Search

Remembering the war dead, so historical writing suggests, was considerably easier for the victors than for the vanquished. Yet, as this essay argues, this strict dichotomy was not quite as rigid as the historiography implies. In both Britain and Germany, ethnic, religious and national minorities did play some role in nascent memory cultures. However, while some groups were remembered, other minorities, such as Britain’s African troops or Germany’s Polish soldiers, were all too often missing from the commemorative landscape. The absence of minorities from the remembrance process, then, had less to do with the outcome of the war, but was rather contingent on place, time and the minority group in question.

The term Deaf Studies was coined in 1984 at the University of Bristol after the establishment of the Centre for Deaf Studies in 1978, and the first International Deaf Researchers Workshop was hosted at the same university in 1985 (Marschark & Humphries, 2010). Researchers interested in exploring the language, culture and lives of deaf sign language users from the perspective of a social rather than medical model began to identify as Deaf Studies scholars, and the field focused on the following areas: sign language and sign linguistics; sign language acquisition; the deaf community and deaf culture; cognition, mental health and education; and communication-related technologies (Marschark & Humphries, 2010). Scholars such as Carol Padden and Tom Humphries (1988, 2005) and Harlan Lane (Lane, 1993; Lane, Hoffemister & Bahan, 1996) have trail- blazed explorations of deaf culture and the fact that deaf sign language users form a linguistic and cultural minority group based on shared experiences. Since that time, scholars have branched out and specialised in different aspects of research with deaf people, so that now the term ‘Deaf Studies’ is more synonymous with ‘sociological, anthropological and ethnographic explorations of deaf lives’ (Marschark & Humphries, 2010, p. 2).

In the previous chapter, I concentrated on Will Kymlicka’s equality-based arguments for (1) the liberal state to be concerned about, and try to rectify, cultural disadvantages, and (2) for minority rights as adequate responses to these disadvantages. I argued, alongside Kymlicka, that there is a strong case for the liberal state to be concerned about the disadvantages faced by minority members. Contrary to Kymlicka, however, I argued that this case could not be extended to an argument for the requirement of minority rights, but pointed instead towards a more cautious approach to implementing different kinds of culturally differentiated rights in practice.

This chapter provides an analysis in overview of the relationship between the European Union (EU or the Union) and minority rights protection, highlighting the emergence, development, strengths and shortfalls of minority rights protection in the EU. Minority protection may not be a comprehensive affair in EU law. However, the EU’s legal framework still pertains to minority issues in ways sufficient to warrant lengthy analysis (Ahmed, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2012, 2013; Arzoz, 2008b; de Witte, 2002; Jovanovic, 2012; Nic Shuibhne, 2002; Palermo and Woelk, 2003–2004; Piccoli, 2011; Toggenburg, 2004; Topidi, 2010). This chapter analyses some of the key features of that framework. These include the emergence of EU minority rights in the context of EU enlargement and the importance of minority protection as a value of the EU in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Article 2 TEU cements the EU’s express commitment to minority protection, but remains a provision to be elaborated by the EU institutions. Substantively, EU anti-discrimination law is the predominant legally binding tool for minority protection in EU law and provides protection for minorities who are discriminated against, on a number of grounds relevant to minority group characteristics. However, the scope of protection for each ground differs (religion being most restrictive), and while policy measures in EU anti-discrimination law can target group problems, litigation challenging breaches of relevant EU law rights is based on an individual model and cannot therefore be used to tackle issues of a collective nature.

Asians are the second fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012a) and are projected to more than double between 2012 and 2060 – growing to 34.4 million and making up 8 percent of the total population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). In a report released by the Pew Research Center, Asians accounted for 25 percent of all the first-generation immigrants in 2012, of which 54 percent are women (Cohn, 2013). The majority of the recent immigrants come from the People’s Republic of China (or referred as mainland China) and reside in urban cities, including Los Angeles, California and New York City (McCabe, 2012), where their children attend urban public schools (Fix & Capps, 2005). In spite of their rapid population growth, psychological research on Asian immigrants – especially those of recent immigration status and of women – remains scant (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Within the limited literature relevant to this population, there are even fewer studies exploring East Asian immigrant women’s experience of employment and gender roles, two aspects that are salient to their identity development and mental health.

