tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/ethnic-conflict-23449/articlesethnic conflict – The Conversation2023-11-26T08:40:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172172023-11-26T08:40:58Z2023-11-26T08:40:58ZWhat is federalism? Why Ethiopia uses this system of government and why it’s not perfect<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0CQBBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Elazar,+federalism&ots=7_EoePhxVm&sig=vtSyxjKaMi8qqzhyHsk9Oj_OIrU#v=onepage&q=Elazar%2C%20federalism&f=false">Federalism</a> is a system of government where power is shared between a central authority and smaller regional governments. </p>
<p>Many countries adopt federalism to manage ethnic diversity within their borders and help promote unity. There are <a href="https://forumfed.org/countries/">25 federal countries globally</a>, representing 40% of the world’s population. </p>
<p>Federalism allows regions to govern some of their affairs – such as decisions regarding education or working languages – while being part of the larger country. </p>
<p>Ethiopia adopted federalism in 1991 when the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) – a coalition of four major parties – came to power. This followed 17 years of insurgencies to depose the Derg, a communist military junta that ruled the country from 1974 to 1991.</p>
<p>The primary aim of Ethiopian federalism is to accommodate the country’s <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-modern-ethiopia-18551991/C0852BA84C34071333C899ACC8F1C863">diverse ethnic groups</a>. Before 1991, Ethiopia had a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221097663">centralised unitary government</a> that suppressed diversity. It restricted ethnic groups from using their languages in official settings and schools. </p>
<p>Ethiopian federalism grants ethnic groups the <a href="https://www.ethiopianembassy.be/wp-content/uploads/Constitution-of-the-FDRE.pdf#page=13">right to self-determination</a>. An ethnic group can form its own region or become an independent country. This approach has drawn both praise and criticism. </p>
<p>Some academics view it as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/524968">novel approach</a> to resolving conflicts and preventing state disintegration. It’s impossible to forge unity without the voluntary alliance and assurance of the right to self-determination. Others <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-law/article/abs/ethiopias-leap-in-the-dark-federalism-and-selfdetermination-in-the-new-constitution/A05454ABA30C4C79F78DD7397FF91BED">argue that it worsens tensions</a> and could eventually lead to disintegration. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjad015">studied</a> Ethiopian politics for more than a decade, with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjac039">focus</a> on <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/92367/">the implementation of federalism</a>. After more than 30 years, ethnic conflict in Ethiopia hasn’t been resolved – but neither has the country disintegrated. </p>
<p>In my view, federalism remains the best approach for Ethiopia. It allows for cultural and language freedoms. It enables self-rule at regional levels, and has contributed to economic growth. The system, however, is not without its drawbacks. An increase in democratic space would allow more voices to be heard.</p>
<h2>How Ethiopian federalism works</h2>
<p>Ethiopia’s approach to federalism is bold <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjad015">compared to other highly diverse African</a> federal states. Nigeria, for instance, has avoided constitutional recognition of ethnic diversity. <a href="https://www.ethiopianembassy.be/wp-content/uploads/Constitution-of-the-FDRE.pdf#page=13">Article 39 of Ethiopia’s federal constitution</a>, adopted in 1995, explicitly acknowledges the country’s ethnic diversity.</p>
<p>Ethiopia is a federation comprising nations and nationalities, each possessing sovereignty as defined in <a href="https://www.ethiopianembassy.be/wp-content/uploads/Constitution-of-the-FDRE.pdf#page=4">Article 8 of the constitution</a>. Nations and nationalities with defined territorial homelands have the right to establish their own regions or even seek independence. </p>
<p>There are 12 regions in the country, each with <a href="https://www.ethiopianembassy.be/wp-content/uploads/Constitution-of-the-FDRE.pdf#page=20">extensive authority</a>. This includes policymaking, constitution making, choosing a working language, and maintaining regional police and civil services.</p>
<p>However, the exercise of these powers has been constrained by <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ijgr/28/5/article-p972_972.xml">the dominance of the party system</a>. </p>
<p>Between 1991 and 2019, the EPRDF tightly controlled regional governments. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221097663">suppressed any demands for self-rule</a>. The coming to power of Abiy Ahmed in 2018 helped open up the political space. The prime minister established the Prosperity Party by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-50515636">merging three of the parties that made up the EPRDF</a>, as well as its smaller affiliates. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front refused to amalgamate. </p>
<p>Abiy addressed some of the demands from various ethnic groups for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221097663">regional status</a>. He created three <a href="https://www.voaafrica.com/a/ethiopia-creates-a-12th-regional-state-/7168313.html">additional regions</a> between 2019 and 2023.</p>
<p>The working of Ethiopian federalism, however, depends on the party system. Party norms often supersede constitutional principles. Internal party crises tend to lead to government instability and potential conflict. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54964378">Tigray war</a> between 2020 and 2022 is a stark example. It originated from tensions between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the federal government. Disagreement was triggered by <a href="https://doi.org/10.14321/nortafristud.21.2.011v">the dissolution of the EPRDF</a>.</p>
