Ethnic Nationalism Research Articles

“Ruritania” and “Megalomania” as "ideal models" in Ernest Gellner’s concept of nationalism and the prospects for its application to analysis of Iranian history

The purpose of this study is to analyze the implentation possibilities of classical theories of nationalism to analysis of the Iranian nationalism history. The author analyzes the ideal models of Ruritania and Magalomania as imagining nationalizing and modernizing societies proposed by Ernest Gellner. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of the features and contradictions of the development of the historical forms of Iranian nationalism in contexts of the ideal models proposed in modernist historiography. It is assumed that the nationalist modernization of the Qajars and Pahlavi in Iranian historiography is perceived through the prism of a constructivist approach. The article analyzes 1) the problems of the inability of nationalism to become the dominant and determining political force that constructs the main features of the development of society and the state in Iran, 2) the features of the development and transformation of the traditions of political and ethnic nationalism, 3) the role of the ruling Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties in implentation of various strategies of nationalist modernization. The article also shows the potential of a comparative analysis of various historical forms of Iranian nationalisms in contexts of a constructivist approach. The results of the study suggest that 1) the causes and forms of the crisis of the nationalist project in Iran can be described and analyzed adequately with use of Ruritania and Megalomania concepts as ideal types of nationalism development, formulated by Ernest Gellner in contexts of social and cultural histories as confrontations between the political principles of the nation and religious principles and ideals of the Ummah; 2) Iranian modern system emerged as an attempt to institutionalize a compromise between a civilized modernized Megalomania and traditional Shia Ruritania, which led to a combination of political nationalism with an internationally declared recognition of the primacy of Shiism.

Post-transitional Justice in Nigeria and the Igbo Nationalism Question

The 1990s saw the resurgence of transitional justice as a mechanism for reconciling groups and individuals in hitherto authoritarian and undemocratic states. The former military-governed states and post-conflict states in Africa adopted a truth commission approach to transitional justice and latched on to the window of opportunity that could engender new beginnings. Nigerians generally applauded the initiative of the Obasanjo civilian administration (1999-2007) of setting up a Truth Commission to investigate the human rights violations against individuals and groups between 1966 and 1999. With the aid of secondary data, this article adopts the descriptive and historical methodological approaches to interrogate the fissiparous tendencies of the Igbo ethnic nationality in Nigeria. The article employs content analysis to examine the variables that induced both the selfdetermination drive of the Igbo and the responses of the Nigerian government between 1999 and 2018. The work investigates the nexus in the activities of the two prominent separatist revival groups - the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) - and the Nigerian state, against the backdrop of the recommendations of the Truth Commission. The government’s inability to negotiate the implementation of the recommendations of the Truth Commission, and therefore redress the perceived historical injustices to the Igbo, resulted in continued exclusion, marginalisation and peripheralization of the Igbo in the Nigerian state.

Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Reviewed by: Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan Lopamudra Basu V. V. GANESHANANTHAN Brotherless Night New York. Random House. 2023. 368 pages. THE SRI LANKAN Civil War, which began with demands of the ethnic Tamil minority to form their separate homeland in the early 1980s after waves of state-sanctioned violence initiated by the Sinhala majority, stretched over three decades, leading to horrific civilian casualties and eventual defeat of the militant Tamil Tigers at the hands of the Sri Lankan army. This traumatic history has been the backdrop of recent Sri Lankan novels in English. What makes V. V. Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night unique is that it presents this traumatic history from the perspective of women and the myriad ways in which their lives are transformed by institutions of ethnic nationalism. Brotherless Night begins with a prologue set in New York in 2009 but then moves back to Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, where the narrator, Sashi, is preparing for her entrance exams to medical school in a Tamil upper-middle-class family in which she is the only sister to four brothers. Sashi idolizes her eldest brother, Niranjan, finishing medical school, and wants to emulate him in her choice of profession. Her brother Dayalan and his friend, K, are closer to her in age, and together they frequent the Jaffna Public Library as a place for intensive study. This idyllic world of youthful aspirations supported by a loving family is presented from the beginning as precarious. It receives its first shocking jolt when Sashi and her eldest brother move to Colombo to the house of their grandmother. Soon after Niranjan earns his first salary and becomes engaged to a young doctor, this neighborhood falls victim to anti-Tamil riots, and Sashi's grandmother's beautiful house is burned. Sashi and her grandmother become temporary refugees in a camp, but the greater tragedy is when they discover that Niranjan's car has been burned by a violent mob. Sashi returns to Jaffna to her family to face a completely altered family. Her mother is almost on the brink of a mental breakdown after losing Niranjan, and the younger brothers feel an irrepressible rage at the loss of the eldest brother and an absent father. The family tragedy is compounded by the continuing political disenfranchisement of Tamils, the destruction of Tamil homes and property, including the beloved Jaffna library. It is in the midst of these escalating tensions that two of Sashi's brothers and her friend K leave to join the Tigers, adding yet another layer of loss. In spite of these grave difficulties, the novel charts Sashi's growth into political consciousness. She fulfills her departed brother's dream by eventually matriculating in the medical college at Jaffna. While at medical school, she is recruited by K to provide medical assistance at a clinic run by the Tigers. As Sashi gets more intimately acquainted with the operations of the Tigers, she is increasingly disillusioned by their unethical actions, their hunger for power, killing of members of other Tamil militant groups, and ruthless crushing of all dissent. She realizes that her own brother, Dayalan, is complicit in these atrocities. As the war progresses, Sashi is forced to leave her beloved ancestral home on the orders of Tigers. However, her greatest disillusionment with the Tigers occurs when the Tiger leader recruits K to participate in a highly publicized hunger strike to demand the immediate removal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force that had brokered a fragile peace with the Sri Lankan government. After much internal debate, Sashi agrees to accompany K on the stage. As the fast progresses, Sashi expects the demands to be met or the Tiger leader to call off the fast. Neither happens, and K dies a painful death and becomes a Tamil martyr. Sashi is crippled by this loss as well as the loss of Dayalan but gradually recovers under the mentorship of her anatomy professor, Anjali, who is also secretly documenting the atrocities of the conflict. Through her work in the clinic, Sashi bears witness to sexual violence perpetrated by Indian soldiers as well as killings of Tamil civilians by the Tigers...

"브라질 중산층 액티비즘의 등장과 민족정체성 변환의 역동성: 종족민족주의에서 시민민족주의로 "

"브라질 중산층 액티비즘의 등장과 민족정체성 변환의 역동성: 종족민족주의에서 시민민족주의로 "

Increase in the preference for civic over ethnic nationalism among Poles: The impact of representations of a multiethnic past on the perceived inclusiveness of the nation

While the importance of a nation’s history for its current national issues is well established, whether and how that history may be leveraged to promote inclusive and amicable intergroup relationships is less clear. We offer answers to these questions by showing that the referencing of a multiethnic past of a nation is a form of indirect intergroup contact that increases the perceived inclusiveness of the current nation. Firstly, in a nationally representative sample of Poles, we demonstrate that after referring to Poland’s multiethnic history before and during World War II, respondents expressed a greater preference for civic rather than ethnic nationalism. In other words, they expressed more inclusive understanding of their national identity. Secondly, in the follow-up experiment, we further explore this effect by replicating it in one of the targeted samples. Overall, our findings demonstrate how nations may benefit from utilising some parts of their history to promote inclusiveness.

Identity, Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

In his 2018 book, Identity, the Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Stanford University politi­cal scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political philosophy and the philosophy of law: How are we to navigate between traditional, ethnic, unitary conceptions of the nation on the one hand, and the threat of identitarian fragmentation on the other? Though Fukuyama affirms the importance of the concepts of human dignity and identity, more or less as these are commonly understood, he also criticizes the contemporary phenomenon of identity politics—which he views as a danger to liberal democ­racy. “The rise of identity politics in modern liberal democracies,” writes Fukuyama, “is one of the chief threats that they face;” and moreover, “unless we can work our way back to more universal understand­ings of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.” This paper raises the question of whether the well reasoned case against identity politics as a threat to national unity and purpose leaves room for skepticism of fast-paced and more ambitious (“Wilsonian”) pursuit of internationalist goals of globalization. Greater emphasis on political consensus at home may helpfully strengthen the hand of American foreign policy in support of liberal democracy. But we now look back with well founded skepticism on neo-conservative interventionism, and there are just and needed limits on globalizing internationalism imposed by and implicit in the retreat from identity politics. Having lost the unity of purpose of Cold War liberalism, we are yet to find a “golden mean” avoiding ethnic nationalism and short of political fragmentation.
 

