346.8
Nation, Religion and Social Conflict
Key word: social identity, conflict, nationalism, religion
Religion and nation are the two controversial terms, both can be seen as the process identification as well as the basis for conflict and harmony among social groups. In some respect nation as traditional notion of self-determination is essentially the right of a people to determine their destiny and to govern their own affairs to fulfill the sense of pride and self-esteems. However religion is also what people were inspired by, it involved idea it has never been abstract, it animate individuals, communities and nations. In history of human kind both nationalism and religion have always contribute to conflict, off course that social conflict is the outcome of multi domination factors which always include the political and social identities. The centrality of national and religious identification into the social conflict illustrated that struggle over territory, power, and resource has always been taken place under the shadow of nation or religion. To an extend the struggle over identity can also take a similar meaning as the struggle over power and resources, both nation and religion as collective identity for social group plays a pivotal role in creating social conflict. According to sociologists and social psychologists; the ethno-national groups always categorizing themselves from the other who are consider as outsider, the intimacy in-group develop hatred toward out-group, and it is very common among the nationalist and other social groups who have the similar identity. The attempt of this paper is to look that how nationalism and religion cause and create conflict among social groups and what is the role of social identity from sociological and social psychological stand point.