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the integration debate in the Netherlands, and especially on the prominent role of Islam and cultural issues in this debate (Boomkens 2010: 307). Arguably more than in any other European country, anti-Islamic sentiment has produced political consequences, including the formation of three political parties on a principally anti-Islamic platform (Leefbar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands), List Pim Fortuyn and Partij voor de Vrijheid (Freedom Party)) since 2000 and the dismantling of key aspects of state-supported multiculturalism, including a cessation of ethnic monitoring of labour market participation, the withdrawal of national-level funding for minority group organisations and the introduction of an immigration process designed to discriminate against social conservatives (Meer and Modood 2009: 474; Butler 2008: 3). Political discourse has become highly polarised, with controversy focused on cultural issues and especially on Islam and Muslims (Boomkens 2010: 307), and sometimes taking a violent form (Cherribi 2010: 146). Given the Netherlands’ international reputation for tolerance and social progres-sivism (Cherribi (2010: 3), this turn of events is both troubling and puzzling. So why has it happened?

In assessing the success of the European minority rights regime we need to ask whether problems relating to national minorities in CEE have been eradicated or ameliorated as a result of the regime. Returning to the reasons for the establishment of the regime in the 1990s, we have argued that regime formation was the result of efforts on the part of European organizations to respond to ethnic conflict. With the end of the Cold War, a shift took place from a focus on universal human rights to the promotion of minority rights in Europe. The fear that minority rights left unaddressed would exacerbate ethnic tensions informed the objectives of international organizations including the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Thus, these three European organizations turned to addressing minority group grievances to help prevent the resurgence or ignition of conflict in vulnerable areas in post-communist CEE. On the basis that the prevention of the spread of conflict was the primary objective of the European minority rights regime, we can assert that the regime has indeed been effective. Yet we can also argue that the regime has not been wholly effective in the sense that there are residual issues relating to national minorities in Europe. The regime has not eradicated completely minority issues from political debate in an enlarged EU. As Marc Weller (2008, p.1) points out, there is still no coherent minority policy within the EU and minority ‘issues remain intensely controversial’.

Is traditional Beijing opera (jingju) an art form associated with hegemony or state power? Many young people in Taiwan today would consider the question absurd: the dated art form is usually associated with a minority group, the old Mainlanders — retired soldiers and military village dwellers — who are dying out and no longer enjoy any class or political privileges. Recent changes in the political climate also make any traditional arts associated with mainland China misfits. New and innovative jingju, on the other hand, is a different story. This is the form the younger generation might consider fashionable, artistic, intelligent, even cool.

This chapter examines the emergence of new cultural spaces on ethnic television channels that cater for Brazilians living abroad. These relate the Brazilian diaspora to their Spanish-speaking fellow Latin Americans, both in the region and in the United States (US) where ‘Latinos’ form the largest ethnic minority group. Ethnic channels strongly depend on language use to shape a recognisable market niche for a dispersed diaspora (Sinclair and Cunningham 2000) and, hence, Brazilian diaspora television displays an almost exclusive Portuguese monolingualism. Concomitantly, programmes catering exclusively for the diaspora audience negotiate Brazilian diaspora identity in relation to their different host cultures, most prominently that of the US where the majority of the programmes are produced. This explains their frequent juxtaposition of the ‘Anglo’ host culture and the migrants’ home culture (Bachmann 2010). Moreover, as I argue in this chapter, the programmes display new cultural spaces that relate the Brazilian diaspora to a shared Latin American identity. My analysis focuses on the role of language practices between Portuguese, Spanish and English in the shaping of these new cultural spaces and identities on Brazilian television.

There is a wide range of work on aspects of ethnicity in the UK, but in a number of cases little is done to integrate those separate studies. Variation in educational and labour market experience across ethnic groups is one such area and another is residential segregation; the degree to which members of various groups live apart from each other. But are those different aspects of the minority group experience linked; does segregation matter as an influence on individuals’ labour market experiences? Much of the academic and related work has focused on the facts of segregation themselves, with some comparative studies showing that the British situation is considerably less extreme than that experienced in the USA, notably by African-Americans and Hispanics in recent decades.

The issue of collective rights for minorities has been discussed for years. There are many different questions involved. In the context of EU accession, the discussion has focused primarily on the underlying tension in the concept of minority protection stemming from the classical view that states may oppose entitlements which might call into question their sovereignty or territorial integrity. Minority rights, as part of human rights, challenge this assumption. On the one hand, there is a need to reassure governments that the granting of rights to minorities does not undermine these principles. On the other hand, it is necessary also to ensure that persons belonging to minorities are able to maintain their identity and enjoy their rights as members of a minority group.

