Which of the following is true regarding ethnically based separatist movements?

The Politics of Radical Separatism

Radical separatism depends on a sense of identity that is fundamentally irreconcilable with the larger nation. While such movements vary (both by group and historically) over the degree of autonomy sought and in the extent to which they are willing to use violence when other means are unsuccessful, they have in common a belief that the only means of overcoming oppression is removal from the hegemony of the oppressor. They occur in historical situations of colonialism, territorial annexation, or wholesale movements of peoples (e.g., through slavery). They also vary in the extent to which separatism is a means to an end or an end in itself, and in the extent to which separatism involves territorial claims. The geographical, spatial context for radical separatist movements, therefore, is crucial to an understanding of the possibilities for addressing their claims.

The geography of radical separatism based on territorial claims is extremely mutable and varied. Some historic movements, such as Quebecois separatism or republicanism in Northern Ireland, have shifted over time from the blunt politics of opposition to a practice of transformation from within. While no less adamant in their claims to national identity, such groups have expanded their strategic actions to use more conventional political means, such as party politics, to achieve their ends. Quebecois separatists, for example, refer to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s as the transformation to a secular nationalist society in which institution building—language, cultural practices, the arts, the emergence of a national political party is the Bloc quebecois—is the basis for cultural autonomy within Quebec borders.

Such territorially based identities are seldom hegemonic, however, and are often internally contested. For example, in the case of Basque groups in Spain, identity-based institution building is the basis for an autonomous region in which a number of Basque political groups now compete for power. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), however, shuns those institutions, still espouses radical separation, and is willing to use violence to achieve it. In other regions, such as the former Yugoslavia, politics of identity taken to their furthest ends resulted in widespread violence and radical separation and dismantling of a former national polity. There are many other examples throughout the globe—the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Palestinians in Israel, and Indigenous groups in both developed and lesser developed nation-states—where ongoing violence defines attempts by historically oppressed groups to establish separatist states based on ethnocultural identity, and where official state violence to suppress such movements takes a range of irredentist practices, from genocide and ethnic cleansing to the imposition of strict policing regimes and the denial of human rights.

Geographers have struggled to develop adequate theories for understanding the politics of identity around radical separatism, especially in situations of violence. Historical materialist accounts of the conditions of oppression under which separatist movements have arisen can explain the desperation of nationalist groups in the face of brutal colonial practices and ongoing denial of the most fundamental human rights (which have occurred to one degree or another in all of the cases cited above). They can also explain the liberating power of resistance to oppression, whether through violence or through more conventional political strategies. But they do not necessarily condone violence as a means of liberation. Recent attempts to assess the most entrenched and violent irredentisms, by geographers such as David Delaney, Derek Gregory, and David Harvey, have stressed the importance of going beyond territorial oppression, of recognizing the extent to which contemporary identity-based territories are implicated in global formations of capital, global redistribution of resources, and global political coalitions, and of reimagining the meaning of the nation in light of colonial and other hegemonic forms of domination. While several geographers have cautioned about the danger of romanticizing separatist groups “just because” they have occupied a historic position of marginality, we still face the question of whether it is a radical politics of identity (whether of the dominant or subordinate group), or only a “violent” politics of identity that needs to be overcome in situations of conflict.

Not all forms of radical identity politics are territorially based. A major example is that of the Black Panthers, who emerged in the 1960s to advocate for African Americans' right to form their own destiny in order to overcome poverty and gain access to education, health, and other basic needs. The movement failed within a decade due, among other things, to the death or imprisonment of its leaders, internal ideological conflicts, and the actions of law enforcement to restrain its activities. Recent resurgence of interest in the Black Panther movement on the part of academics, including geographers, raises questions about the possibility for nonterritorial nationalist movements to establish a sense of collective identity sufficient to effect change, and about the logistics of scale in organizing identity-based claims when traditional notions of territory are not the basis for mobilization. Strategies for political organization, as well as the rationale for claiming human rights, change dramatically when not territorially based.