NATURAL RIGHTS IN ACTION: Ongoing Organized Activities of the Duawaris (Founding, Aboriginal, Ancestral and First Nation Ijaw Royal House Communities) of Bonny Kingdom to Uphold their Natural Rights

Bonny Kingdom, also known as Grand Bonny Kingdom, Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom and Ancient Ibani nation (Ibanise), is an integral part and parcel of the Ijaw ethnic nationality of the Niger Delta. This study is essentially about the God-given, inalienable and inviolable natural rights of the Founding Ancestors of Bonny Kingdom (Ibanise KoromaTaduapu), and how the Blood-descendant Houses of the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu (the Duawaris) and their members are making efforts to uphold their natural rights in the Kingdom and beyond. The study describes the Duawaris as the Founding, Primaeval, Premier, Primordial, First Class or First Nation as well as Blood-Descendant, Blood-Related, Big Freeborn and Aboriginal Ijaw Royal (Aseme) Category of Lineages, Sections, Wards, Families, Houses or House Communities of Bonny Kingdom, whose members founded the Kingdom, originated and sustained its Welfarist House System of Public Sector Governance and established its civilization during its primaeval, primordial or aboriginal era, as a classic Primordial African sovereign state, the pride of Ancestral Ijaw nation and the entire Primaeval Delta region of modern Nigeria. The study explains that the aboriginal era of Bonny Kingdom covered from before about 1000 AD to about 1740 AD. From the origin of Bonny Kingdom (circa about before 1000 AD) to present day (a period of well over Ten Centuries and Two Decades), the Duawaris have been the inalienable and inviolable owners and producers of the Monarchs/Kings (Amanyanapu) and Substantive Amadapu (Community/District Heads) of the Kingdom. The study discusses various organized forms or ways whereby the Duawaris are making efforts to uphold their God-given natural rights in the Kingdom and beyond, which ways are herein described as ‘natural rights in action’. Generally, the natural rights of the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu are being inherited, through birth, first and foremost, by their Blood Descendants and Blood-descendant Houses, and subsequently by other people (indigenes) and Houses of the Kingdom, especially through the sustained Welfarist House System of Public Sector Governance of the Kingdom. The study demonstrates that the Duawaris of Bonny Kingdom started to make efforts to promote, protect, actualize and sustain their natural rights because of how they and their members began to experience neglect, marginalization and deprivation in the Kingdom, from the second phase of the reign of King Perekule I (Pepple I/Captain Pepple), namely about 1740 AD onwards. Considering the magnitude of neglect, marginalization and deprivation being occasioned on the Duawaris and their aboriginal populace of Christianized, fundamentally oil-rich and highly industrialized Bonny Kingdom, against the dictates of the prevailing worldwide era of sustainable development (SD), the agitation and activities of the Duawaris are centred on truth, namely overall truth, as well as natural justice and fairness in the Kingdom and society at large. So far, among other things, based on their organized activities and worldwide community of members, the Duawaris have been able to register their umbrella association in contemporary Nigeria, as the ‘Association of the Duawaris - Founding and Aboriginal Royal Houses - of Grand Bonny Kingdom, with Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria Registration Certificate No: CAC/IT/No. 100619, on which platform they are progressively embarking on specific programmes and projects within and outside Christianized Bonny Kingdom, in the ongoing worldwide era of SD. As indigenes, more so as Duawaris of Bonny Kingdom, the Incorporated Association of the Duawaris and its worldwide community of members, are protesting against the prevailing inhumane, unfair, unjust, inequitable and thus unsustainable situation of neglect, marginalization and oppression, depriving them of the fruits of their God-given, universal, fundamental, inalienable and inviolable natural rights in their aboriginal homeland (Christianized Bonny Kingdom). Therefore, in the prevailing era of SD in all countries and nooks and crannies of the world, the Association of the Duawaris and its worldwide members are agitating and demanding that they deserve to be treated better in their aboriginal homeland, particularly by successive Monarchs, who are members of the Association, as well as greatest beneficiaries of the natural rights being inherited from the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu.