<h2>Major benefits</h2>
<p>Ethiopian federalism has had three major benefits. </p>
<p>First, it allows for language and cultural freedom. The country’s 80 ethnic groups fought long and hard to secure their rights to culture, language and identity. More than <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00219096221097663#tab-contributors">57 of Ethiopia’s 80 languages</a> are used as mediums of instruction in schools. </p>
<p>Second, the system has allowed many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221097663">ethnic groups to exercise self-rule</a> in areas where they constitute the majority. Ethnic minorities are also entitled to form local governments, such as district administrations. </p>
<p>Third, the federal system has contributed to the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ethiopia/overview#:%7E:text=Ethiopia%20aims%20to%20reach%20lower-middle-income%20status%20by%202025.,one%20of%20the%20highest%20rates%20in%20the%20world.">country’s economic growth</a> and its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2022.2091580">relative stability</a>. It achieved this by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.2020">decentralising power and resources</a> to regions and local governments.</p>
<h2>Key challenges</h2>
<p>One of the primary challenges of Ethiopian federalism lies in its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2015.1124580">inability to entirely resolve conflicts</a>. </p>
<p>Some of these conflicts – for instance in the western region of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/africa/ethiopia-ethnic-killings.html">Benishangul-Gumuz</a> and in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/01/ethiopia-ethnic-cleansing-persists-under-tigray-truce">western Tigray</a> – are instigated partly by the system’s attempt to empower a particular ethnic group in an area. This has created divisions between empowered groups and others. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://ethiopia.iom.int/news/more-438-million-people-displaced-ethiopia-more-half-due-conflict-new-iom-report">recent report</a> by the International Organization for Migration found that more than half of the 4.4 million internally displaced people in Ethiopia left their homes due to conflict. </p>
<p>A second challenge is the gap between the constitution and the practice of political rights. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221097663">Certain ethnic groups have not exercised their rights</a> due to political repression. </p>
<p>Since Abiy assumed power in 2018, ethnic groups’ demands for regions has increased. The government addressed some of these demands, but repression of certain requests has led to grievances and conflicts. Some ethnic groups are too small to have their own region. </p>
<p>A third challenge is the dominance of the ruling party and the lack of democracy. The tendency of party norms to undermine constitutional principles casts a shadow on the federal system. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>While federalism may exist in form, it struggles to operate effectively without democracy and a multiparty system.</p>
<p>In a democratic system, the rule of law and protection of individual rights complement federalism by ensuring respect for citizen rights. A multiparty system would include diverse voices in decision-making and help protect minorities. Following these principles would help build peace and unity in a country as ethnically diverse as Ethiopia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bizuneh Yimenu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After more than 30 years of federalism, ethnic conflict in Ethiopia hasn’t been resolved – but neither has the country disintegrated.Bizuneh Yimenu, Teaching Fellow, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142782023-10-09T13:32:55Z2023-10-09T13:32:55ZEthiopia: religious tension is getting worse – 5 factors driving groups apart<p>Religion is highly present in Ethiopia. It’s visible in churches and mosques, in clothing, and in public rituals. </p>
<p>The country’s main religious communities are Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Protestants. It’s home to one of the world’s oldest churches and has the third-largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. Orthodox Christians account for <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">about 43% of the population, while approximately 33% are Muslims</a>. Protestant Christianity arrived in the late 19th century and has expanded rapidly in recent decades to account for an estimated 20% of the population. </p>
<p>Ethiopia is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">often portrayed</a> as a unique case of harmonious inter-religious relations where Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully together for centuries. But the country has also seen religious conflicts. </p>
<p>In the last three decades, there has been a worsening of religious tension. In <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/ambush-kills-20-muslim-worshippers-in-ethiopias-amhara-region#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20incident%20happened%20yesterday%20when,three%20people%20and%20wounding%20five.">2022</a>, for instance, more than 20 people were killed following attacks on Muslims in the north-western city of Gondar.</p>
<p>Ethiopia is constitutionally a secular state. Religion has no formal place in politics. Shared spaces and government buildings are to be free from any religious expressions. However, this has been unevenly practised. Religion is present everywhere. </p>