The memory of the Black Panthers is also linked to emerging forms of radical identity claims. In the United States, several social movement groups, seeing a failure over the past four decades to improve the position of African Americans, are claiming a revival of the Black Panther organization premised on peaceful mechanisms for social change. Moreover, similar claims, especially among Islamicist movements, are increasingly diasporic, transnational, and global against the global gathering of strength of Islamophobia, which is also often violent. These movements are by and large premised on a concept of peaceful activism, although some are willing to resort to violence. Diasporic identity politics are considerably more ideologically varied than are movements that lay claim to specific territories. Paradoxically, they are both more potentially powerful because of their global scale, and more difficult to organize because of their spatial diffusion. Surely, there has never been a more important or compelling challenge to political geographers than to understand the implications of emerging diasporic identity politics.

The Politics of Radical Separatism

Radical separatism depends on a sense of identity that is fundamentally irreconcilable with the larger nation. While such movements vary (both by group and historically) over the degree of autonomy sought and in the extent to which they are willing to use violence when other means are unsuccessful, they have in common a belief that the only means of overcoming oppression is removal from the hegemony of the oppressor. They occur in historical situations of colonialism, territorial annexation, or wholesale movements of peoples (e.g., through slavery). They also vary in the extent to which separatism is a means to an end or an end in itself, and in the extent to which separatism involves territorial claims. The geographical, spatial context for radical separatist movements, therefore, is crucial to an understanding of the possibilities for addressing their claims.

The geography of radical separatism based on territorial claims is extremely mutable and varied. Some historic movements, such as Quebecois separatism or republicanism in Northern Ireland, have shifted over time from the blunt politics of opposition to a practice of transformation from within. While no less adamant in their claims to national identity, such groups have expanded their strategic actions to use more conventional political means, such as party politics, to achieve their ends. Quebecois separatists, for example, refer to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s as the transformation to a secular nationalist society in which institution building – language, cultural practices, the arts, the emergence of a national political party, the Bloc Quebecois – is the basis for cultural autonomy within Quebec borders.

Such territorially based identities are seldom hegemonic, however, and are often internally contested. For example, in the case of Basque groups in Spain, identity-based institution building is the basis for an autonomous region in which a number of Basque political groups now compete for power. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), however, shuns those institutions, still espouses radical separation, and is willing to use violence to achieve it. In other regions, such as the former Yugoslavia, politics of identity taken to their furthest ends resulted in widespread violence and radical separation and dismantling of a former national polity. There are many other examples throughout the globe – the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Palestinians in Israel, and indigenous groups in both developed and lesser developed nation-states – where ongoing violence defines attempts by historically oppressed groups to establish separatist states based on ethnocultural identity, and where official state violence to suppress such movements takes a range of irredentist practices, from genocide and ethnic cleansing to the imposition of strict policing regimes and the denial of human rights.

Geographers have struggled to develop adequate theories for understanding the politics of identity around radical separatism, especially in situations of extreme violence. Historical materialist accounts of the conditions of oppression under which separatist movements have arisen can explain the desperation of nationalist groups in the face of brutal colonial practices and ongoing denial of the most fundamental human rights (which have occurred to one degree or another in all of the cases cited above). They can also explain the liberating power of resistance to oppression, whether through violence or through more conventional political strategies. But they do not condone violence as a means of liberation. Recent attempts to assess the most entrenched and violent irredentisms, by geographers such as David Delaney, Deryk Gregory, and David Harvey, have stressed the importance of going beyond territorial oppression, of recognizing the extent to which contemporary identity-based territories are implicated in global formations of capital, global redistribution of resources, and global political coalitions, and of reimagining the meaning of the nation in light of colonial and other hegemonic forms of domination. While several geographers have cautioned about the danger of romanticizing separatist groups ‘just because’ they have occupied a historic position of marginality, we still face the question of whether it is a radical politics of identity (whether of the dominant or subordinate group), or only a ‘violent’ politics of identity that needs to be overcome in situations of conflict.

Not all forms of radical identity politics are territorially based. A major example is that of the Black Panthers, who emerged in the 1960s to advocate for African-Americans’ right to form their own destiny in order to overcome poverty and gain access to education, health, and other basic needs. The movement failed within a decade due, among other things, to the death or imprisonment of its leaders, internal ideological conflicts, and the actions of law enforcement to restrain its activities. Recent resurgence of interest in the Black Panther movement on the part of academics, including geographers, raises questions about the possibility for nonterritorial nationalist movements to establish a sense of collective identity sufficient to effect change, and about the logistics of scale in organizing identity-based claims when traditional notions of territory are not the basis for mobilization. Strategies for political organization, as well as the rationale for claiming human rights, change dramatically when not territorially based.