Kazakistan’daki Bölgesel Cedidcilik Hareketi Kapsamında Milli Kimlik İnşası Meselesi Üzerine Bir İnceleme

In this article, the impact of the Jadid movement on the formation of Kazakh national identity is discussed in the context of the regional characteristics of Kazakhstan. The issue of the Jadid movement in Russian historiography was written within the framework of Islamic integration, pan-Turkism, and ethnic nationalism. The Jadid movement, which is the essence of the national identity construction, has left its traces in Kazakhstan
 thanks to the Tatar scientists who naturally affect the Turkish unity process. National identity and Turkish unity issues developed in parallel in Kazakhstan. Evaluating the religious views of Kazakh nomads in rural areas, and the tribalism and ethnic relations, the Tsarist administration exerted strong pressure on the policy of Russification. Therefore, Russian-Kazakh schools increased in number and developed rivalry to the Jadid schools. The founders of the Alaş movement, who were educated in the Jadid schools in the northern and western regions of Kazakhstan, later studied at the higher education institutions of the Russian Empire. The rest of the Jadids received their education in the madrasahs of today’s Uzbekistan, Kazan, Cairo and Istanbul. In
 this context, two aspects of the Jadid movement have become stereotyped in Kazakhstan, the first is the establishment of the Kazakh state Alaş Orda, the second is the struggle for the unity of the Central Asian Turkic people and the establishment of the Turkestan state.

Moral Economy: The Afterlife of a Nebulous Concept

Since the re-purposing of the concept of the moral economy by the British historian, E.P. Thompson in the late 1960s, scholars from a variety of disciplines in social sciences and humanities have attempted to apply it as a tool for empirical analysis. As a migratory concept, the meaning of 'moral economy' has shifted from theology to philosophy to anthropology and history. Scholars of religions and historians of religion, however, have shown a reluctance in deploying the concept in their field of study. A flexible and vintage concept such as the moral economy may seem to be an oxymoron when applied to the study of religion and religious reforms. Its utility, however, is demonstrated by a collection of four critical articles in this special issue of this journal to explore wide-ranging empirical materials and contexts. These include the contemporary analysis of religious morality and regulation in Northern Nigeria, the entanglements of Muslim-owned restaurants and Islamic morality in Mumbai (India), Zulu ethnic nationality and morality in the Nazareth Baptist Church in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), and finally, the pre-modern theoretical and philosophical reflections of the 14th-century Tunisian Muslim philosopher, Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun. In these diverse scenarios and contexts, the moral economy concept illustrates its theoretical and analytical capacity and potential in the field of the study of religions.

Africa’s Bonny Kingdom Sans the State of Nature! How the Origin of the Kingdom was Synonymous with the Birth of Its Sustained House System of Public Sector Governance

In the realm of history, economic and political philosophy, particularly in the framework of humans and the evolution of society, the ‘state of nature’ may be considered as indicating the real or hypothetical condition of human beings before socialization and thus without political association, namely the absence of Organized Government (Public Sector Governance), especially the absence of state sovereignty (the sovereign state), which evolved from the social contract of governance between government and the governed. According to the renowned English philosopher of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Thomas Hobbes, the state of nature was characterized by the ‘war of every man against every man’. The state of nature featured a constant and violent situation of competition, whereby each individual had and exercised natural right to everything, regardless of the right and interest of other individuals. The basic law that prevailed during the period was that of self-preservation, on the basis of which each individual catered for his or her welfare and security. Consequently, Hobbes characterized the state of nature as ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. This study examines how and why Africa’s Bonny Kingdom (also variously called Bonny Kingdom, Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom or Grand Bonny Kingdom [Ibanise]) did not experience the era of the state of nature, given that the origin of the Kingdom was synonymous with the birth of its sustained Welfarist House (Canoe House) System of Public Sector Governance, which was midwifed by the social contract of governance between the Kingdom’s primaeval rulers and the governed (the rest of the primaeval citizens of the Kingdom). It discusses Bonny Kingdom, as a primordial African sovereign state and famous primaeval Ijaw City and Trading State of modern Nigeria, which was originated by its Founding Ancestors from the Ijaw heartland of Central Niger Delta, where the civilization of the Ijaw ethnic nationality originated, and thereby reveals that the origin of the Kingdom in the context of ‘the state of nature’ adds value to existing scholarly literature and thus a contribution to the worldwide knowledge industry about the same concerning the origin of Public Sector Governance in the Kingdom.

