An Article Review of Stanley Tambiah’s Politics of Ethnicity

The author outlined ethnicity as a possibility for mobilization for political action as opposed to mobilization of both social class and nation state. Ethnic groups try to assert and ‘exercise preferential or affirmative policies on the basis of majority status.’ Tambiah (1989) presented various explanations. One is that majority have become conscious of the role of collective ethnic identity to be manipulated in political action, with the ‘improvement of transport, quick adoption and deployment of modern media, raised levels of education and literacy, and spread of ‘print capitalism’ borrowed from Benedict Anderson (1983). The second is ‘the proliferation and popularization of street theaters and public arenas,’ as venues for staging political rallies, demonstrations and protests. Such occurrences are simultaneously taking place with population explosion and migration from the rural to the metropolitan. Another is the ‘proliferation of schools, colleges, and universities for the mobilization and massing of activists for engaging in political action.’

Parallel to the politicization of ethnicity is the explosion of ethnic conflict, particularly in the newly independent countries. Tambiah (1989) cited various examples that support this claim. He presented a distribution chart that indicated demographic combinations: (1) countries that are homogeneous in ethnic composition, (2) countries that have a dominant ethnic majority, (3) countries that constitute a large ethnic group and having several “minority” groups, (4) countries that have two large dominant groups of the same size, (5) and pluralistic countries composed of many ethnic groups where no one or two are dominant. The above context, along with the colonial legacy of ‘particularizing and standardizing policies,’ intentionally or unintentionally, promoted ethnic divisiveness and conflict.

The politicization of ethnicity reinforce the internationalization of violence exacerbated by technological advancements ‘making us all vicarious spectators and participants responding with our sympathies and our prejudices,’ Tambiah (1989:433). The author proposed 3 overlapping scenarios of contemporary ethnic conflict. One is the erosion of niche equilibrium of a particular group with the inclusion of other ethnic groups of an otherwise ‘closed’ industry. This leads to the possible displacement or dispossession of the ‘specialized minority’. Another scenario is the domination of the majorities to satellite minorities in the periphery that leads the ethnic minorities to be potential secessionists. The third is the threat for retaliations and counteractions attempts to subordinate unranked and equal groups and to incorporate them unequally as inferior citizens.

Tambiah reiterated that ‘there is a universalizing and homogenizing trend’ that makes people of contemporary societies and countries alike by wanting the same material and social benefits of modernization.’ On the other hand, these people assert their claim to be different based on their ascriptive identity, linguistic difference, ethnic membership, and rights to the soil, and, they wanted that such differences ‘should be basis for the distribution of modern benefits and rewards.’

I was given an insight on the historical analogy on ethnicity and a picture of ethnic distributions to establish the existence of ethnic groups and the conditions why these groups are easily politicized. I support the stand of the author that, indeed, colonization has a part in the conception of ethnic conflict.

Along with modernization and progress, the concept of ethnicity is still changing and given new meanings and categories. Constant reinvention of labels and boundaries takes effect. Observations of these times reveal ethnic conflict coupled with the violence that comes with, of which, is inimical for the state and the people. Yet, these actions are inevitable and mechanisms are useful to cope with such times.