The memory of the Black Panthers is also linked to emerging forms of radical identity claims. In the US, several social movement groups, seeing a failure over the past four decades to improve the position of African-Americans, are claiming a revival of the Black Panther organization premised on peaceful mechanisms for social change. Moreover, similar claims, especially among Islamicist movements, are increasingly diasporic, transnational, and global against the global gathering of strength of Islamophobia, which is also often violent. These movements are by and large premised on a concept of peaceful activism, although some are willing to resort to violence. Diasporic identity politics are considerably more ideologically varied than are movements that lay claim to specific territories. Paradoxically, they are both more potentially powerful because of their global scale, and more difficult to organize because of their spatial diffusion. Surely, there has never been a more important or compelling challenge to political geographers than to understand the implications of emerging diasporic identity politics.

Emerging Theory of an Ethics Served by Multiple Perspectives

Starratt (1991) argued against the apparent separatism of each ethical position, proposing that each ethic could find its deeper fulfillment only and necessarily in a larger synthesis of the three dominant ethical discourses. If an ethic of justice were to avoid a minimalist approach to estimating what could be considered just, then it would need to be filled out, deepened, or made more humane, by an ethic of care that would ensure a level of generosity in applying the justice formulae. Some morally charged situations calling for the care of a friend or child might also require consideration for the common good, and for complying with the demands of justice. Some situations raise questions not only about the fair application of a school rule, but also about the rule itself, thus bringing the ethic of critique into play. On the other hand, in order to avoid the ranting of the perpetual malcontent or the cynicism of the self-righteous, the ethic of critique needs to be tempered by some sense of compassion for human weakness and moral ineptitude. While some cases will require a heavier emphasis on an ethic of caring, others will require an emphasis on critique or justice. Still other complex cases will require a combination of all three ethics in their fuller resolution.

Subsequently, Strike teamed up with Noddings and Katz to search for common ground between the ethics of justice and caring (Katz et al., 1999). While the essays in that book were too diverse to construct a coherent umbrella for the two ethics, the book pointed to the complementarity between both ethical approaches. Furthermore, as Strike (1999) pointed out in his essay, it would be a mistake to assume that the ethics of justice and caring encompassed the whole field of educational ethics and its many complex problems. That suggestion echoed the earlier work by Capper (1993) who had stressed the need for a multi-paradigm approach in her collection of essays that reflected the challenges a pluralistic society pose for educational leaders.

Nash’s (1996) ecumenical approach for developing legitimate, but differing bases for understanding the real world of ethical situations, also agrees with Strike’s argument for using multiple perspectives. His book on the ethical education of educators and other human service professionals suggests that values and beliefs derived from one’s upbringing should be taken seriously, not discounted out of hand. Rather, he would have his students test those ethical beliefs and values in explicit applications to various ethically charged situations. He encourages, also, an ethical exploration of moral character based on foundational virtues that seem essential to a fully human life. Finally, he had his students explore the application of principled ethical reasoning to various situations. Throughout his book he refused to provide correct answers, insisting that everyone take responsibility for their choices to respond to each situation and provide reasonable defenses for those choices.

In Australia, the work of Haynes (1998) analyzes multiple ethical theories and perspectives but argues that it is not “… useful to treat them as oppositional theories, but as theories that simply pick up different aspects of morality” (1998: 8). She recommends that educational practitioners should learn to reflect on ethical and moral challenges in a rational way, rather that adopt a stance of unthinking acceptance and they should develop their criteria or standards for moral judgment through dialog on the propriety of their actions and those of others.

Shapiro and Stepkovich (2001) turned their experience of team-teaching a course in ethics to prospective school administrators into a book They echoed Capper, Strike, and Nash in arguing for multiple paradigms, including both a personal and a professional code of ethics. They call attention to the ethic of the profession which is centered around the best interests of the student, thus bringing deliberations derived from all of the ethical perspectives into focus around this core value.

