Is Ethnic Homogeneity overrated ?

Is Ethnic Homogeneity necessary?


  • Total voters
    78
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Exactly as it says on the tin. Is ethnic Homogeneity really necessary for a successful country? I have often seen people argue that this was the reason why Western Europe, Japan and later China were able to successfully industrialise. If so does that mean non-homogenous countries are fundamentally incapable of developing nationalism and having a strong economy?
China is not an ethnically homogenous country. Neither are many European countries.
 
I feel like this entire question is predicated on a faulty assumption: that Europe, Japan, or China were ethnically homogeneous. Now, some other people have made points about multiethnic empires like Austria-Hungary, or discussed the multinational character of the United Kingdom or Switzerland (incidentally, Switzerland is a terrible example because its extreme federalism and mostly-homogeneous cantons makes it questionable how "multinational" it has been anyway)

Anyway, Japan, arguably, has been quite homogeneous for quite a long time, being as it was a fairly centralized island country with isolationist tendencies. That said, it can be argued that Japan was effectively homogeneous at the time that it "became successful", so we'll leave that aside - being ethnically homogeneous, it seems, does not prevent success.

Europe and China, though...even not considering Europe as a whole, individual European countries were often more diverse than modern people think, looking back at the homogeneous nation-states of modern Europe, and forgetting that they were achieved by massive migration, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and assimilation in the past couple of centuries. Bretons in 1700, for example, quite definitely considered themselves to be culturally distinct from Parisians, as did most folks from Languedoc, Savoy, Calais and Picardie...it was only a massive campaign to standardize the French language and culture under the Republic that saw the "homogenization of France". Fun aside: the French, and educated English speakers, like to mock a lot of English "mispronunciations" of French words. Especially in legal and technical terminology, this is not a mispronunciation, but rather reflects the pronunciation is the now dead Norman dialect. Germany was very diverse, including Germans of various stripes, various Slavs (e.g. Czechs, Poles, Silesians), Jews, and Baltic Prussians (at some point). Russia featured Slavs of many different groups, some of whom have been considered to be the same and some not (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Poles, Ruthenians), Balts (Lithuanians, Latvians), Finno-Estonians (Finns, Estonians :p), Baltic and Volga Germans (very distinct despite both being Germans), and Mennonites too, Tatars, Georgians, Armenians, Chechnians...though maybe Russia, as the "sick man of Europe", isn't the best example. Sweden to this day has a lot of Finns and Finland a lot of Swedes, and Sami in both; the UK had the English and the Scottish and the Irish and the North Irish and the Welsh and the Cornish and the Manx and the Orknians, and even English and Scottish weren't very homogeneous, with Highlanders and Lowlanders and then Northmen and East Anglians...

But mass media and centralization led to more and more "standardization of nationalities", causing e.g. all Englishmen to become mostly the same kind of Englishman, all Germans to be the same kind of German, etc (taking some liberties, of course), and then the aftermaths of WWI and WWII led to a lot of migration, voluntary and otherwise, that really cleaned up the borders. But one should not assume a great deal of homogeneity in historical Europe; even small countries like the Netherlands saw a lot of feeling of internal division between Frisians and Hollanders and Zeelanders...

