Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, dated October 1995, contains the proceedings of a conference on ethnic conflict held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored it. Academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials presented papers on ethnic and territorial conflict in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. They also discussed what these conflicts mean for US policy. The document contains no UFO material.
“Anderson”6 pages
C00123268 consumerism and, especially,-American products; the defined spaces who want their own spaces; in short, demise of traditional institutions, including political their own places to govern themselves. Those who ideology; and the rise of a "h re and now" mentality support self-determination claim that they cannot be that stresses individualism, the appearance of wealth, represented by majority populations in the bounded and a veneer of globalism in foods, clothing, music, spaces who have little interest in minority group con- and lifestyles. Secularization on the rise leads to a cerns. Those minorities may be religious, ethnic, or decline in traditional institutions, be they family and linguistic. These "stateless" peoples believe that they community, formal political parties, the role of the have a legal claim to govern themselves; in some church, the functions of schools, or the importance of cases, they present historical claims to spaces that collective memories. were previously taken from them by outsiders. Sports and Society: The Ne* Ball Game It is not only the territory that is in question but also One of the emerging forms of social identity in many what is in and on that land. The land may contain countries is sports. Sports not'only represent outlets places of historical settlements, ceremonial and burial for a public's need for entertainment but also some- grounds, and sites of sacred rivers, mountains, or for- thing deeper about society's need for identity and rep- ests. These places may be an important part of the resentation. What started out during pretelevision days unwritten histories of minority and disenfranchised as teams of athletes who were paid to entertain local groups. The importance of land is not to be dimin- or regional audiences has now changed into national ished as we approach the next century. It seems very teams that somehow stand for and represent a city, a likely that there will be emerging claims and counter- region, or even the state itself, As audiences follow claims to land and water spaces by competing groups favorite teams, more and more teams have been cre- now living in the same spaces. National and interna- ated, further increasing local identity, regionalism, and tional courts seem likely to be involved in the litiga- national pride-all in the name of "friendly" competi- tion efforts by unrepresented and underrepresented tion. Nevertheless, more than one local conflict has groups. emerged between fans of one national team fighting fans of another. The political geographer or policy Information and Communication consultant interested in understanding the seculariza- Whether scholars and government offices and officers tion of a society would be wise to ferret out the role are or will be able to understand the role of the United sports play in the political ide'ntity of a group or soci- States in the world community of states during the ety. next few decades rests in large part on how much they understand about information and communications. Land: Yours or Mine These two areas of postindustrial society were not key Land or territory was historically associated with the 20 to 40 years ago but are becoming more important definition of the state. This raison d'etre was impor- each day. In the same way that leaders and practitto- tant in conveying to those within the state that certain ners will need to know the role of environment, reli- spaces gave the state and people identity. Those gion, and secularization, so they will need to grasp the spaces were to be protected from outsiders, should realities of global information and communication. I they decide to enter. The past several centuries of have identified several crucial issues that relate to Europeanizing the world conveys strongly the impor- those with interests in ethnicity, conflict, social tance of land, territory, ownership, governance, and change, and political decisionmaking: protection. Those spaces "on the ground" and on the map further gave legitimacy to strongly held views e The information blizzard. How do we decide what is about ownership, symbolism, and identity. important and what is not? With the volumes of information that cross our desks, deciding what is While many of the bounded spaces on the planet may most and least important is crucial. One might well seem static, there are dynamics linked to some spaces; expect the information load to increase at least That dynamism is associated with groups within those 189
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.