The Kurdish community in Turkey is one of the groups in favour of Turkey joining the EU. Since the Turkish state has denied and repressed the Kurdish language and identity, the Kurds hope that Turkey’s membership of the EU will reverse their long-lasting experience of oppression. However, it is doubtful if the EU will satisfy Kurdish demands for linguistic equality. The Kurdish issue needs a more comprehensive evaluation than that provided by EU declarations on linguistic minority rights, which are hostage to nation-state philosophy. One of the main themes of this chapter is the language policy of the nation-state project. Most projects that aim to build a national identity turn to language as a ‘homogeneity producing’ instrument. Any minority group that speaks a language other than the national (majority) one is usually perceived as a threat to the desired homogeneous national identity.

Suppose that the leaders of your state are committing a wrong: they are fighting an obviously unjust war; or they are oppressing a minority group; or refusing to contribute to the alleviation of suffering in another part of the world. In a democracy one way that citizens can put a check on the activities of their leaders is to vote them out of office. Election time is coming round and you have to decide whether you have a moral obligation to go to the polls and cast your vote against the party in power.

Utilitarian theory explains support for European integration in terms of how each individual benefits from integration; alternatively, it explains opposition to integration by arguing that some individuals lose in this integrative process. Or — at the very least — people perceive that they are likely to win or lose, and this perception fundamentally depends upon their socio-economic position in life. As should be apparent, this approach is extremely individualistic in nature. In addition, the evidence presented in Chapter 3 indicates that the standard utilitarian predictors are not all that powerful in explaining variation in attitudes toward the European Union, nor perceptions of specific costs and benefits to the individual provided by integration. Moreover, in most of the EU member states, the majority of the population does not seem to think they personally have benefited or lost from the integration process. In this chapter, we move away from these individualistic, utilitarian approaches and present an alternative theory that focuses on group-level interests. This alternative approach stems from a body of literature grounded in group conflict theory.

Paul Scott’s BSL poem Five Senses (p. 252) personifies the senses in a celebration of all the senses from a Deaf perspective. As with any poem of empowerment for a minority group, this poem confounds the normal expectations of the majority culture. As Deaf people do not hear, surely one of the senses will be missing? This poem shows that nothing is missing. In the poem, the description of the first three senses (Touch, Taste and Smell) establishes common ground between Deaf and hearing people, as everyday experiences are presented imaginatively and humorously. These sections of the poem provide an opportunity to showcase the capabilities of BSL in the hands of a talented poet, but are not especially ‘Deaf-themed’. The turning-point of the poem occurs when one of the hitherto obliging senses is unable to talk to the questioner. The first three senses have been able to explain what they do, but for the Deaf poet, the sense of Hearing cannot explain sound because it has no experience. At this point, we are explicitly presented with the Deaf perspective as Sight helps Hearing to do its job.

Traditional sociology has subsumed childhood under a concept of socialization as a process of integration, where cultural patterns were transformed into inner motivation (Parsons, 1951; Jenks, 1993). Psychology, on the other hand, often pictured a developing child without childhood, in the sense that the social and cultural framework constituting the life and conditions of children was not part of the developmental analysis. Aries (1962) brought a historical and structural perspective to childhood; childhood became a cultural and social realm, influencing the life of its historically-constituted inhabitants. In the later sociology of childhood, the perspective pursued was how a variety of structures and mechanisms frame childhood as the cultural, economic and social conditions for children and as the images and narratives of childhood. From this perspective, children can be seen as members of a social class, as a minority group, as a marginalized category or as a group waiting to enter society (Qvortrup et al., 1994; James et al., 1998). All perspectives on childhood illustrate an important heritage from Aries: childhood as the role of the child, assigning a set of characteristics to all children. Childhood constitutes a framework structuring the factual life of children, a cultural realm with rights and entitlements, and the role and image distinguishing children from adults. The realm of childhood is a blessing for children historically speaking.

Much of our knowledge about sociolinguistic variation, particularly in the area of sound change, is based on studies of majority Anglo speakers in the USA, the UK and elsewhere. The research presented here, which focuses on a Latino community in Los Angeles, reveals patterns of language variation and change that are in some ways quite different from those found in majority communities. A close examination of such a different dialect and setting provides linguistic perspective, especially in terms of determining whether certain sociolinguistic patterns are universal, in other words properties of human language variation everywhere, or specific to particular types of communities. Both the fact that the community of Chicano English speakers is bilingual and the particular nuances of constructing one’s ethnic identity as part of a minority group have implications for language use and language change, as has been shown in this study.