National Attachments and Good Citizenship: A Double-Edged Sword

The recent popularity of nationalist movements bears witness to the continued power of national feeling in politics. This article considers the potential relationship between different kinds of national attachments and what we call active and allegiant citizenship—support for democracy, community participation, and prosocial behavior. We analyze these relationships using data from two waves of the European Values Study. We find that a set of attachments often called civic nationalism—including patriotism, national identity, and respect for one’s country’s institutions—are connected with better citizenship on virtually all of our outcomes, whereas ethnic nationalism is frequently connected with worse citizenship. These associations, however, tend to be weaker in the postcommunist states which have a different experience with both nationalism and democracy. The results suggest that national feeling can be a double-edged sword for citizenship.

The Tragedy of Colonialism in a Non-Colonised Society: Italy’s Historical Narratives and the Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia

In its attempt to colonise Ethiopia, Italy challenged Ethiopiawinet, claiming that Ethiopia is a mere collection of discrete ethnic groups brought together by Amhara colonialism. Extracting data from a variety of sources including secondary materials, opinions expressed in the broadcast, print and social media platforms, party documents, official letters and key informant interviews, this paper provides a critical reflection on how the colonial presence of Italy made a political mess in Ethiopia by asserting ethnic nationalism. The paper argues that the narratives invented by the Italian colonisers greatly contributed to the emergence of ethnic nationalism following the advent of Marxism-Leninism in Ethiopia. Borrowing narratives from the Italian colonial regime, Ethiopian ethnic elites of the 1960s, who were the advocates of Marxism-Leninism, simplistically categorised the Amhara as oppressor while ‘others’ as oppressed. This categorisation negatively shaped the attitude of ‘others’ towards the Amhara and instigated genocide against these people.

Inclusive or Divisive Choices? Education Policy Preferences in the Bilingual Education System of Estonia

ABSTRACT This article investigates educational preferences in the bilingual education system that reinforce the salience of both socio-economic and socio-cultural issues. We ask, first, how many distinct groups of educational preferences exist and whether these differ by ethnic nationality. Second, we investigate the extent to which economic self-interest vs values-driven logic of preference formations explain educational preferences and whether these determinants differ by ethnic nationality. We rely on individual-level survey data and run Latent Class Analysis and multivariate regression. We find three distinctive classes of educational preferences and that relatively high popular demand for private provision and parental choice co-exist alongside respect for comprehensive schooling in Estonia. These classes differ slightly by ethnic nationality – Russians show relatively more support for inclusive choice, while Estonians show greater support for public comprehensive schooling, with only weak socioeconomic and political party influences. The only clear explanation for different latent-class belonging is values, i.e., belief in meritocracy and the fairness perception of educational inequality; somewhat surprisingly, the marginal effects of these do not differ by ethnic nationality.

Causes of the Crisis in Ukraine

ABSTRACT The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine that is also a conflict between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies is fundamentally a result of two interconnected factors. The first is the threat to the security of Russia posed by the enlargement of NATO in violation of commitments made at the time of the reunification of Germany and of the principle of indivisible security. The second is deeply rooted internal divisions in Ukraine that were exacerbated by ethnic nationalism and the imposition of divisive national identity that led to demands for a degree of regional autonomy and a civil war that successive governments and external parties did not or did not want to resolve. In these years Ukraine served as an instrument in a US strategy to weaken a strategic rival, prevent Eurasian integration and preserve the unipolar order that had emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union. On present trends the losers will be Ukraine as it existed until February 2022, Europe and Germany although, depending on the outcome, it may also accelerate the transition to a new multipolar world order.

