UC Berkeley

The history of Europe in the twentieth century is often told as one of integration: the traumas of World War I and World War II taught Europeans that they needed to come together to maintain peace. Even though the continent was divided during the Cold War, these political divisions ultimately faded away and Europe united across its traditional East-West and North-South divides. However, this narrative of European history glosses over several violent incidents in the twentieth century that have led to lasting social division, notably the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Troubles, and the Spanish-Basque Conflict. These conflicts made ethnic identity oppositional in nature, transforming ethnic difference into ethnic polarization and ultimately ethnic exclusivism. Unlike with violence in the past, when Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and Basques and Spaniards in Spain returned to peaceful coexistence once the conflicts had ended, these conflicts fostered polarization that has been maintained – and has in some ways worsened – with peace.These three conflicts fundamentally transformed ethnic relations in these regions. Their totalizing nature impacted every facet of society and their stakes – how a state that was breaking down would be reformed and what role ethnic minorities should play within it – meant that violence was more complex than in past conflicts. Violence was interethnic, intra-ethnic, and symbolic, meaning that ethnic groups were pushed apart, the ethnic in-group was “purged” and intimidated into accepting nationalist narratives, and violence impacted nearly every aspect of society – from monuments to education to sports. The nature and scope of the violence made ethnic identities both irreconcilable and the primary means of viewing oneself. But the violence alone was not enough to maintain social division after the conflicts ended. For this, exclusivism had to be socialized by ethnic groups through institutions like commemoration, education, and sports. These venues of memory set nationalistic narratives of the past in stone, passed them down to future generations, and shaped who people associate with, thus mirroring, reinforcing, and amplifying the divisions exacerbated by violence. The symbolic conflicts enshrined in and advanced by these polarized memory cultures both prevent society from returning to pre-conflict coexistence and push ethnic groups further apart even in peacetime.