ABSTRACT
The problem of the emergence of national or ethnic identity has been brought once more into sharp public focus through a number of violent struggles for selfdetermination. These began after the First and Second World Wars and led to the rise of new nation-states which were largely couched in terms of anticolonialism, anti-imperialism and national independence, while the more recent movements which we are witnessing seem rather to be directed against the existence of these very nation-states in their multi-ethnic, multireligious and multicultural composition.