Punjabiyat vs “Punjabistan”: Features of Punjabi Ethnic Nationalism (A Case of Pakistan)

The essay focuses on the specific features of Pakistani punjabiyat, which is interpreted as Punjabi ethnic nationalism. Having analyzed the Pakistani punjabiyat in the perspective of classic theories of ethnic nationalism and South Asian nationalism concepts, the author defines its characteristics and explains the connection between the specific form of Punjabi ethnic nationalism in Pakistan and the process of “punjabization” understood as the overwhelming influence of Punjabis in the country, which has begun since its inception in 1947. Ethnic nationalisms and consequent regional ethnic movements are a typical feature of almost all large ethnic groups in Pakistan. However, Punjabis have not only avoided this behavioral pattern: they commonly renounce their group identity for the sake of the unifying Pakistani ideology (pakistaniyat). Analysis of the specifics of Pakistani punjabiyat leads us to the conclusion that its growth has been slowed down and hindered by the “punjabization”. Punjabiyat as an idea of the Punjabi ethnic identity has lost to “Punjabistan” perceived as the de-facto social, economic and political dominance of Punjabis in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Fostering National Integration in Nigeria: Exploring the Role of Political Science Education

Nigeria has been described by many scholars particularly, the demographers, sociologists and social studies educators as a country with more than three hundred and fifty (350) ethnic nationalities with diverse cultural, linguistic, religious orientations. This multiplicity or heterogeneous character of the Nigerian state tends to frustrate the various attempts at integrating these various entities that constitute the country. However, successive Nigerian regimes have strived to integrate their citizens through such schemes as National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), encouragement of inter-tribal marriages, institutionalization of lingua-franca, emplacement of Federal Character Commission, among others. Notwithstanding these giant strides, integration of various people of Nigeria has proven difficult and perhaps continues to remain a herculean task for the government. This paper, therefore, x-rays the probable nexus between political science education and national integration in Nigeria. It adopted a content-analysis as contained in the national dailies, textbooks, special reports and journal articles to review the extant but relevant literature and consequently, maintains that acquiring adequate knowledge of political science; a sub-field within the umbrella term of social sciences, can be used as a potent yet, veritable tool for national integration in Nigeria. It nevertheless recommends the need to make the subject matter of political science education a compulsion for all students of Nigerian schools, colleges, universities, among other recommendations.

Constitutional right to secession and ethnic nationalism in Ethiopia

The recent devastating conflicts in Ethiopia (2020-2023) have brought to question the rationale and practicability of the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia (ECS); with specificity to the right of secession and ethnic nationalism. The ECS was at the time of adoption exclusive in the world as the only constitution that unequivocally granted constitutional right to secession. The specific objective of the study is to examine the uniqueness of constitutional right to secession and ethnic nationalism of Ethiopia in the light of inevitable constraints and huddles. In accordance, the study is guided by the following research questions. What is the nature of ethnic nationalism in Ethiopia? Why is Ethiopia’s constitutional secession unique? What are the constraints of Ethiopia’s constitutional secession? The voluntarist theory of national self-determination as propounded by Harry Beran is the theoretical framework of this study. Qualitative method is the research methodology of the study. The study found out that secession is regarded as an aberration and unlawful atrocity that is excluded as well as prohibited in the constitution of other countries in the world but not in the ECS. The study concludes that the ECS is potentially a terminal-venom of disintegration for Ethiopia. However, the specification and procedures for ECS as embedded in Article 39 of Ethiopia’s constitution, pose major constraints and impediments that would regulate the ulterior motive and shortcomings of the ECS. The study recommends that the constitution of Ethiopia should be respected to maintain the peace which the ‘coming together’ and ‘holding together’ equation provides.

