1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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We may not need to establish a de jure Federal Europe The resulting tension in the hindrance of the free
if many regions will increasingly operate as if they movement of people, ideas, and goods is a major
were constituents of a de facto Federal Europe. This is source of ethnic tension. Neonationalism, facism,
because both at the state and, to a lesser extent, at the crypto-Communism, and blatant racism are all too
regional level, conventional political authority--tradi- obvious a response.
tionally encapsulated in the concept of sovereignty-
is increasingly shared among a number of units within Race and Ethnicity
the state system. The absolute nature of the nation- It might have been assumed that in tandem with the
state can no longer be sustained as if it were a closed so-called "ethnic revival" of postwar Europe would
system. Pooled sovereignty, permeable borders, Euro- have come an increased tolerance to racial as well as
pean Community-wide socioeconomic and environ- -ethnic minorities. However, this is not the case. As
mental policymaking, freedom of movement and to a MacLaughlin (1993) demonstrates, both ethnicity and
lesser extent shared foreign policy-through interre- race are being used to categorize groups and structure
lated agencies such as the Western European Union, policies in ways that defend the integrity of Europe-
NATO, CSCE--all characterize the contemporary ans. Within sections of the European media and the
state system and render it more interdependent, both political arena, ethnicity is increasingly used to refer
on respective member states and on subordinate con- to the positive, quasibiological identity that links an
stituent regions. Clearly such integration and mutual indigenous group to a specific place in Europe. Race,
dependence is not without its structural strains. in contrast, has come to "signify a set of imaginary
properties of inheritance that fix and legitimate real
positions of social domination or subordination in
Ethnic Insiders and Ethnic Outsiders terms of cultural differences between native and for-
eigner in the European Community," (MacLaughlin,
The major ethnic issue facing Western Europe in the 1993). As a classificatory category it reflects prima-
coming decade is the question of the status of outsid- rily, if not exclusively, negative tendencies of dissoci-
ers. Since the 1960s several regions have experienced ation and exclusion at state and EU levels.
an influx of migrants who are often religiously, ideo-
logically, and racially different from indigenous Euro- Ethnicity, Migration, and Frontiers
peans. Approximately 30 million people entered For this crude distinction between ethnic and racial
Western Europe between 1945 and 1975, one of the categorization to be maintained in an increasingly
largest migratory movements in modern history. An multiethnic world, Europe has to reinterpret its posi-
estimated 13 million legally settled non-Europeans, tion, to defend its frontiers from incursions from the
and perhaps as many as 2 million "illegals," are within east, mass migration from the south, and refugee
the European Union. Tension between indigenous absorption from the Balkans. What sort of society
Community members and "outsiders" is present and would a fortress Europe thus conceived seek to con-
most likely will increase. struct? Surely such isolationism, state-inspired nation-
alism, and racial cleansing is an anathema to the
The "outsider" question has become significant in the European dream of free movement of labor and open
context of the collapse of the bipolar system and the borders? Unfortunately not; the lessons of history
emergence of a new world order. At least two major, remind us that every generation since 1648 has fought
contradictory processes are at work here. The first is for the control of the Lotharingian Axis-the Rhine-
the opening up of Europe to democratic ideals and Rhone Corridor-and its associated networks.
representative politics, which follows the advance of- Granted that the European Union exists in part to seal
capitalism eastward and its penetration and creation of the respective futures of West European societies
markets, resources, and supply sources. The other, within one common framework, but the issues of
occurring simultaneously, is a reaction that seeks to
protect the individual character of West European
states by closing borders and limiting immigration.
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