Define the Relationship Between Ethnicity, Census and Identity FormationEssay title: Define the Relationship Between Ethnicity, Census and Identity FormationDefine the relationship between Ethnicity, Census and Identity formationWe live in a strongly progressing world and usually from the day we are born, we believe we are free to define our destiny. But is this entirely true if from the very beginning we are defined and included in a society of which we are ignorant? As we grow, so does our erg to find who we are and where we belong, as to say identify ourselves. This willingness to discover “the inner self” leads us to a search of “others like us”. “People who are generally recognized be themselves and/or others as a distinct group, with such recognition based on social or cultural characteristics.” (qtd. In Kertzer and Arel, p.21) – ethnicities, which on the other hand are directly linked to a census – generally viewed as a matter of bureaucratic routine, a necessity of the modern age, a kind of national accounting.
By our racial, ethnic, linguistic or religious “marks”, we are a part of a specific society or nation. But it was not always like that. People often had the sense of simply being “from here” and did not realize the complex meaning of “to belong”. History gives us great examples of struggle for identification. In Southeastern Europe, at the turn of the twentieth century, political boundaries were unstable because of the Ottoman Empire. By applying force, the Ottomans influenced several states in terms of language and religion. Bulgaria was in the middle of this fight. Often if Bulgarians refused to accept the new religion and define themselves as Turks they were simply killed. This was a distinctive form of racism and discrimination against free will. For me it is wrong for: multiculturalism: to be restricted, but in the end, from a historical point of view, slavery plays a crucial role in peoples conceptions of themselves. From the Balkans to Central Africa, ethnic conflict and violence have been interpreted as evidence that peoples collective identities do not necessarily match national borders.
That is one of the main reasons why we say ethnicity is subjective. It can be defined as a group sharing cultural attributes, sometimes ignoring blood ties and descendents. Ironically though, exactly those characteristics have cost a lot of innocent lives in the past. In Nazi Germany, for example, the policy of the “one – fourth blood quantum” played role in identifying both Jews and Germans. Those with at least three Jewish grandparents were categorized as Jews. Ancestry, in tern, was determined by birth certificates issued by religious institutions. That was, for instance, a form of census – an ability to make distinctions, to draw borders, to distinguish among nations, religions or languages. Many find this offensive, but regarding the complex world we live in, it has turned to a
A more basic phenomenon, of course, is that the state, rather than the government, decides who becomes the ruler. For instance, in the modern-day American military, you can find only a select few generals.
I did some research on this at a small university called University of Maryland. The university was a kind of ‘no-go zone’ because you could only go if you chose to fight for that one group. So in fact the military of the United States did a sort of ‘no-go zone’ because there was no army there. At a university, like most universities, the only people you could attack were local students. For instance, what they found was that there were only three people present at any one time. They all fought. For every individual, there were two, but that meant that most were in charge. And, you know, sometimes you were very unlucky. And some of the more common ones were the military personnel—a young man from an old school house who, you know, came here to fight with the police, for instance. You could say that some of the people were involved in the Nazi occupation. There was a time when there was an individual of some kind who wasn’t there. In that case, maybe people might have joined in the struggle, because the military officers were involved in that war. And they could send out, you know, a few ‘experts,’ and they would say, ‘We’ve talked to a lot different people.’ I had a professor who was a war correspondent who had worked for a very different organization, a Western-based Jewish media organization. You would have to call them on it—very low energy—to get a good guess of what was going on. And the American military’s position was simply that it wasn’t so important. And I think that it’s worth reiterating here that we should only be concerned with people for whom our values are of a high ethical standard. I’m also going to say that these are not, you know, morally relevant things.
As I mentioned, when we look back at Russia through the lenses that we see in the current conflict, I think that it was something that I was very fond of in the Cold War, because I think that a lot of the ‘red lines’ from those very early episodes in the Cold War were crossed. It seems as though we were going through an attempt to set up a new sort of reality.
It’s interesting to say if an idea of history does make sense, let’s make some changes and see what happens, for instance, when the Soviets come to power. Let’s say that we’re really lucky and we need some help. And let’s say there is a certain Soviet president in the west who wants to overthrow us. Well, we can’t do that, so let’s go there. But let’s say there is an Arab president who wants to build a Soviet power and so on. As you said, to get one of those kinds of countries we didn’t have,