Pluralism - Conference Programme Session 8

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Session 8: Identity Politics
Chair: Marco Baldassari

The Political Representation of Israel's Arab Minorities: The Challenge of Marginality and the Dilemma of Influence versus Protest
Ofer Kenig
Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Israel Democracy Institute, Israel

The Arab minority in Israel has traditionally suffered from political under-representation. Despite consisting about 20% of the population, the share of Arab representatives in the main political arenas was much lower. This trend has changed in the last decade: Arab parties considerably increased their parliamentary representation, and for the first time ever, two Arabs were appointed Ministers. However, it looks as though this improvement was not translated to an increase of the political power. Despite the electoral success, the ability of Arab politicians to influence the legislative process and to increase their accessibility to political power bases remains insignificant.
It is likely that the reason that this electoral success has not been linked to political achievements is to be found in the unique circumstances of Israel's political arena. Israeli politics are shaped by ongoing and deep-seated issues in which the main divide is not socioeconomic, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's Arab citizens thus found themselves in a difficult position. On the one hand, they are closer – in aspects of culture, linguistics and religion – to their Palestinian relatives in the West Bank and Gaza. Most of them sympathies with the Palestinian national movement. On the other hand, they also do appreciate the democratic framework of State of Israel, but fight against its character as a Jewish State. They are therefore face with a difficult dilemma: should they operate within the political institutions shaped by the Jewish majority, or rather they step aside and channel their actions only to protest.
This paper tries to examine the Arab minority case from a comparative perspective. Its goal is twofold. First, to assess the factors that dictate the accessibility of minority parties to power and influence; second, to suggest a basic classification of the range of political situations these parties might find themselves in the legislative and executive arenas. Israel's Arab parties are compared with four others minority parties in Europe: The Basque National Party (PNV) in Spain, The Scottish National Party (SNP) in the UK, The Swedish Folk Party (SFP) in Finland and the Party of Hungarian Coalition in Slovakia.
The basic assumption is that in order to gain influence, any party must overcome to obstacles: relevancy and legitimacy. The paper claims that in some cases (especially this of national minority parties), a party might choose to stay out of power even if it overcomes these two obstacles, mainly for strategic or ideological reasons.

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Shaping Identities in an Ethnic Minority by Means of Oriented Performance of Folkloric Texts
Mihai Fifor
The Regional Museum of Oltenia, Craiova, Romania

There is a small ethnic minority of several hundreds of thousands of Romanians, called the Vlachs (vlahi)¸ thatlive in a compact group in the centre and scattered in the peripheral areas of the triangle formed by the three rivers, the Danube, the Morava and the Timoc, and farther south towards Nis, in the north-eastern part of Serbia. They live today in 328 villages and 20 towns along the Danube Valley (from Veliko Gradiste to the mouth of the Timoc River), in the Morava Valley (mainly to the east of Velika Morava), on a large area in Homolje and Craina. Most of the Vlachs from Timoc live in the rural area, much fewer living in towns. They are not recognized by the Serbs.
The Timoc River’s Valley, the village of Slatina Bor. November 2006. We are recording Draghi Cârcioabă, 40 years old, unprofessional singer, yet one of the last lăutari in Timoc. Draghi has learned his old epic heroic songs from older singers in the area. The only occasions when he performs the epic heroic songs are the festivals, TV shows, but only when he is in Romania or at home, whenever he feels like singing, or when he is asked to either by friends or by different ethnologists. Unlikely otherwise! For where to sing such songs again? They are not sung at weddings or other ceremonies anymore. Young generations do not ask for such music for they don’t like and understand it.
Draghi considers and declares himself as being Romanian. Not a Vlach. He is the deputy president of the Vlachs and Romanians Movement from Serbia, a cultural association yet having a political character transparent enough to get him into trouble with the Serb authorities. He does not think of himself as a politician although he admits that politics is the best way to obtain recognition for the Romanian minority in the Serbian Timoc by the Serb officials.
Festivals are not the only occasions when Draghi can turn to the best account his repertoire. There are also the TV shows at TV stations in Romania where he can sing but also discuss the Vlach’s minority situation in Serbia. All these are excellent opportunities for him to reinforce his and the minority’s identity.
Our paper will analyze the ways an ethnic minority reinforce its identity by means of oriented performance of certain folkloric texts well known as identity marks for the entire area of the Balkans by tracing two main hypotheses: 1) the performance of a folkloric text in an induced-institutionalized context (studio recording, festivals, TV shows) generates changes at the level of the text functionality and mode of performance, without necessarily modifying its content and 2) thus reoriented texts grow into identity marks for the ethnic minority they belong to, in the larger process of acculturation. They are being read by the audience as a path to a past tradition oriented dimension understood by the community as a fundamental value.

Citizenship and Ethnic Militia Politics in Nigeria: Marginalization or Identity Question?-The Case of Massob
Nkolika E.Obianyo
Department of Political Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria

Nigeria is a country with many ethnic/religious groups. These groups have been in fierce competition with each other for political and economic power of the state. Competition, that many a time threatens the corporate existence of the Nigerian state. Moreover, citizenship rights accrue to a person by virtue of one’s ethnic group’s access to political power or successful negotiation with those who won. In this contestation there are winners and losers. The Nigerian state made a number of constitutional provisions addressing individual and group rights to reduce this sense of loss. However there seem to be a lacuna between these legal provisions and the enjoyment of these rights, a gap that challenges the teleology of citizenship in a multi ethnic nation like Nigeria. Consequently, ethnic groups that feel persistently alienated or marginalized have responded to this problem by forming ethnic militias with the sole aim of addressing the injustices, hence the proliferation of such ethnic militia like Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Arewa Peoples Congress (APC), Movement for the survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State Of Biafra (MASSOB).Of all the militia groups, MASSOB is the only one that has persistently demanded for separate existence; in fact Igbos that identify with it no longer see themselves as Nigerians. This paper interrogates the concept of citizenship and group rights /identities in Nigeria. It argues that the politics of exclusion played by the hegemonic ruling class, the power structure and economic relations arising from this structure, accounts for the emergence of ethnic militias and the crisis of identity/citizenship in Nigeria. It examines the activities and tactics of MASSOB as separatist movement, the rationale behind its demands, especially its quest for identity and citizenship.

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