And China, too, was very diverse. Nowadays we like to call China a "mostly Han country", but even modern China has almost 10% ethnic minorities, and a lot of the dominance of the Han is due to assimilation and a gradual expansion of what "Han" means. Han from the Southwest and the Northeast of China, for example, look physically different (for the most part), dress differently (prior to the modern dominance of Western dress), eat different foods, and speak languages that are mutually unintelligible (though the same language in writing, in theory). The Han as a group draw their heritage from the Yellow River, but it's very clear from historical and genetic studies that China is not entirely peopled with Yellow River-dwellers who expanded into the rest of China, expanding into a vacuum or killing who was there and replacing them. Rather, Min Chinese have clear connections with Viet and other Southeast Asian peoples, northeastern Chinese ("Manchurians", not to be confused with the Manchus) have a lot to do with Mongolians and other steppe peoples, etc. I've also read a theory that the term "Han" began being used in the period after the collapse of the Han dynasty by all agricultural and urbanized people in China to contrast with the waves of nomadic herdsmen pouring in from the north, sort of like a word for "civilized" (or, for a better parallel with European history, consider all the groups calling themselves "Roman" - if Germany, Russia, Greece, and Anatolia had eventually been unified politically, and a common written language forced on their ruling and scholar classes, and then called the result Rome and themselves Roman, that would be about the same). Again, centralized government and mass media helped unify these identities (and the Cultural Revolution, of course - Taiwan, which escaped the latter, is affected by a very severe founder effect as most of the Chinese Republicans to migrate to Taiwan came from a very similar geographic and class background).

Now, it's hard to compare these diversities with colonial and post-colonial Africa. In some places, the terrain is very nonconducive to the kinds of large states or trade networks that would tend to slowly knit various groups together, and in general, I think very few of the pre-colonial states ever became centralized enough to begin a deliberate process of cultural standardization (as happened in Europe, China, and other places), and certainly none of them really had access to mass media - and, if anything, the colonial powers were usually more concerned about introducing new divisions than unifying old ones, in order to keep the people weak and disorganized.

So, to answer the question: the question makes an incorrect assumption; in fact, a better question might be, "Do successful states lead to ethnic homogeneity?", as such states are better able to use education and mass media to standardize culture, and to control migration to solve the rest of the "problem".

EDIT: Little Red Bean and Tripledot make my points, far more concisely, in the two posts immediately above mine, posted while I was writing my essay :D
 

Chaough

Banned
Let's break it down one by one.
1) Higher Social Trust: No idea what this actually means
2) Civic Participation: The stats speak for themselves
By voter turnout:

Japan: 52.66% (Developed Homogenous)
France: 55.40%

U.K. : 66.10%(Developed NonHomogenous)
USA : 62.10%

(Developing Non-Homogenous)
India : 66.38%
South Africa : 73.38%
Nepal : 68.05%
Bangladesh : 85.26%
Conclusion: Ethnically diverse countries have greater civic participation especially among developing countries.
3) Likelihood of Supporting Entitlement:
Again complete bunk, as entitlements reflect more on the economic situation of a country rather than it's ethnic composition.

India and Bangladesh both support welfare schemes for poor farmers and have free primary education lfor under-priveliged children. India has the Right to Education Act which grants anyone below the poverty line the right to enrol in the school of their choice till the 8th grade.
India also supports quotas (reservations)
for minorities and economically backward communities.
In education we have 22.5% seats reserved exclusively for scheduled castes and tribes, and an additional 27% for backward castes.
In the Parliament we have 84 out of 543 electorates that can only be contested by SC or ST candidates.
For goverment jobs, again 22.5% seats are reserved for SC and ST candidates.
Those are far more consequential 'entitlements' than simple subsidies granted by most countries
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
4) 'Entirely Anglo-Saxon'. Now, I apologize if I somehow misunderstood this, but is that code for 'Make America White Again'. If so my argument would seem to have been wasted, as you clearly exhibit signs of closet racism garbed in polite-speak.

1. High social trust means that people are very trusting of authorities, social services, and their neighbors. In a high social trust area, you can leave your doors unlocked and expect that you won't get robbed.

2. Civic participation is not voter turn out, which is meaningless and some people vote for joke candidates and other countries have compulsory voting. Civic participation is measured more in participation in civic groups (hence the name), including but not limited to, activist organizations, fraternal societies, interest-driven clubs, charity groups, etc.

3. A government can force entitlements on a society all it wants, but that doesn't mean people support it. The trends show that people in homogeneous communities are more likely to care for their neighbors and fellow citizens, which usually translates into more support for welfare and healthcare.

