{"id":16201,"date":"2019-04-28T22:42:09","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T22:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=16201"},"modified":"2019-04-30T09:57:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T09:57:40","slug":"identicide-how-demographic-shifts-can-rip-a-country-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/identicide-how-demographic-shifts-can-rip-a-country-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Identicide: How demographic shifts can rip a country apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monica Duffy Toft<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What happens to a country when its core national identity \u2013 its preferred image of itself in terms of race or religion \u2013 doesn\u2019t match its demographic reality? <\/p>\n

Say a Sunni-dominated Arab country is actually a majority Shi’a Arab country<\/a>; or a Russian-Slavic majority becomes a minority<\/a>; or a white Protestant U.S. becomes predominantly mixed race and mixed faith.<\/p>\n

The answer, unfortunately, is \u201cnothing good.\u201d Internal strife, perhaps civil war or collapse often precedes a decisive demographic shift. Let me explain.<\/p>\n

My research<\/a> looks at what happens when countries cherish a central national identity \u2013 invariably made up and maintained by groups in power \u2013 and that identity is challenged by the reality of differential demographic growth rates.<\/p>\n

Rather than face \u201cidenticide,\u201d most representatives of that mythic identity will fight back, either subtly or with violence. <\/p>\n

Consider the most important example in recent memory: the relatively peaceful disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.<\/p>\n

The USSR then<\/h2>\n

The Soviet Union\u2019s mythology<\/a> and national identity narratives<\/a> tended to produce heroes who were Russian Slavs, including literary figures, military heroes, cosmonauts, political elites and Olympic athletes.<\/p>\n

Although the image projected was Slav, if not Russian, the Soviet Union was in fact home to hundreds of distinct ethnic, linguistic, racial and religious groups. But as George Orwell might have quipped, in the Soviet Union, all ethnic groups were equal, \u201cbut some ethnic groups (Russian Slavs) were more equal than others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Depicting a Soviet agricultural family, this poster exhorts voters not to waste their votes in the 1950 election.<\/span>
\n AP Photo<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This proved ironic in two senses. First, much of this Russian Slav heroic narrative was constructed under the leadership of an ethnic Georgian<\/a>, Josef Stalin. <\/p>\n

Second, after World War II, Soviet census data began to record an alarming trend<\/a>. Slavs, concentrated in major urban areas with access to higher education and employment, were not having nearly as many babies as Chechens, Kazakhs, Tatars and Uzbeks. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the life expectancy of Slavic males began dropping due to widespread alcoholism, and accidents and diseases related to alcoholism. This made their female partners, most of whom were also employed full-time, somewhat reluctant to start or expand families. <\/p>\n

At first, the actual demographic statistics were simply falsified for public release \u2013 a very common practice in authoritarian countries. But, by the mid-1970s, the demographic demise of the USSR\u2019s Slav majority had become a state secret and a major policy concern; and even more so with the conclusion of the 1979 census, the results of which were not published for five years.<\/p>\n

Government efforts to improve the birthrate of Slavic women and dampen the birthrate of non-Slavs came with unanticipated risks<\/a>. By the 1970s, women from all ethnic groups had risen to become economically productive workers. Attempts to encourage Slavic women to marry young and have three or four children would have undermined the already fragile Soviet economic productivity.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n This WWII USSR propaganda poster reads \u2018Everything for the Front. Everything for Victory.\u2019<\/span>
\n El Lissitzky\/Wikimedia<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, an impossible-to-win war in Afghanistan only made things worse. Post-traumatic stress disorder, heroin and opium abuse among young men added to the scourge of alcoholism. Citizens increasingly resented discrimination in education, employment and relocation permission for non-Slavs.<\/p>\n

To both foreigners and Soviet citizens of all groups, the USSR looked like a majority Russian, Slavic country with little intermixing and intermarriage among the Muslim and non-Muslim populations. Only the Politburo knew that it soon wouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

The USSR\u2019s collapse<\/h2>\n

The Politburo faced intensified pressure for economic reform, partly to keep up with the West, but partly to free Slavic women to have more babies. This pressure led to the ascent of the young economic reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev. <\/p>\n

Gorbachev, a lawyer by training and a true believer in communism, came to settle on two core policies to revitalize the Soviet economy: openness and restructuring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Openness was intended to allow workers, planners and academics to work together to share best practices \u2013 but this merely made all Soviets more miserable. As the availability of knowledge of the outside world expanded, Soviets learned that none of the party\u2019s longstanding claims about Soviet technology, education, health care and standard of living was true. Non-Slavs became aware of just how much their heroes, traditions, languages and histories had been unfairly left out of the Soviet national identity.<\/p>\n

The resulting resentment would have been manageable, had not Gorbachev combined openness with \u201crestructuring.\u201d This gave political voice to what had formerly been low-level political and managerial positions and created a pathway for demographic injustice to express itself politically. <\/p>\n

Non-Slavs began to use their new access to the political process to seek greater access to education, employment and residency in Russia\u2019s major cities. Their demands were rebuffed, and the resentment grew only more intense, giving rise to nationalism and nationalist movements across the USSR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result was a crucial moment in Gorbachev\u2019s leadership. In Tatarstan, Chechnya, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states and even Ukraine, there was talk of a reassessment of relations with Moscow \u2013 even possibly independence. <\/p>\n

As resentment began to pull the Soviet Union apart, Gorbachev faced a stark choice between continuing to hope the Soviet ship of state would right itself, and the long-established practice of using Interior Ministry troops to murder protesters at mass rallies. Gorbachev chose the former, and the USSR disintegrated largely without bloodshed.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Soviet propaganda poster from the 1930s.<\/span>
\n Adam Jones\/Wikimedia<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The US today<\/h2>\n

As you read your next depressing news report highlighting America\u2019s polarization, even on the most basic of facts<\/a> or growing lack of civility in political discourse<\/a>, remember that historically these are due to a declining majority\u2019s fear of losing \u201ceverything\u201d in a democratic country in which groups vote as demographic blocs. <\/p>\n

As with the Soviet Union, the U.S. too has a national mythology: one centered on an identity with a white, male and predominantly Protestant Christian hero. <\/p>\n

This white, male, Christian identity was historically leavened with another point of pride, symbolized most poignantly by the Statue of Liberty. The U.S. has long celebrated itself for being big enough \u2013 in its space and in its economic system \u2013 to welcome immigrants; and our form of government made possible our greatest national strength: \u201cout of many, one.\u201d<\/p>\n