Arab Nationalism

During World War I, the vast majority of Ottoman subjects remained loyal to the Empire. Separatism remained a minority trend among its Muslim population: in 1915, Arab activists in Damascus contacted the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad in the Hashemite line and de facto of the holy city, who, after some hesitation, signaled his willingness to rebel, in the name of Islam, against the sultan-caliph. In a separate move, Hussein obtained British declarations of support for Arab independence under Hashemite leadership in exchange for military revolt. The Ottoman authorities reacted harshly to all stirrings of autonomous political activity including Arabism, which under the circumstances amounted to high treason, and in 1915/16 hanged dozens of activists, creating the first martyrs to the Arab cause. In June 1916, Hussein declared the Arab Revolt and after the fall of Medina in November 1916, proclaimed himself ‘king of the Arab lands.’ In the course of the years 1917/18, British, Arab, and Jewish forces jointly conquered Palestine and Syria. In October 1918, an ‘Arab government’ was installed in Damascus under Faisal ibn al-Hussein, one of the Sharif's sons, who with a group of Arab nationalists of diverse origins, attempted to take control of a country ravaged by war, famine, and disease. In March 1920, a Syrian General Congress representing Arab nationalists from Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon proclaimed the independence of ‘greater Syria’ with Faisal as king. Within Syria proper, their policies were partly assisted and partly resisted by urban, tribal, and village-based popular committees defending their own understandings of collective interest (Gelvin, 1998).

Britain and France were in the meantime taking measures to implement their different wartime arrangements, most of them secret, which included not only the correspondence with the Sharif, but also the Sykes–Picot agreement of May 1916 regarding their respective spheres of interest in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 promising British support for the establishment ‘in Palestine’ of a ‘national home’ for the Jewish people. The terms of these commitments had somehow to be reconciled; Britain and France did so at the expense of their Arab allies. As a result of World War I, more Arab lands were under European control than ever before, be it as provinces (Algeria), colonies (Aden), protectorates (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kuwait), or mandates (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq) under the newly created League of Nations. Only the Zaidi Imamate of Yemen and the Saudi kingdom in Najd and Hijaz gained or retained full independence. The war and its aftermath defined some of the themes that were gradually woven into the ‘grand narration’ of Arab nationalism: the crucial role of ‘martyrs’ for national liberation; the ‘Great Arab Revolt’ or ‘revolution’ (thawra) of 1916–18 (to be followed by similar ‘revolutions’ in Egypt 1919, Iraq 1920, Syria 1925–27, the Egyptian officer coup of July 1952, as well as a series of ‘corrective revolutions’ in the 1970s and 1980s); exposure to ‘conspiracies’ and intimately linked to it, ‘betrayal’ of the Arabs by the West.

Within the framework of the emerging Arab state system, Arabism evolved into a political movement of growing impact and complexity, providing one of the major sources of anticolonial struggle and sentiment. The interwar period witnessed the rise of new social and political forces alongside the urban notables that still dominated politics and society (at least outside tribal areas): new urban middle-class parties that could not be considered mere covers for elite families or factions; paramilitary youth movements inspired by the fascist model; Islamic movements of social and political reform; socialist and communist groups, some with links to trade unions, of various backgrounds and affiliations – all of them responding to Arab references, inflecting their emphases, adapting or rejecting them. If there was a hegemonic formulation of (politicized) Arabism (al-uruba) it was provided by Sati al-Husry (1880–1968) who as a high government official was able to influence public education in Iraq (then still under British mandate) (Cleveland, 1971; Tibi, 1981). Visibly influenced by the German romantic school, and Herder in particular, Husry defined the Arab nation on the basis of language, history, and destiny, embedding his vision in a narrative of pristine glory, foreign-machinated decline and eventual awakening, with a heavy emphasis on the us/them dichotomy, ‘them’ being the Arabs' enemies and oppressors from the Byzantines and Crusaders to the Ottoman Turks, Zionist Jews, and European colonial powers. The criteria of inclusion and exclusion remained malleable and contested: Arabness could be interpreted in secular terms to include all men and women of Arabic language and culture regardless of their religious or ethnic background, and thus provide the basis of common nationhood and citizenship; but it was impregnated so strongly with references of a specifically Sunni Muslim nature that it could also be given a distinctly religious (Sunni Muslim) coloring. At the same time it contained enough references to the superiority of the Arab race and genius to make it possible for Kurds, Berbers, or Jews to be marginalized, if not entirely excluded, from the national community.