Economists’ conjectures on the motives for private income transfers (more or less pure kinds of altruism, mutual insurance or other exchanges of services, and so on (Cox, 1987; Andreoni, 1989; Coate and Ravaillon, 1993)) and for migration (Sjaastad, 1962; Mincer, 1978) have recently been mixed in a fascinating debate regarding the motivations to remit (Stark, 1980; Rempel and Lobdell, 1980; Lucas and Stark, 1985; Hoddinott, 1994). Indeed, remittances might be both the cause and the consequence of migration, and it is necessary to treat those two interdependent decisions in an encompassing framework. Among many plausible comprehensive explanations, the possibility of strategic self-selection among migrants through remittances has been raised by Stark (1995, ch. 4). Stark’s rationale is approximately as follows: when migrants are heterogeneous in skills and individual productivity is not perfectly observable on the labour market of the host country (for at least a certain period of time), migrant workers are paid the average productivity of the minority group to which they belong. In such a context, there is room for cooperative arrangements between skilled and unskilled migrants: the former can act cohesively and ‘bribe’ the latter in order to keep them at home. The interaction results in a selection bias (only skilled workers migrate), and Pareto-efficiency is enhanced.

It has become almost cliched to remark upon the so-called crisis in fatherhood in western societies in the 1990s. There are a burgeoning number of studies on both masculinities and fatherhood(s).1 Social policy and family law have turned their attention to fathers and fathering, and pressure groups continue to press for a greater recognition of fathers’ rights. Fatherhood has been problematized and virtually redefined as having minority group status (Dennis and Erdos, 1993). The reasons for this shift are complex and interrelated and we shall explore some of them in this chapter. What is clear, however, for most commentators, is that it is divorce or separation that seem to trigger the crisis, and that the apparent decline in the status of fatherhood is inexorably linked with recent advances in women’s status (Morgan, 1995; Phillips, 1997). Divorce exposes the taken-for-granted nature of gender relationships in heterosexual partnerships. Just as divorce exposes women’s vulnerability to poverty and their lack of standing in the labour market (Eekelaar and Maclean, 1986; Maclean, 1991), so too does divorce render visible the pretence of fatherhood as an active relationship rather than a passive status. By this we mean that, for the majority of heterosexual couples who follow traditional child-care arrangements, fatherhood still does not routinely provide an identity for a man nor necessarily an active, involved relationship with children.

The Seventh-day Adventist church, beginning as it did as a minority group that was discriminated against, was very careful not to discriminate against its minorities during the early history of the church. But with the developments of the structure of the church, the improvement of its organisation and the expansion in its membership, and the executive power struggle typically linked with these changes, the church has changed in its outlook and treatment of some minority groups within its domain.

Korea was liberated and, at the same time, partitioned in 1945, just after the end of the Second World War. Five years later, the Korean War broke out, devastating the process of development. Destitution was not confined to a minority group. The whole country suffered from famine. Henceforth, economic growth was seen as of primary importance. Huge resources and energy have since concentrated on economic growth.

The chapters in this book provide an interdisciplinary multi-level, interactive analysis of a most perplexing and apparently intractable intergroup conflict within its regional and international contexts. As such, the various contributions demonstrate the utility of understanding the Cyprus problem from historical, political, constitutional and economic perspectives.

Discrimination is the essence of good selection: an employer tries to discriminate between the applicants who will be good workers and those who will be poor workers. Such discrimination is right and proper: it increases organisational efficiency, it conserves society’s resources and it saves many individuals the stress and strain of struggling to cope with jobs beyond their capabilities. However, this discrimination is justified only when it is based upon the ability to do the job concerned. In practically all circumstances the decision should not be influenced by the sex, colour, creed or politics of the applicant. If these factors are allowed to influence decisions it can mean that less satisfactory candidates are hired with the inevitable organisational, individual and social consequences and it is usually termed ‘bias’.

