Ethnic groups and politcal boundaries

Cultural values, beliefs, and ideals are all qualities that ethnic groups share and that distinguish them from other groups. These groups also commonly share history, kinship, religion and language. Political boundaries are only imaginary lines that can separate countries, states, or provinces within countries from one another. These boundaries do not necessarily enclose different ethnic groups. The United States, for example, has a large quantity of those boundaries in the country itself but also within its states. If an ethnic group crosses one of these political boundaries it can create political tension or conflict. One of the ethnic groups that does not fit within a specific political boundary is the Kurdish people, which are an Iranic ethnic group. They live in many different countries throughout the Middle East, like Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, and Lebanon. They also live in the United States and Western Europe.  When ethnic groups are crossed with politics ethnic conflicts or sometimes even ethnic wars can start. The most extreme outcome of ethnic groups and political boundaries being crossed is genocide, which is an attempt to put an end to an entire ethnic group. Also, the emigration of a large amount of ethnic group members has resulted from political conflicts. Rwandans, for example, moved into close by African countries after the Rwandan genocide of 1994. This created a huge number of displaced refugees.  Another example of conflicts arising is when an ethnic group minority in a state wants to have their own nation, state, or homeland as protection against persecution, which may create ethnic separatist and secessionist movements that cause political conflict.