Ethnostate

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An ethnostate is a country where the people populating that area are nearly or solely ethnically homogenous. It is one of the newest forms of state, based on ancient tribalism and modern ethnocentrism theory.

Many examples can be found throughout history of ethnostates being created by larger countries to break up two or more waring peoples, referred to as balkanization, being the end result of long-term fighting which results in ethnic cleansing (mass expulsion) by one people against another to force the other out of an area of control until ethnic commonality has been achieved, or ethnically based secession, which usually occurs after ethnic cleansing.

Ghettos, sprawling housing projects, suburbs, cities within cities, even separatist militia groups are signs of the formation of ethnostates.

[edit] Historical Examples

Japan has been one of the most ethnically homogeneous larger countries in terms of citizenship.

Yugoslavia, probably the first and best example of how an ethnostate can be formed, which twice became Balkanised after the people of different ethnic groups descended into all-out war, the first being the Balkan Wars between 1912 and 1913, where the term Balkanization originates from, and the Yugoslav wars in the late 1980's and early 1990's. In 2006 Montenegro, a former state of Yugoslavia, gained independence democratically via a referendum.

Israel, which is one of the most successful examples of an ethnostate, is the creation of a state for people of the Jewish ethnicity and faith.

Rwanda, which was split into north and south after the Hutu and Tutsi fought each other for control of the country with the end result of expulsion and genocide of peoples from each others territory where majority control was held.

[edit] Supporting Arguments

Supporters of ethnostates say that it turns social destruction into constructive forces through "devolution", meaning that the powers once held by the large central governments of the past fracture into more regional, provincial and ethnically-based authorities because no other available system of governing seems to be able to hold the diverse peoples together.

Homogeneous societies need fewer internal controls than diverse societies because the government need not police the inevitable inter-ethnic conflicts. The controls are at the border, and do not effect the citizens.

As for the likelihood of war, diversity within borders causes much more bloodshed than homogeneity. A UN study of the years 1989 to 1992 found 82 conflicts that resulted in 1,000 or more deaths. Of this number, no fewer than 79 of these involved ethnic or religious antagonists, and took place within the borders of single nations. Only three were cross-border conflicts.

Both National Socialist and Communist governments in the early 20th Century were partial to the use of ethnostate because it allowed for the freedom of self-determination of a people and ended long and bitter wars that would have just ended up in the same position regardless.

The creation of ethnostates was ratified in Point #5 of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points at the League of Nations in 1918, the 1945 Potsdam Conference, and finally the U.N. International bill of rights under the section of the right to self-determination.

Everyday we see new ethnic horrors, many of which the people of the world may never even hear about. Ethnostates may be "messy" to achieve but in the long run may be the only positive way to re-think the fundamentals of statecraft in the 21st Century with multiculturalism not living up to all of its expectations.

[edit] Critical Arguments

Critics of ethnostates mainly say that commonality may or will lead to wars against neighbouring countries as group consensus is easier to achieve and the desire to expand will become too great for a people not to eye neighbouring territory. To date there there has been no strong evidence of this, but critics commonly give the fallacious example of Nazi Germany as an ethnostate. Nazi Germany was not an ethnostate (though in its idealized form it would eventually have been); it was a racial state with a varied population of ethnic Germans and others, including Prussians (mostly Northern Protestants), Alpine Germans (mostly Southern Catholics), Baltic Germans, Poles and other Slavic people, Czech-Germans, Francophone Germans (Alsace-Lorraine), Danes, Jews, immigrants, and others, which invalidates it as an ethnostate candidate.

Others say that the formation of an ethnostate can be considered a crime against humanity because it means that minorities are expelled or even killed, whether intentional or not, to make way for an ethnic commonality.

In Poland in 1945, 16.5 million ethnic Germans were forcefully resettled to Germany even though some of these Germans had ancestral roots going back over 600 years. Over 2 million Germans died in this resettlement, mainly women, children, and senior citizens.