An analysis of the constitutions of the world reveals that the vast majority of states profess to guarantee fundamental freedoms and civil and human rights. Yet, according to Professor Max Lamberty of Brussels these rights pertain to individuals (‘the rights of man’) rather than to groups (‘the rights of community’). He claims that there is no charter to which groups, minority groups, in any constitutional system, can appeal directly for the protection of their subjective rights and interests (see Max Lamberty, 1971, p. 30). This is the typical pattern followed in the Western liberal-democratic tradition. The socialistic tradition, on the other hand, refers to the rights of the state and/or party and the interests of the working classes. It is interesting to note that neither the Covenant of the League of Nations nor the Charter of the United Nations refer to the ‘rights’ or ‘interests’ of minorities. The Covenant of the League referred to the ‘sacred trust of the civilization’ of ‘those peoples not yet able to stand by themselves’. The Charter of the UN again enshrines the principle of the ‘self-determination of peoples’. So both these documents refer to ‘peoples’, in other words to groups, but do not attempt to define the concept of ‘people’, whether it be a homogeneous or plural entity. The well-known authority on international law, J. G. Starke, QC, submits that aspects such as common territory, common language, and common political aims may be considered (see J. G. Starke, 1967, p. 120). Starke therefore looks at ‘people’ from a homogeneous point of view. This is in line with anthropological thinking as well. This type of anthropological approach to ‘people’ is broadly synonymous with the views of some authors who have tried to define ‘minority groups’.

The concept of identity is a crucial one, and is pivotal in education and the social sciences. How a person sees himself, how he incorporates and synthesises the various aspects of his social world, involves both a psychological and sociological phenomena, concerning both the individual psyche, and the position an individual holds in social structure (Bagley et al., 1979c). In ethnic relations it is frequently possible that a minority group, dominated in racist fashion, reacts to that domination in ways which have particular implications for global and ethnic identity.

It is a known fact that many of the “hill tribes” found on the Southeast Asian subcontinent have not always, during their history as ethno-linguistic groups, been living in the mountains. Thousands of years of migrations, predominantly southwards, punctuated by struggles in fertile valleys for power over resources, for labor and water, continually changed the ethno-linguistic situation. Former pre-state (that is, tribal) valley dwellers were often forced into less accessible and often less attractive higher areas. But also the inhabitants of valley chiefdoms, kingdoms, and even empires, which once seemed to have established their power firmly over soil, water, and people, and to have anchored their ancestries firmly in heaven, have made their way up into the mountainous jungles, and often back to a pre-state, non-class-stratified tribal existence. Not only cross-sections of these societies, but also segments, like defeated armies and dispossessed peasants, groups without a chance of economic and cultural integration into expanding and unifying valley kingdoms, either joined existing groups or just became highlanders, more independent of markets, armies, and tax collectors than those they left behind. Some of them were able to re-establish power in the form of chiefdoms or warlordships over, or at least in protection against, neighboring valley peoples or fellow highlanders; those who failed to re-establish power had to accept some kind of dependency on more differentiated and powerful economic, social and political forces in the valleys, or their allies in the mountains.

Several parallel developments have combined to make the Middle East a region populated by many religious and ethnic groups: it is the cradle of the three monotheistic religions and their offshoots, it has been periodically conquered by outside forces which have left their imprint on the area, and it has been swept by waves of immigration throughout its history.

At the fourth party congress in Chicago in August 1925 Comintern had firmly placed the leadership of the Workers’ Party of America in the hands of the Ruthenberg group.1 The small amount of satisfaction accorded at the sixth IKKI in February 1926 to the Foster minority group was evidence not so much of divided counsels in Moscow as of an unwillingness to become involved in the factional struggles which continued to disfigure the troublesome American party.2 No American questions were on the agenda of the seventh IKKI meeting in November 1926; and Bukharin in his report admitted that “our tasks in this country are for the present still very modest”.3 The party was represented only by Lovestone, Ruthenberg’s chief lieutenant, who used the pseudonym Birch, and by Foster’s second, Bittelman. Both spoke briefly and unprovocatively in the main debate on Bukharin’s report.

There are a few countries in the international community with whom the overwhelming majority of the rest of the community of nations do not wish to been seen to have a close relationship. This select group of countries have been termed pariahs. Besides South Africa, they include Israel, Taiwan and perhaps South Korea. The governments of these countries are seen by their regional Third World neighbours as illegitimate, because territorial sovereignty appears to have been taken by a minority group from the people to whom it rightfully belongs.1 These governments therefore come under united and overwhelming attack from non-aligned and socialist countries in international forums such as the United Nations, and they have been excluded from many of the UN agencies.