Explain centripetal forces with special reference to nationalism. ...

[dollx]

Explain centripetal forces with special reference to nationalism.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Discuss the conflict between the different ethnicities in Central Africa and how that has led to genocide.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Liddy]

Answer to Question 1

Answer: A centripetal force is something causing an attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state. The word centripetal means directed toward the center. It is the opposite of centrifugal, which means to spread out from the center. Most states find that the best way to achieve citizen support is to emphasize shared attitudes that unify the people.

Nationalism is an important example of centripetal force. It is loyalty and devotion to a nationality. It typically promotes a sense of national consciousness that exalts one nationality above all others and emphasizes its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nationalities. People display nationalism by supporting a state that preserves and enhances the culture and attitudes of their nationality.

States foster nationalism by promoting symbols such as flags and songs. The symbol of the hammer and sickle on a field of red was long synonymous with the beliefs of communism. After the fall of communism, one of the first acts in Russia was to redesign a flag without the hammer and sickle. Nationalism can be a negative force especially when a nation is defined in ethnic terms. The sense of unity within ethnic nationalism is often achieved by creating negative images of other nation-states. German nationalism openly denigrated minority groups, such as Jews and Slavs, who became victims of the Nazi regime in World War II. Another example is Yugoslavia, which was a multinational country that prospered during the twentieth century.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: In Central Africa, conflict between the Hutus and the Hutsis have led to ethnic wars and genocide in the last few decades. The Hutus were settled farmers, growing crops in the fertile hills and valleys of present-day Rwanda and Burundi, known as the Great Lakes region of central Africa. The Tutsis on the other hand, were cattle herders who migrated to present-day Rwanda and Burundi from the Rift Valley of western Kenya beginning 400 years ago.

Historically, Hutus constituted a majority of the population of Rwanda historically, but Tutsis controlled the kingdom of Rwanda for several hundred years and had turned the Hutu into their serfs. As a colony of Germany and then Belgium during the first half of the twentieth century, Tutsis were given more privileges than the Hutus. Shortly before Rwanda gained its independence in 1962, Hutus killed or ethnically cleansed many Tutsis out of fear that the Tutsis would seize control of the newly independent country.

After an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down in 1994, probably by a Tutsi, the genocide began. Hutus murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and Hutus sympathetic to the Tutsis. This conflict spilled into neighboring countries, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo, where several million have died in the Congo in a war that began in 1998 and is the world's deadliest since World War II.

The war there started after Tutsis helped to overthrow of the Congo's longtime president, Mobutu. After succeeding Mobutu as president, Laurent Kabila relied heavily on Tutsis and permitted them to kill some of the Hutus who had been responsible for atrocities against Tutsis back in the early 1990s. But Kabila soon split with the Tutsis, and the Tutsis once again found themselves offering support to rebels seeking to overthrow Congo's government. Kabila turned for support to Hutus, and armies from neighboring countries came to Kabila's aid. Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and succeeded by his son, who negotiated an accord with rebels the following year.