Abstract

Examining the concept of social integration, I challenge the view that multiculturalism emphasizes difference at the expense of commonality, separatism rather than mixing, group rather than national identities, relativism rather than a defense of democratic values. I argue that multiculturalism is a mode of integration, which can be contrasted with other modes such as assimilation, individualist-integration, and cosmopolitanism, and like the others it is based on the core democratic values of liberty, equality, and fraternity/unity. While multiculturalism involves a respect for minority identities, this is not at the expense of national identities, as long as the latter are remade to include minority as well as majority identities. The discussion relies mainly on examples from Western Europe.

Cultural Pluralism and the Tyranny of the ‘Shoulds’

Historically, group relations between White Anglo and all other racial–cultural groups in the USA have influenced psychological, social, and cultural adjustment for members of dominant (e.g., mainly White Anglo-Saxon) and subordinate cultural (e.g., visible racial–cultural) groups. For example, from the mid-1700s to the early 1880s, the melting pot concept (Zangwill, 1910) assumed all entering US inhabitants would willingly relinquish indigenous heritages and adopt existing White Anglo-Saxon cultural norms. From the late 1880s to the mid-1950s, this biologically blended melting pot became ‘Americanized’ (Fairchild, 1926). Through Americanization, the ideology of cultural pluralism or cultural unity advocated including visible racial–cultural groups into ‘mainstream’ American culture. Symbolic appreciation for diversity, especially from other civilizations beside White-European societies through congressional legislation and Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s furthered the cultural pluralist movement. However, while White European immigrants were expected to assimilate dominant White Anglo-Saxon cultural norms, visible racial–cultural groups were still excluded and institutionally segregated.

Thus, cultural pluralism ideology was contradictory to the realities of the American ‘melting pot.’ While preserving cultural and social heritages as a means to creating a new society, economic, political, and educational separatism for visible racial–cultural groups was creating a ‘tyranny of the shoulds’ – idealized images and standards imposed upon visible racial–cultural people by the dominant society resulting in the suppression of the ‘true self’ (Horney, 1950). Despite conformist trends throughout the nineteenth century, voices of dissent and the ‘tyranny of the shoulds’ was heard in the words of W.E.B. Dubois as:

…a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

1989, p. 3

At some level, cultural pluralism may have enabled visible racial–cultural people to exist in threatening environments. However, the consequences of vigilance against repressive environments also created unnecessary personal and group self-doubt, alienation, and isolation from resources and support, thus limiting a person's ability to achieve their full potential.

Unresolved issues

This chapter gives a critical analysis of China’s past policies toward Xinjiang in general and the Uyghurs in particular. Among all the ethnic groups of Xinjiang, the Uyghur and the Han are the largest. For a long time, Uyghurs and the mostly Han has disagreed on which group has greater historical claim to the Xinjiang region: Uyghurs believe their ancestors were indigenous to the area, but government policy considers present-day Xinjiang to have belonged to China since around 200 bc (Gladney, 2004b, pp. 63–98). Nevertheless, according to James A. Millward (professor of Chinese and Central Asian History at Georgetown University), foreigners often mistakenly think that Urumqi (capital city of Xinjiang) was originally a Uyghur city and that the Chinese destroyed its Uyghur character and culture. In reality, Urumqi was founded as a Chinese city by Han and Hui (Tungans), and the Uyghurs are new to the city (Millward, 1998, pp. 133–134).

Although China’s current minority policy has reinforced a Uyghur ethnic identity that is distinct from the Han population, some scholars argue that Beijing unofficially favors a monolingual, monocultural model that is based on the majority crackdown on any activity that appears to constitute separatism.14 These policies, in addition to the long-standing cultural differences, have sometimes resulted in “resentments” between Uyghur and Han citizens. On the one hand, as a result of Han immigration and government policies, Uyghurs’ freedoms of religion and of movement are curtailed, but most Uyghurs argue that the government deliberately downplays their history and traditional culture. On the other hand, some Han citizens view the Uyghurs as benefiting from special treatment, such as preferential admission to universities and exemption from the one-child policy, and as harboring separatist aspirations.