<p>I am a scholar of religion, with extensive <a href="https://religion.ufl.edu/directory/terje-ostebo/">fieldwork and research experience</a> in religion, ethnicity and politics in Ethiopia. In a recent <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">paper</a>, I analysed the developments over the last decades that have affected inter-religious relations, worsened polarisation and produced conflicts.</p>
<p>In my view, five factors have contributed to the rise in religious tensions.</p>
<p>First, the political transition in 1991, which allowed for greater expression of religious activities and changed the religious landscape. Second, the expansion of Christian Protestantism from the early 1990s. Third, the rise of a more visible and assertive Muslim population. Fourth, the response from the Ethiopian Orthodox church to a loss of influence. Finally, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abiy-Ahmed">Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed</a> allowing religion to enter the public political discourse.</p>
<h2>Growing conflict</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/08/15/ethiopia-risks-sliding-into-another-civil-war">Civil war</a> and <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/25/two-ethnic-revolts-rack-ethiopia-at-the-same-time">ethnic conflicts</a> have dominated news coming out of Ethiopia in recent years. Religious and ethnic identities are closely connected, but the ethnic dimension of conflict has tended to overshadow the growing tensions between religious communities.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.eip.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ostebo-et-al-2021-Religion-ethnicity-and-charges-of-Extremism-in-Ethiopia-final.pdf#page=14">2018</a>, young rioters burned churches and killed several priests in Jijiga, in the eastern Ethiopian state of Somali. In <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/ethiopia/">2020</a>, Muslim properties were attacked in Harar, eastern Ethiopia, during celebrations of an Orthodox Christian holiday. In <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/ambush-kills-20-muslim-worshippers-in-ethiopias-amhara-region#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20incident%20happened%20yesterday%20when,three%20people%20and%20wounding%20five.">2022</a>, attacks on Muslims in Gondar turned deadly. Such incidents have eroded trust between Ethiopia’s religious communities. </p>
<p>Inter-religious violence is often blamed on so-called extremist elements. However, a closer look reveals a more complex picture. </p>
<h2>The drivers</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia/Socialist-Ethiopia-1974-91#ref1033852">political transition in 1991</a> and the arrival of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front led to important changes to the political, social and cultural landscape. Seeking to promote equal rights for the country’s ethnic and religious groups, the new government lifted formal restrictions on religious activities. </p>
<p>This affected the balance of power between religious groups. Historically, Ethiopia’s inter-religious co-existence was made possible by one community dominating the others. </p>
<p>Since its establishment in the fourth century, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had been intimately tied to the state. The domination of the church contributed to the marginalisation of other religious communities. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia/Socialist-Ethiopia-1974-91">1974 Ethiopian Revolution</a> ended the state-church marriage, and the changes after 1991 further eroded the church’s position and brought other religious communities in from the shadows. </p>
<p>The second driver of tensions has been the rise of Protestantism. Initially brought by western missionaries in the late 19th century, the religion was mainly found in Ethiopia’s non-Orthodox southern region. Protestantism grew rapidly after 1991, with churches and ministries expanding into traditional Orthodox and Muslim areas. On occasion, this has led to violent conflict. In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">2006 and 2010</a>, for instance, clashes erupted in the southwestern area of Jimma.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/religion-was-once-ethiopias-saviour-what-it-can-do-to-pull-the-nation-from-the-brink-171763">Religion was once Ethiopia's saviour. What it can do to pull the nation from the brink</a>
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<p>The 1991 changes also led to Islam becoming more visible in the country. Various Islamic reform movements began strengthening religious identity among Muslims and countering their historically marginalised position. This produced a more assertive community. Muslims have become more active in Ethiopia’s social and political life. Numerous mosques have been built across the country. And Muslims have become increasingly visible through a changing dress code, particularly the use of veiling among women, and through public celebrations of religious holidays. </p>
<p>Many Christians, both Orthodox and Protestant, interpret a more visible and assertive Muslim community as proof of Islamic “extremism”. It’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41240192">commonly claimed</a> that mosques and religious schools are funded by Saudi Arabia. And that the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4FMpXkKFzQ&t=29s">ultimate aim</a> of Ethiopia’s Muslims is political power. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_6lVEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=FAYRrOHs-A&sig=2baPJasl1_wE5VUWCtnWka-M_Vg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">Research</a> has shown that Saudi religious activism has actually dwindled over the last years. But the narrative about such ties continues to fuel suspicions and affect Christian-Muslim relations. </p>
