But there are reasons and long periods building up to the explosion of pent-up hatred and fear, just as there are political manoevres and ultimata before the declaration of an external war. War is often said to be a technique by a beleaguered leadership to divert attention from internal divisions, and to recreate a given social solidarity. The fight leadership calls for sentiments of unity, sanctified in a hallowed and natural past. But the unity is certainly not 'given'. Far from the explosion of an old identity, war creates new memories of collectivity.
War is a moment in the creation of a new social totality.
For convenience, we refer to the groups as if they were continuous and we name them as if they remain the same. But war is a particularly vivid process of identification. Its unities are mobilised by being defined against enemies who threaten life and collective existence. They are particularly powerful and memorable precisely because they are created around a contingency of dying and killing. Each day could be the last.