"Catastrophic Ethnonationalism"

While Globalization has lead to drastic improvements on all fronts across the world, some may agree that it has “become inextricably bound up with… ethnic violence around the world” (Chua). Although many might assume that the spread of marketization and democratization would lead to a more tightly bound universal culture and sense of
Global pride, it has in fact become “an engine of potentially catastrophic ethnonationalism” (Chua). While such passionate nationalism has often led to conflict between nations, it has also proven to cause intense resentment within nations, leading to horrific acts of brutality between divergent ethnic and religious groups.
These resultant atrocities are clearly illustrated in Joe Sacco’s narrative description of the Bosnian war: Safe Area Gorazde; The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95. Although the clash of cultures that lead to the war in Bosnia was not a direct result of globalization, the resentment aimed at and between different ethnic groups was a perfect example of the “catastrophic ethnonationalism” that Chua refers to. While many made “no distinction between Serb, Croat, and Muslim children” when they were younger, these ethnic differences now divided Bosnia, “the most ethnically diverse” of the Yugoslav republics, into a violently dysfunctional war-ridden nation (Sacco). However, while it seems like religion, race, and ethnicity lay at the core of this war, Buruma claims that these are “not the primary causes of war and mass murder,” but that it is in fact “identity” that “gets the blood boiling” (Buruma). From this point of view, the issue was not that one was Muslim, but rather that they were Muslim and Bosnian. Who decides what their nation’s identity should look like; what religion, race and culture it can and cannot embrace? These are the questions that need to be answered if we ever hope to put an end to the crimes committed “in the name of religious, ethnic, national or some other kind of identity” (Buruma).
While the war in Bosnia may have found some sort of resolution, this catastrophic ethnonationalism still lingers in many corners of the world. Zimbabwe today is still a perfect example of the backlash against globalization as a result of ethnonationalism. Over the past few years, President Robert Mugabe has helped facilitate a massive, and incredibly violent redistribution of land. Millions of acres of white-owned farmland has now been seized and redistributed to the black, “native,” population. From their point of view, white farm owners are no more than cheating “foreigners” who have no right to own property in Zimbabwe. In fact Mugabe even went so far as to call “the white man ‘our real enemy’” (Chua). Can one therefore not be white and Zimbabwean? It appears as though Mugabe has attempted to define Zimbabwe’s national identity, thereby depriving anyone of white colored skin the right to feel a sense of ethnonational identity within the suffering country’s borders.
Ironically enough, this attempt to define the “Zimbabwean” has led to a slow disintegration of division between black and white citizens. Zimbabwe’s economy took “a free fall as a result of the mass land grab” coupled with poor leadership and a corrupt and dysfunctional government. Families of every religion, background, race, and culture are now forced to face a day-to-day battle for survival, struggling to get enough food to survive and to avoid the sickness and disease that plagues so many. Sadly, this resulting state of affairs and way of life has brought many Zimbabweans closer together. Race, religion, and ethnicity are of little importance when one lives on the brink of death.