local. A medida que la guerra civil continúa, también entran en juego los motivos relacionados con el deseo de venganza, lo que conduce a espirales de violenciaen el ámbito local.

En esta contribución al estudio de la guerra civil española, Balcells combina el análisis estadístico con la investigación etnográfica y cualitativa, a fin de abrir nuevas vías a los académicos e investigadores interesados en las guerras civiles, la política y los procesos de conflicto. Rivalidad y venganza presenta una teoría y un método generalizables a un amplio conjunto de casos.

My DNA test shows that as an ethnic Macedonian my forebears have been living in the Balkans for many thousands of years and that I am indigenous to the region. So what should I make of claims by the Greek Government and philhellene academics who claim that modern Macedonians are not related to the ancient Macedonians and other ancient peoples but are so called "Slavs" who migrated to the Balkans only 1,300 years ago? This article shows how science is far more knowledgeable, reasonable and trustworthy than politics and how it can help to solve longstanding Balkan political and ethnic issues.

This article researches the role ethnicity as an identity marker plays in the emergence of ethnic conflicts, seen through the prism of post-Cold War conflicts that were waged in Yugoslavia, Syria, Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Libya. By questioning the primordalist claim in ethnic studies that 'irreconcilable differences' between different ethnic groups inevitably give rise to violence, the article aspires to explore the causal complexities behind ethnic violence, as well as to highlight the reductions at play both for our understanding and our conflict management efforts if one accepts the logic of monocausal explanations of ethnic conflicts.