(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
that one of the fastest growing categories on non-EU
migration into the European Union includes similarly
highly skilled nonmanual labor from other sectors of
the advanced capitalist world economy. In light of the
new immigration, the stereotyping of immigrants as
blacks originating from the Third World ironically mir-
rors and legitimates the discourse of EU states about
the problem of immigration.” This is an important
qualification and should alert us to read between the
lines of official pronouncement and localized reaction.
The Implications of Globalization, Technology, and
Accessibility for Ethnic Relations
If we shift attention from the conventional territorial
and urban contexts for social interaction, it is evident
that a major source of ethnic-racial conflict will be the
differential access groups enjoy to information, space,
and power in Europe. The whole history of the West
has been a constant, if traumatic, dialogue between
periods of opening and closing, between diversifica-
tion and uniformity. The technological trends under-
pinning closer European integration suggest four
trends as they relate to the interaction of language,
ethnicity, identity, and the state system:
' First, we have already witnessed the emergence of
English as the linguafranca of Europe, if not of the
world. This has caused other intemational languages
such as French, German, and Spanish to jockey for
position in a secondary role within the educational,
legal, and commercial domains of a restructured and
enlarged Europe. Fears are already -expressed about
the dominance of English and of the infiltration
thereby of non-European, for instance, North Amer-
ican influence. Thus serious consideration is being
given to the following proposals: a) there should be
two foreign languages for every EU citizen, b) a first
foreign language" should be obligatory, c) English
should be taught as a second foreign language, never
as the first, and d_) less information and cultural loss
will occur if the principle of multilingualism in most
affairs can be instituted.
~ Second, indigenous language groups, such as Welsh,
Irish, or Basque (see inset on p.53) will be further
marginalized unless they can influence the pattems
of stable bilingualism with a much reduced language
switching than has hitherto been the norm. Evidence
of partial success is available in domains such as
education, public administration, and the law. The
key instrument is the degree of influence exercised
on the local state apparatus to institutionalize pat-
tems oflanguage behavior and service provision in
new domains. One of the great ironies of many
lesser used language groups is that they are simulta-
neously witnessing the erosion of their traditional
strength in heartland areas and key cities while
beginning to hamess the potential of mass commu-
nication and electronic networking.
- Third, and most intriguing from a geographer’s
viewpoint, pressure will increase on local and met-
ropolitan authorities to provide mother-tongue edu-
cation and other public services to the children of
mobile workers and their families in multicultural
cities such as Milan, London, Paris, and Frankfurt.
This is set to become the major policy issue within
public administration if a fully functional European
Union is to be realized.
~ Fourth, and most strategical, demand will grow at
the Community level to provide resources for the
instruction, absorption, and occupational integration
of the children and dependents of non-EU migrant
workers. An inability or a refusal to provide such
public facilities, especially in education, health ser-
vices, and community care, will undoubtedly
increase the scale of ethnic tension and call into
question the nature and direction of the multicultural
character of the European Union itself.
A more virulent expression of such tension will be the
continued importation of non-European conflicts into
the multicultural cities of the Community. One chief
characteristic of globalization is that the safety valve
of relative insulation from other countries’ problems
and issues no longer operates in a “nationally
bounded” manner. In consequence, the “higher the
level of globalization, the narrower the scope for
escape altematives. In this sense, globalization is also
a kind of totalitarianization of world space” (Mlinar,
1992. p. 20; Williams, 1993, p. 2).
52
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268