Ethnic nationalism and religious exclusivism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Against liberal and Marxist expectation, ethnic nationalism is increasing. Ethnicity as such is not necessarily bad and may meet human needs for recognition in an increasingly impersonal global society. However, the desire for separate and exclusive nationhood for ethnic groups such as we are seeing in Yugoslavia is divisive and damaging. The paper asks whether religion plays an important role in maximizing or minimizing ethnic exclusiveness. It notes that in fact religious and ethnic conflict are closely linked in many places. Durkheim's views that religion provides sacred ontological legitimation for the identity of a particular society seem to be true, at a small and ethnic level rather than at a larger multi‐ethnic level. We may therefore expect that religion will play a role in ethnic exclusivism in South Africa too. There are parallels between Eastern European countries and South Africa – the collapse of a previous ideology, the threatened failure to hold together a society of different eth...