Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
High ethnic diversity is the "natural" situation.
Ethnically homogenous countries tend to be ones which have in some point had a strong nationalistic ("right wing") central government that had an active policy of eradicating ethnic minority identities and languages. (And in a well-known extreme case, also the minority people.) The most important tools here were general conscription and public schools.
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I'm not sure that I agree with that. What makes nationalistic movements less "natural" than other siutations? A lot of places have high diversity because they were continuously invaded, occupied and colonized by intolerant foreigners. Is that really any moe or less natural?
For example, a place like Bosnia doesn't have relatively high diversity because of a lack of nationalism (quite the opposite), just like a place like Iceland doesn't have low diversity because of nationalist movements. It's all about resources and how accessible those resources are for others. Sometimes these resources are accessible by choice (like diversity through immigration), by quite often it is by force.
I think for every homogenous country that had nationalist movements, I could point out a homogenous country that is like that due to historical circumstance, or non-homogenous countries that are full of nationalism.
Basically, the higher traffic during nomadic periods and constant warring for resources are what have caused diversity in a lot of areas. Both are natural results of human nature.