Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World

by Fonkem Achankeng University of Wisconsin O (Editor), Moses Ochonu (Foreword by), Ali R. Abootalebi (Contribution by), Fonkem Achankeng University of Wisconsin O (Contribution by), Carlson Anyangwe (Contribution by)

Overview

This book highlights the complexities of nationalism and the struggles of different groups left unaddressed within the nation-states of a postcolonial world. The central question is what happened to the worldly and radical visions of freedom, liberty, and equality that animated intellectual activists and policy makers from Woodrow Wilson in the 1920s? This book analyzes the outcome of lumping disparate groups of people together under one nation-state and holding them together against the knowledge of the incompatibility theory of plural states. In a world of arbitrarily and colonially mapped sovereign states, groups, and nations with distinctive histories and cultures trapped within the borders of sovereign states want the freedom to decide their own destinies. This book challenges, deconstructs, and decolonizes Western epistemologies related to postcolonial state formation and maintenance. In examining the freedom concept that no human group ought to be determining the independence of other human groups, this book constructs an alternative conceptualization of nations and peoples’ rights in the twenty-first century, in which radical hopes and global dreams are recognized as central to internal nationalism struggles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498500258
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	09/28/2015
Series:	Conflict and Security in the Developing World
Pages:	568
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Fonkem Achankeng is assistant professor at University of Wisconsin, 'shkosh.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: GENERAL AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
Chapter 1: Political Self-Determination as an International Norm: History, Content, Scope, and Status in Contemporary International Law
Carlson Anyangwe
Chapter 2: Chasing the Shadow: Myths of Nation-building in Postcolonial States
Tatah-Mentan
Chapter 3: Nationalism, Power Politics, and Pluralism in Divided Societies
Ali R. Abootalebi

PART TWO: AFRICA
Chapter 4: The Pot and the Kettle: Failed States and the Terrorization of the Western Sahara Peace Process
Jacob Mundy
Chapter 5: Betrayal and Abandonment: Memory, History and Conflict Emotions in the Narratives of British Southern Cameroons’ Nationalists
Fonkem Achankeng
Chapter 6: Ethnocentrism First and Nationalism Second: Colonial/Postcolonial Constructions of Conflict in Kenya
Daniel Karanja
Chapter 7: Ethnic Nationalism and Identity Politics: Reminiscences of Biafra and the Quest for Self- Determination
Donald O. Omagu
Chapter 8: Ethnic & Nationalist Mobilization in South Sudan
Solomon Losha
Chapter 9: Somaliland and the Crisis of the Somali Nation
Hassan Khannenje
Chapter 10: British Southern Cameroons in Cameroun Republic: A Salad Bowl with Unmitigating Distinctive Ingredients
Michael T. Ndemanu

PART THREE: THE MIDDLE EAST
Chapter 11: From Victims to Victors: The Kurdish Challenge to the State in the Middle East Ofra Bengio
Chapter 12: Kurdish Nationalism and Conflict in Postcolonial Iraq
Michael Gunter
Chapter 13: Democratization and Ethnic Conflict: Transformation of Turkey’s Kurdish Question Ozum Yesiltas

PART FOUR: ASIA
Chapter 14: Methodological Nationalism, Subalternity and Critical Race Theory: Competing Narratives of National/Ethnic/Racial Identity in Iran.
Alireza Asgharzadeh
Chapter 15: Identity and Representation: Marma People in the Chittagong Hills, Bangladesh Chipamong Chowdhury
Chapter 16: Myanmar: Nationalism, Security, and Resilient Insurgents
Marie Olson Lounsbery

PART FIVE: EUROPE
Chapter 17: The Basque Conflict Globally Speaking: Material Culture, Media and Basque Identity in the Wider World
J. P. Linstroth
Chapter 18: Catalonia's Struggle for Self-Determination: From Regionalism to Independence Klaus-Jurgen Nagel

PART SIX: THE AMERICAS
Chapter 19: Brazilian Nationalism and Urban Amerindians: Some 21st Century Dilemmas for Indigenous Peoples Living in the Urban Amazon and Beyond
J. P. Linstroth
Chapter 20: Colonial vs National Self-Determination in the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands
Lowell Gustafson
Chapter 21: Puerto Rico: “The United States’ Unacknowledged Colony in the Caribbean” Margaret Power

PART SEVEN: TOWARD RESOLUTION
Chapter 22: Resolving Nationalism Conflicts in the Postcolonial World
Fonkem Achankeng

Editorial Reviews

Intra-state ethnic conflict remains a topic of perennial interest, not least because most of the world’s states have ethnically diverse populations. Fonkem Achankeng’s volume presents both theoretical analyses of national conflicts in post-colonial contexts as well as a diverse collection studies from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The volume provides a valuable service to the comparative study of nationalism by emphasizing lesser-studied case studies whose peculiarities bring forth new perspectives.

Alexander Maxwell

In this most relevant and significant book, two conflict-causing applications of ‘nationalism’ are courageously addressed. Post-colonial power elites still use it as an imported rationale behind top-down attempts to unify population groups within a ‘state’. At various times and places, however, suppressed groups use it as a banner in their bottom-up struggles to acquire self-determination. The widely spread problem of reconciling national(ist) aspirations is frankly discussed in the foreword, four general chapters and eighteen case-specific chapters (covering five continents). Some questions inevitably have to remain open, but meaningful guidelines towards resolving these extremely complex conflicts are given – especially to the groups who ‘themselves hold the key to their freedom’.

Jannie Malan