China has invented various approaches to promote Xinjiang’s economic development and social stability. But Xinjiang, after more than 60 years of socialist construction with Chinese characteristics, is still a politically fragile region. As will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5, China’s development programs in Xinjiang are not successful, at least compared with those in Tibet. Among the negative effects that China’s development programs have yielded in Xinjiang during the past decades are the interregional and interethnic economic disparities.

Without good reason, the above-mentioned interregional and interethnic economic disparities should have been responsible to most, if not all, of the growing frequencies of ethnic unrest related to Xinjiang (see Chapter 3 for the detailed narratives of the Uyghur unrest from the 1980s to the 2010s). Most of the terrorists involved in recent attacks are young men or women in their 20s or 30s, indicating that basic education and employment in Xinjiang need to be strengthened. In May 2014, as the Chinese government vowed to crack down on separatists and terrorists, major measures relating to the stability of Xinjiang were announced:

According to the statement released after a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, chaired by its general secretary, Xi Jinping from May 29 to 30, 2014, steps will be taken to boost local education in Xinjiang, including speeding up the building of boarding schools in agricultural, pastoral areas, and remote areas and offering free education for senior middle school students (i.e., those from school years 10 to 12) in Xinjiang’s southern regions, mainly inhabited by ethnic Uyghurs.15

According to a new regulation issued by the government of Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region on May 31, 2014, no less than 70 percent of the newly employees offered by all enterprises, including state-owned enterprises, in Xinjiang must come from local Xinjiang. To achieve this target, Xinjiang will establish a special fund for the development of labor-intensive industry. Specific measures include (i) to heavily invest in textile and apparel sectors, (ii) to implement large-scale employment programs, and (iii) to create “fast track” projects in southern Xinjiang by cultivating private enterprises to improve local employment.16

Are these policies or measures toward Xinjiang too late (or not enough) to prevent the Han–Uyghur unrest? Let us open our eyes to watch what will happen in Xinjiang.

Theoretical Disunification

Psychology was a disorganized science when William James published his Principles of Psychology in 1890 and little progress has been made to date. I expect that many readers of this book agree with this claim and therefore my burden of proof here is light because the evidence of the fragmentation of our science and profession is both extensive and obvious. But not all readers think that disunification is bad. Some readers even think that disunification is good and should be preserved, and that theoretical unification should be opposed.

Collective

Just as ‘birds of a feather flock together’ so too do psychologists. Individual psychologists seek membership in organizations that reflect their interests. These organizations have membership committees that seek to identify and recruit like-minded individuals. They target graduate and undergraduate students who are likely to become full members upon graduation and offer them reduced membership fees and trial subscriptions to journals and newsletters. We refer to these practices as marketing and professional development. These groups elect officers, collect dues, publish journals and newsletters, hold conferences and annual meetings where they present awards to members who have promoted the organization or who best exemplify the goals and objectives of the organization. In general, professional groups seek to extend themselves by showing how different they are and how important these differences are. Their existence is directly dependent upon separatism and is threatened by unification. Candidates for office in a professional association whose platform is to disband and join with another group to promote common interests are unlikely to be elected. Candidates who articulate and promote the group’s distinctive and separatist mission are more likely to be elected. Tenure and promotion committees look for participation in professional societies as evidence of contributing to and leading one’s profession. But this leadership exclusively promotes separatism and the fragmentation of psychology. Ironically, it is just these leaders that are needed to lead their colleagues towards psychology becoming a mature unified science. But like clan leaders who have no concept of nationhood, they lead their kin into xenophobic isolation.5

The Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies website6 states that ‘Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies (CBT) use techniques that are based on scientific evidence to understand and treat psychological symptoms’. This professional identification with science has characterized this organization since its inception over four decades ago. The first implication of this professional identification is that allegiance to science distinguishes its members from all other psychologists who presumably provide treatment based on unscientific professional traditions. The second implication is that all practitioners whose treatments are backed by science are welcome.

