Ethnic conflict is a form of conflict in which different ethnic groups struggle against each other, often involving disputes over political power, economic resources, cultural dominance, or territorial claims. These conflicts arise from perceived or actual inequalities, historical grievances, identity politics, and competition for scarce resources, and can manifest in violence, discrimination, and social fragmentation. More often than not, ethnicity is not the driving force for conflicts but a lever used by politicians to mobilize supporters in pursuit of power, wealth, and resources.

7.9.1 The Kurdish Within Turkey

One ongoing ethnic conflict is the conflict between the Kurdish population and the Turkish government. This conflict primarily revolves around the Kurdish population’s struggle for greater autonomy and cultural rights within Turkey, which has persisted for decades and continues to generate significant violence and tension.

The Kurds are an ethnic group spread across several countries in the Middle East, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. In Turkey, they constitute a significant minority, but have long faced policies of assimilation and repression from the Turkish state. The Kurdish population in Turkey has sought recognition of their cultural and linguistic rights, as well as greater political autonomy which has not been granted.

As a result the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was founded in 1978  –  the main Kurdish militant group fighting for greater rights and autonomy. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. The Turkish government has responded to the PKK insurgency with military operations, strict security measures, and policies aimed at curbing Kurdish nationalism.

The Kurdish-Turkish conflict has seen intermittent periods of ceasefire and peace talks, but violence has flared up repeatedly, particularly since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2015, which has intensified clashes between Turkish security forces and the PKK. This conflict has resulted in significant civilian casualties and displacement, with human rights organizations reporting abuses by both sides. Additionally, the broader instability in the region, especially the Syrian Civil War and the influx of  millions of refugees many of them Kurdish and the establishment of Kurdish autonomous regions in Syria, has further complicated the dynamics in Turkey.

7.9.2 Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

The 20th Century was also the deadliest century, regarding war, in human history.  This century experienced two world wars, multiple civil wars, genocides in Rwanda (Tutsis and Hutus), Sudan, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust that decimated the Jewish population in Europe during WWII. In addition to WWI and WWII, this century experienced the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the first Gulf War. Additionally, this century saw regional and civil conflicts such as those experienced in the Congo (6 million people died), as well as an upsurge in child soldiers and modern slavery.

Some of the worst acts by humans have been concerning ethnic cleansing and genocide. The United Nations Security Council established Resolution 780, which states that ethnic cleansing is “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

Genocide is usually defined as the intentional killing of large numbers of people  targeted because of their ethnicity, political ideology, religion, or culture. At first glance, it appears that ethnic cleansing and genocide are similar. With ethnic cleansing, the aim is to remove a group of people with similar ethnic backgrounds from a specific geographic region by any means possible. This could include forced migration, terror and rape, destruction of villages, and large-scale death. With genocide, the real intent is the death of a group of people at any scale possible until they are extinct. This has happened many times in recent history including Armenia, Burma, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and now China and the Uyghurs. Sadly, with all these ethnic conflicts, most were not officially declared as genocides by the United Nations Security Council, but the conditions on the ground and the reasons why they were occurring fit the definition.

Possibly the most well-known case of genocide is Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people in the first part of the twentieth century. Also known as the Holocaust, the explicit goal of Hitler’s “Final Solution” was the eradication of European Jewry, as well as the destruction of other minority groups such as the Romani (commonly known as gypsies), people with disabilities, and LGTBQ+ individuals. With forced emigration, concentration camps, and mass executions in gas chambers, Hitler’s Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of 12 million people, 6 million of whom were Jewish. Hitler’s intent was clear, and the high Jewish death toll certainly indicates that Hitler and his regime committed genocide. However, how do we understand genocide that is not so overt and deliberate?

The treatment of aboriginal Australians is also an example of genocide committed against indigenous people. Historical accounts suggest that between 1824 and 1908, white settlers killed more than 10,000 native Aborigines in Tasmania and Australia (Tatz 2006).

Another example is the European colonization of North America. Some historians estimate that Native American populations dwindled from approximately 12 million people in the year 1500 to barely 237,000 by the year 1900 (Lewy 2004). European settlers coerced American Indians off their lands, often causing thousands of deaths in forced removals, such as occurred in the Cherokee or Potawatomi Trail of Tears.

Settlers also enslaved Native Americans and forced them to give up their religious and cultural practices. However, the primary cause of Native American death was neither slavery nor war nor forced removal: it was the introduction of European diseases and Indians’ lack of immunity to them. Smallpox, diphtheria, and measles flourished among indigenous American tribes who had no exposure to the diseases and no ability to fight them. Quite simply, these diseases decimated the tribes. How planned this genocide was remains a topic of contention. Some argue that the spread of disease was an unintended effect of conquest, while others believe it was intentional citing rumors of smallpox-infected blankets being distributed as “gifts” to tribes.