4. It's amazing that you believe that. I'm merely pointing out historical truths about American demographics in the 19th Century, and you take this as some racist assault, which is more of a reflection of your own insecurities and paranoia rather than my personal beliefs.
 

Chaough

Banned
Exactly as it says on the tin. Is ethnic Homogeneity really necessary for a successful country? I have often seen people argue that this was the reason why Western Europe, Japan and later China were able to successfully industrialise. If so does that mean non-homogenous countries are fundamentally incapable of developing nationalism and having a strong economy?

The only way very diverse (and by diversity, I mean hardcore racial, religious, and ethnic diversity, not varying kinds of white) countries have managed to be successful is through intense authoritarianism and restrictions on certain groups in order to keep them in line, which is not ideal. Examples include Israel, South Africa, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the American South.
 
Nowadays there is some mixing, but Western Finns are more closely related to Scandinavians than to Eastern Finns, who in turn are related to various peoples around Southern Russia and Central Asia (hence the memes about Finland being Mongol). But Eastern Finnish and Western Finnish cultures have almost completely merged, which was actually an intentional process to create a national identity.

Because those cultures were similar. It's obvious that eastern Finland had much more Indo-European/Germanic influence, but the Mongol memes ought to be pretty much minimal--aren't the Sami mostly blond-haired after all? Although as a Finnish-American I admit it is funny to call myself an Asian, but still. Finland is one of those places where the regional cultures are destined to merge.

Most successful countries, for most of human history, were big, multinational empires.

The Romans and Chinese assimilated everyone to their empires. Forget the Arabs or Germans or whoever, the cultures of Antiquity (Gauls, Punics, Illyrians, etc.) were becoming increasingly assimilated to the Roman model by the end of the empire. The Han Chinese likewise did so through their culture, hence why 92% or so of Chinese are Han.

And those are the examples of Antiquity, it isn't too far out of the picture the Ottomans or Austria could've done better. Hell, the Russians did so, since until 1991 they held onto the empire the Tsars assembled. And in theory, going by the results of the referendum that contributed to the split of the Soviet Union, Central Asia still could've been maintained.

The Westphalian nation-state model is predicated upon a certain degree of ethnic homogeneity. There are few regions of the planet that are autochthonously ethnically homogeneous. A successful nation-state is one that can engineer ethnic homogeneity in its geographical region, whether that be through genocide or assimilation. So the most successful nation-states in the world (China, Japan, France, Britain, etc.) didn't become successful because they were ethnically homogeneous, they became ethnically homogeneous through centuries of violent, successful statecraft.

France peacefully assimilated their ethnic minorities, going by the Bretons and Occitans. It was a surprisingly peaceful affair, if you base it on the results the Irish had. Britain more or less did so, although the Scots and Welsh were defeated after concerted warfare. China was ethnically homogenous since long ago except in certain parts. Japan likewise, since after the modern Japanese arrived to Japan, the only real "obstacle" was the Ainu, who were basically destined to be outcompeted by the Japanese. In China and Japan's case, this was because of warfare centuries ago. I find it very difficult to place judgement on warfare that occured centuries ago, as Japan did to the Ainu (Emishi, really), and China did to numerous groups.

The only way very diverse (and by diversity, I mean hardcore racial, religious, and ethnic diversity, not varying kinds of white) countries have managed to be successful is through intense authoritarianism and restrictions on certain groups in order to keep them in line, which is not ideal. Examples include Israel, South Africa, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the American South.

If the US South "embraced" the black minority (majority in many parts), there's no real reason it couldn't have been "ethnically homogenous". But skin colour is a giant barrier to that.
 

SRBO

Banned
Depends on what cultures there are. West Europeans will get along best with other West Europeans of the same religion, so English and Finns will get along fine, or Spanish and (catholic) Germans, but they wont get along good with Muslims

The problem arises when you deliberately invent cultures that don't exist, or solidify cultures that should be a part of a bigger culture, see Yugoslavia
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top