The extensive and rapidly growing EST literature supporting the efficacy and effectiveness7 of psychodynamic therapies (PDTs) has considerably complicated professional identification. Meta-analyses by Abbass et al. (2006), Anderson and Lambert (1995), Crits-Christoph (1992), de Maat et al. (2009), Leichsenring (2001, 2005), Leichsenring and Leibing (2003), and Leichsenring et al. (2004) have demonstrated that psychodynamic therapies (PDTs) produce therapeutic effects that are greater than wait list controls, and sometimes equal to those produced by CBT.8

Thoma et al. (2012) assessed the research design quality of 120 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of CBT covering 10,423 patients and 94 randomized controlled trials of psychodynamic therapy covering 7,200 patients. He found that the quality of both types of RCTs was essentially identical. The mean and standard deviation of quality scores was 25.5 (SD = 9.13) for the CBT trials and 25.1 (SD = 9.04) for the psychodynamic trials. These highly similar means are not statistically or clinically different. Research quality was found to be inversely related to effect size, with better studies showing smaller effects (F (4,91) = 12.6, p < 0.0001, adjusted R2 = 0.525) because they controlled for more sources of variation. Equity in research quality therefore means equity in effect size.

Controlled research also supports Emotion-focused Therapy (Ellison et al., 2009; Goldman et al., 2006; Greenberg & Watson, 1998; Watson et al., 2003). The International Society for Interpersonal Therapy reported that there are currently over 250 empirical studies supporting the effectiveness and efficacy of interpersonal therapy (IPT).9 I do not cite evidence of effectiveness of CBT because it is so well established. A list of these interventions can be found at the following link: http://www.div12.org/PsychologicalTreatments/disorders.html.

Are all clinicians who base their practice on these ESTs inclined to join or welcomed to join ABCT? Will they be invited and accepted because there are now well-controlled studies demonstrating efficacy and effectiveness of PDT? Will empirically supported PDTs be included in the list of ESTs maintained by APA Division 12 (Clinical Psychology)? Will ABCT and Division 12 promote PDTs with the same enthusiasm as they promote CBTs? Are the explanations for why PDTs are effective to be accepted now that scientific support for their efficacy has been found? I expect that the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’. Can allegiance to the scientific method resolve our professional identity fractures? I don’t think so, because explanation is such a vital part of science. It is illogical to conclude that the underlying theory of why treatments should work is correct based on the fact that the treatment is effective, for this commits the logical error known as affirming the consequent. Treatments can have their effects for entirely different reasons than those proposed by the theory used to generate them. Clinicians can be right for the wrong reasons. Hence, clinicians with equally empirically supported treatments can claim that diametrically opposed theoretical reasons explain why their treatments are effective.

There are few groups whose main goal is theoretical unification. They face the same membership challenges as do all other groups. Fortunately, psychologists often belong to more than one professional organization.

Aksu bombing (2010)

At about 10:30 on August 19, 2010, a Uyghur man, using a three-wheeled vehicle, detonated explosives in a crowd of police and paramilitary guards in Aksu, Xinjiang. The bombing eventually resulted in at least seven deaths and 14 injuries. The assailant targeted police officers in the area, and most of the victims were also Uyghurs (Chang, August 20, 2010).

Before the 2010 Aksu bombing, Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri was quoted as saying that “Xinjiang faces a long and fierce and very complicated struggle” because “Separatism in Xinjiang has a very long history, it was there in the past, it is still here now and it will continue in the future” (Bristow, August 19, 2010). The site of the explosion, Aksu, is about 650 km west of Urumqi and just 60 km from the border with Kyrgyzstan. According to a report by the Associated Press, two attackers drove a three-wheeled motorbike into a crowd and threw explosives from it. The attack was carried out by a man, who was arrested on the spot and whom Xinjiang government spokeswoman Hou Hanmin stated is Uyghur, and a woman who died during the attack (Chang, August 20, 2010).

Of the seven victims died, at least five were local security officers. An anonymous Radio Free Asia source claims that officers in the targeted police station had commonly booked Uyghurs with beards or traditional head coverings and brought them to the police station for political education (Radio Free Asia, August 19, 2010). Chinese police stated that it was an intentional act and that a suspect was detained at the scene after incurring injuries himself. According to Xinjiang government spokesperson, the four detained suspects were part of a “violent gang of six people” (Associated Press, August 25, 2010).