Genocide is not just a historical concept; it is practiced today. Recently, ethnic and geographic conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. As part of an ongoing land conflict, the Sudanese government and their state-sponsored Janjaweed militia have led a campaign of killing, forced displacement, and systematic rape of Darfuri people. Although a treaty was signed in 2011, the peace is fragile. The Human Rights Watch organization announced that in 2023 new mass murders occurred.

Today, there are a few situations that may be classified as a genocide. The first is in Myanmar, where the Buddhist government has been systematically driving out the Muslim populations called Rohingya.

There is also the situation in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been bombing cities and towns using U.S. weaponry that were to target Iranian militants . They  killed over 377,000 people and many more injured. Yemen remains among the world’s worst humanitarian crises with an estimated 4.56 million people displaced by the conflict and over 70,000 refugees and asylum seekers based on UNHCR figures. Many human rights advocates claim the situation is approaching a genocide.

In July 2011, South Sudan became the world’s newest country when it voted to break away from Sudan. Yet by December 2013, fighting between the new government and rebel fighters created a new civil war within the new country. Thousands of civilians have been killed, with millions more displaced by the violence. In addition, South Sudan simultaneously drowning and drying as the climate crisis tightens its grip. An unprecedented flooding crisis has swallowed large swathes of the country while other parts are grappling with devastating drought. It has been estimated by the World Food Programme that more than 7 million people are food insecure, and 1.65 million children are malnourished.

7.9.3  Expulsion

Expulsion refers to a subordinate group being forced, by a dominant group, to leave a particular area or country. As seen in the examples of the Trail of Tears and the Holocaust, expulsion can be a factor in genocide. However, it can also stand on its own as a destructive group interaction. Expulsion has often occurred historically with an ethnic or racial basis. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, after the Japanese government’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The Order authorized the establishment of internment camps for anyone with as little as one-eighth Japanese ancestry (i.e., one great-grandparent who was Japanese). Over 120,000 legal Japanese residents and Japanese U.S. citizens, many of them children, were held in these camps for up to four years, even though there was never any evidence of collusion or espionage. In fact, many Japanese Americans continued to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States by serving in the U.S. military during the War. In the 1990s, the U.S. executive branch issued a formal apology for this expulsion; reparation efforts continue today.

7.9.4 The Black Sea Area

The Black Sea region is not widely recognized for its history of genocide and ethnic cleansing. And yet, it is likely that no other area in the world has endured more instances of these atrocities, particularly in the 20th century. This Black Sea Region map at Geocurrent highlights significant episodes in the region. Clearly, the Black Sea region has been the site of numerous such events.

In the 20th century mass killings were started off with what is called the Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine. This famine was induced by Soviet industrialization and collectivization of agriculture in 1932 to 1933. Ukraine was the area that produced the most grains so they were subjected to unreasonable high production quotas that killed between 3.5 and 5 million of Ukrainians.

The area was controlled by Stalin as Hitler invaded the region. Hitler commanded the genocide of numerous Jews residing in the northern Black Sea region. As German forces advanced towards the oil fields of Baku in today’s Azerbaijan,  Stalin mandated the mass deportation of several ethnic groups in the area, questioning their loyalty to the Bolshevik regime. This deportation process was itself genocidal, resulting in the deaths of vast numbers of people.

Other factors also contributed to the processes of ethnic removal in the Black Sea region. Historically, the coastal zone was characterized by profound ethnolinguistic diversity, common in maritime areas with extensive interregional trade. This diversity conflicted with the modern political model of the ethnically based nation-state. Consequently, many ethnic communities were expelled to create more ethnically homogeneous countries. Sometimes, this involved mutual expulsions, such as when the new Turkish Republic expelled its ethnic Greeks to Greece, and Greece expelled most of its ethnic Turks to Turkey. Similar events occurred in the 1940s between Romania and Bulgaria. These episodes continued throughout the 20th century, exemplified by Bulgaria’s mass expulsions of ethnic Turks in the 1980s.

And, unfortunately, it is this very same area that now undergoes the latest genocide in Europe. Russia is dead serious about grabbing the land around the Black Sea and it looks like they want all of Ukraine at this point. Read this article, Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian genocide is proceeding in plain view By Taras Kuzio. Russia Is Committing Cultural Genocide in Ukraine is another article on the atrocities that occur in Ukraine.