Turning in on oneself

This enhanced edition takes its starting point from an observation: ‘the democratic consensus which was built on the ashes of the Second World War is crumbling,’ writes the sociologist in his introduction. ‘In the four corners of Europe and elsewhere political groups are not hesitating to reintroduce racism into politics and to construct and activate more and more closed ethnic, national and religious identities from which the potential for Otherness being excluded is enormous.’

An allusion to Belgian community-based problems? Amongst others. ‘When foreign researchers raise the situation in Belgium they often talk of an ethnic conflict or clash,’ affirms Marco Martiniello, ‘even if the majority of politicians refute the use of these terms.’ The Flemish nationalist movement, like others across the world, is taking on a character that is all the more alarming because it leans on the rifts in contemporary society. Environmental crises, growing social inequalities, economic instability, exclusion, marginalisation, etc. So many factors that increase the nationalist power of seduction. ‘The citizens are frightened. They feel threatened. The temptation to turn in on oneself is a strong one.’

The emergence of controversies concerning the presence of Islam in Western society has also cast new light on debates surrounding ethnicity. Whilst this word is not a perfect synonym of ‘religion,’ the two terms have several points in common. The former could, for example, be considered as the object of faith or worship, or as a link that unites individuals. ‘In certain cases religion and ethnicity coincide almost perfectly as long as we place ourselves on a superficial level of analysis.’ And the author reminds us that the community of believers could surpass ethnic groups in terms of size whilst the latter, no matter how different they might be, can also share the same religion.

So near and yet so far…

Similarly, the nationalism referred to above cannot be considered as the perfect semantic equivalent of ethnicity. Certainly the two words have a relatively recent existence and have modern claims. ‘One might add that nations and ethnic groups are in effect “imagined communities,”’ points out the sociologist in the chapter devoted to this subject, citing within it the concept established by Benedict Anderson, a specialist on nationalism. ‘In effect, on the basis of a belief in a common history, individuals imagine a special link which they have with other individuals in the same nation or the same ethnic group, the majority of whom they will nonetheless have no direct relationship with in their lifetime. These two principles of identification manage to give a feeling of proximity, of belonging to the same group, to individuals who in reality are nonetheless very distant from each other, both socially and geographically.’ But if the objective of nationalism is to superimpose the boundaries of a State on those of a nation, ethnicity does not entertain the same political agenda, wherein lies their main difference.

Nor does this word have the same meaning as ‘race’ or ‘culture’ for Marco Martiniello, as he explains in his book’s fourth chapter. But if we now know what this term does not mean (or, in any case, not completely), how is it to be really defined?

It is first of all a question of a neologism that only appeared in an English language dictionary in 1933, and that was used in an academic and scientific manner from the end of the 1960s in the work of Anglo-Saxon researchers analysing the segregation and racism carried out against African Americans.