What is the reason for ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing, and genocide?

Ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing, and genocide are not random events. They do not happen because some dictator wakes up in the morning and decides to kill an ethnic minority that day. These things occasionally happened in tribal societies and aristocrat peasant societies. Democratic market societies try to integrate minority groups into the mainstream and encourage them to become productive and prosperous citizens.

That leaves oligarchic society, especially countries that are in the early stage of nation-state development. This is when most episodes of ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing, and genocide occur. The largest single example happened when India and Pakistan gained their independence from the British. Angry mobs forced tens of millions of Muslims to flee India and seek refuge in Pakistan. Millions died along the way. At the same time Pakistani mobs evicted millions of Hindus from their homes and forced them to march south into India, again with great loss of life. This terrible episode of religious cleansing finalized the creation of two nations, one Hindu and one Moslem, out of what had been British India.

It is all very well for Western nations to oppose the horrors and brutality of ethnic and religious cleansing, but the well-documented evidence of history is very clear on this subject. Most Western nations also made use of horrific episodes of ethnic and religious cleansing in the development of their own nation-states. The historical data is there for anyone who cares to investigate. Ethnic and religious cleansing have been regularly used as a common occurrence in the process of nation-state development.

The Netherlands was the first recognizable, modern, market economy nation-state. It was born out of the terrible religious wars of 16th century Western Europe between Catholics and Protestants. The Habsburg Spanish Catholic dynasty, which ruled the Netherlands, tried to exterminate the Protestant heresy. The Protestant Dutch fought back against the Spanish, and against the Catholics in their own population. When the smoke cleared, the Spanish armies and the local Catholics had both been cleansed from the 16 Northern Provinces of the Netherlands. After getting rid of the monarchy and the largest source of disunity, they formed a united government and quickly became the first modern nation-state.

The second nation-state was Great Britain. It was formed in 1707 by the union of England and Scotland. The Lowland Scots more or less accepted this union but the Highlanders most emphatically did not. After centuries of English interference in Scottish affairs, the Highlanders looked upon the English as enemies. As part of their rebellion the Highlanders supported the Stuart dynasty which had previously been monarchs of Scotland and England but were now deposed and in exile in France. Parliament and the new monarch were determined to end Highland rebellion once and for all.

For years English troops roamed the Scottish Highlands killing all who opposed them. A more imaginative solution was also used. Highland clan chiefs were encouraged to evict their clansmen and enclose the land for sheep. If they accepted this proposal, the land—which previously had been the common property of the clan—would become their private property. If they refused, English troops would be brought in to kill everyone that could be found. In today’s idiom, this is called “an offer that cannot be refused.” It was usually accepted. Tens of thousands of displaced Highlanders were rounded up and transported as slave labor to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean, where their life expectancy was about one year.

The United States was the third modern nation-state. It still holds the world record for the most acts of ethnic cleansing perpetrated over the longest period of time. For two and a half centuries, from the 1630s to the 1890s, European colonists to North America evicted the native Indian tribes from their homes and forced them westward. As the settlers pushed west themselves, the Indians were cleansed again and again. Some of the most worthless land in the west was set aside for their use as Indian Reservations. Most reservations were little more than death camps where Indians were sent to starve.

When minorities are forcibly evicted from some of their land, that is ethnic cleansing. When they are evicted from nearly all of their land, and only tiny remnant communities survive, that amounts to genocide. Most Americans today seem to believe that genocide is an evil act committed by brutal dictators for the sheer joy of killing. At the same time they have made legends and great heroes of the frontiersmen who led the fight against the Indians. This may be the greatest example of the “double standard” known to history.

There are three general reasons for ethnic and religious cleansing.

1. An ethnic group that the nation wants to exclude from citizenship inhabits land that the nation wants to include as part of its own territory. This was the reason for the cleansing of Indians from the United States and the cleansing of Palestinians from Israel.


2. There are many cases where two or more groups with different identities inhabit the same area. This usually causes problems for newly developing, market economy nation-states and often leads to violence, but in most cases it does not lead to all out ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, this situation is so common that even though it leads to ethnic cleansing only in a small percent of the most difficult cases, that still accounts for many such instances known to history. This was the reason for religious cleansing in India and the Netherlands.


3. In a few aristocrat peasant societies and more often in imperial colonies, a situation has arisen where an ethnic minority becomes the commercial class of the society. This happened with the Jews in Central Europe and with the Greeks and Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. The British imperialists sometimes brought Indians to their colonies in Africa and elsewhere to perform the role of small shopkeepers or to labor on the plantations. In the 19th century large numbers of Chinese infiltrated into Southeast Asia and became the primary commercial class in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia while these countries were under imperial control. In aristocratic states and imperial colonies it was quite possible for a foreign minority to dominate small-scale commerce and industry. When the change is made to a market economy nation-state it is absolutely impossible for this situation to continue. Commerce and industry are the life-blood of a modern nation-state. They cannot continue to be dominated by a foreign minority. This, along with the number two problem stated above was the reason for the Holocaust of the Jews.

In the last sixty years something like 120 new nation-states have been created. Most of them were previously colonial possessions. The local populations did not form the boundaries of these countries in any kind of natural way. They were established by imperial conquerors and in many cases have no relationship to natural ethnic or economic territories. The inevitable outcome has been chaos and confusion for many of these new nations. Many of these countries have already endured episodes of ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing. Many more such episodes can be expected in the future.

Some readers may believe that I am advocating or condoning ethnic cleansing and genocide. If so, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I do not condone ethnic cleansing. I am just trying to explain it. In recent years some Western nations have decided that they should intervene to prevent ethnic cleansing in other countries. It is difficult to argue with this decision. However, when debating the question it should not be phrased in terms like: should we stop this evil dictator from carrying out his senseless plan for ethnic cleansing? The question should be debated with the full knowledge and understanding of the complexities of the issue.