Put crnogorske nacije od političke do etničke nacije

In the article we discuss the process of formation of the Montenegrin nation. Our aim is to prove that the key moment, which will decisively influence the subsequent formation of the Montenegrin ethnic nation, is the recognition of the state of Montenegro at the Berlin Congress in 1878. The act marks the formation of Montenegrin political nation, the nation with its own state. Hence, we have come to a conclusion that the formation of Montenegrin political nation had a decisive influence on the future formation of Montenegrin ethnic nation and the attempts to characterise the Montenegrin ethnic nation with elements that make up a nation. The Montenegrins who express their allegiance to the Montenegrin ethnic nation also cherish the state of Montenegro. Nonetheless, the citizens of Montenegro who declare themselves as belonging to the Serbian ethnic nation also regard the state of Montenegro as sacred. Thus, they strongly defend their allegiance to the Montenegrin political nation but contrary to ethnic Montenegrins, they claim that Montenegro is a Serbian state. In that sense, the Serbs from Montenegro envision (possible) new unification with Serbia on a federal basis and not on a unitary basis. We have already witnessed that such a state, which existed from 1992 until 2006 under the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and, subsequently, Serbia and Montenegro, has no future. By not accepting (possible) unification on a unitary but on a federal basis,, Serbs in Montenegro do not realize that due to such an attitude they are at risk of becoming members of Montenegrin ethnic nation rather than pleading allegiance to the Montenegrin political nation.

Language and Human Rights – Paradigm Shift

Language is a geographical, religious and cultural representation of a person on a global stage. The right to speak and write a language that one inherits and prefers to adopt as a means of communication is guaranteed by UN resolutions but very often this basic right of ethnic minorities is denied by the tyrannical majorities. When we consider the social mobilization of various groups within this framework we see that religion as a social resource equates with language. Religious affiliation assigned to a language is one among many other factors which lead people to commit atrocities against the marginalized social groups. In such cases, children are the biggest victims of all. Language is directly related to the idea of basic education as well. Linguistic victimization has affects schooling in many parts of the world. Additional problems are caused by the constant wars fought around the world in our age. War zones keep on emerging to displace people who then become victims of linguistic and economic harassment in the land of asylums. Those trapped in the war zones, like people currently in Ukraine and in Gaza, see total destruction of their educational institutions and consequently the destruction of their basic rights to life, property, geographical territory, culture and language. Our languages are social contexts of our cultural and economic viability. Cultural and economic forces contribute to language maintenance and also define its lexical shifts. Our education policies have largely failed because we prefer to counter the prevailing social forces and remain reluctant to assimilate them into our mainstream school curricula. Without the understanding of the linguistic shifts which are in turn political, as well as the cultural shifts, we cannot hope for peace in our war zones. Without peace there are no human rights. Keywords: UN Resolution, nationism, linguistic profiles, war zones, ethnic nationalism, Catalan linguistic policy, Basque Provinces, South Asia, Bangladesh.

Проблемы Македонской Православной Церкви в современной греческой политике памяти

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to analyse the perception of the problems of the history of the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the politics of memory of modern Greece. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of texts that form the perception of the Macedonian church problem in the politics of memory in Greece. Analysis. The article analyses the perception of the Macedonian ecclesiastical problems in modern Greek memorial culture. The article also shows that the politics of memory forming the perception of the history of the Macedonian Church in modern Greek society simultaneously depends on the development of civic and ethnic nationalism, burdened by ties with the Orthodox Church. It is assumed that the mass media and political elites of modern Greece, as the main agents of historical politics, use the problems of the history of the Church in the territory of Macedonia to consolidate their own national identity and conduct a policy of memory aimed at promoting the narrative of territorial unity and the exclusively Greek character of the territory of Macedonia in modern Greece. Results. The results of the study suggest that the memorial culture of modern Greek society in contexts of the perception of the history of the Church on the territory of Macedonia is distinguished by a nationalistic character, and the perception of church history in the collective memory of Greece develops in contexts of moderate memorial contradictions with Macedonia. It is shown that the transformation of the viewpoint of the Greek memorial culture emerged as the result of consultations with the Macedonian elites and an agreement to change the name of the modern Macedonian state. It is assumed that the policy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the settlement of the formal status of the Macedonian Church significantly reduced the level of the memorial confrontation between Skopje and Athens.