<p>All these developments have been challenging for the Orthodox church. Many of its members are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">changing their affiliation to Protestantism</a>. The Orthodox church has made efforts to limit this. It has, for instance, prohibited the construction of Protestant churches and mosques in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/arts/design/churches-of-aksum-and-lalibela.html">Lalibela and Axum</a> in Ethiopia’s north. The church has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48634427">declared</a> these cities as sacred Orthodox spaces. </p>
<p>The Orthodox church has also sought to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">reclaim its lost space</a> by, for example, celebrating religious holidays through highly visible ceremonies. During its Meskel holiday in September this year, the Addis Ababa government <a href="https://apanews.net/this-years-ethiopian-meskel-festival-sees-low-turnout-tight-security/#:%7E:text=The%20laity%20is%20restricted%20from,Shirts%20was%20not%20allowed%20too">placed restrictions</a> on the celebration.</p>
<p>The church’s responses have provoked reactions among other religious communities, particularly Muslims who view its actions as an attempt to curb the space they have carved out for themselves. </p>
<p>Finally, Abiy’s political language is laced with semi-religious references. The prime minister is a practising Pentecostal. His acknowledgement of religion has enabled actors to lift religion into the public sphere in ways that have <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429426957-45/strains-pente-politics-j%C3%B6rg-haustein-dereje-feyissa">sharpened boundaries and added to the tensions</a>. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Religious identities and belonging are important in today’s Ethiopia. Changes over the last decades have, however, deepened inter-religious tensions. There is potential to alleviate these tensions. Doing this will require political and religious leaders to communicate across religious boundaries to accommodate Ethiopia’s plurality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terje Ostebo have receive funding from USAID.</span></em></p>News coverage of Ethiopia’s ethnic conflicts has overshadowed the growing tensions and polarisation between religious communities.Terje Ostebo, Chair of the Department of Religion and Professor at the Department of Religion and the Center for African Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1787872022-03-24T14:30:52Z2022-03-24T14:30:52ZWilliam Ruto: how Kenya’s new president took on powerful political dynasties<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453888/original/file-20220323-19-1gouv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Ruto </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Samoei Ruto, 55, has been <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/william-ruto-named-president-elect-3914858">declared</a> the winner of Kenya’s presidential election. He is the leader of the United Democratic Alliance party under the Kenya Kwanza (Kenya First) coalition. Ruto defeated his main rival in the election Raila Odinga, 77, who was <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/politics/article/2001440113/i-accept-azimio-nomination-says-raila-as-kalonzo-formally-joins-movement">running</a> under the rival Azimio la Umoja (Unity Declaration) coalition. </p>
<p>He becomes Kenya’s first sitting deputy president to succeed the incumbent following competitive elections and first candidate to win the presidency at first attempt.</p>
<p>The declaration of the results was temporarily disrupted amid chaotic scenes by the losing candidate’s supporters alleging irregularities. The situation was thrown into further disarray when four commissioners broke ranks, held a separate press conference and denounced the results as <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/four-iebc-commissioners-disown-chebukati-presidential-results-3915420">“opaque”</a>.</p>
<p>Ruto won the polls in spite of a <a href="https://www.citizen.digital/news/president-kenyatta-sustains-attack-on-dp-ruto-team-over-politicking-n292078">sustained pushback</a> by the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, his former ally who chose instead <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2022-03-19-uhuru-campaigns-for-raila-in-nairobi/">to back</a> his former archrival and longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga. </p>
<p>Kenyatta and Ruto are former allies: Ruto campaigned for Kenyatta during his first presidential attempt in 2002, which he lost. Both were <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/kenya">indicted</a> by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the suspected masterminds of the mass atrocities that followed the disputed 2007 elections. They then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/09/kenyatta-declared-victor-in-kenyan-elections">teamed up to contest in 2013</a>. They prevailed in 2017 as well, but not before the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/8/11/uhuru-kenyatta-wins-kenya-presidential-election">annulled</a> the first round.</p>
<p>After their falling out, however, Ruto characterised Kenyatta and Odinga as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58246207">embodiments</a> of dynastic politics and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/political-power-and-tribalism-in-kenya-by-westen-k-shilaho-cham-palgrave-macmillan-2018-pp-xvii-186-5499-hbk/EC0139B1008E6D2A562833E5D46CA6B3">entitlement</a>. The two are sons of Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first president and first vice president respectively. In a way, Ruto prevailed against the state, powerful elites, a biased media, the intelligentsia, civil society and jaundiced polling firms. His victory is historic and phenomenal.</p>
<p>As an outlier in Kenya’s political power matrix, which is dominated by a tiny clique related by familial and economic ties and adept at manipulating tribalism to capture the state, Ruto was elbowed out by the establishment. But he has somersaulted back by appealing directly to the masses, his original constituency.</p>
<h2>Ruto versus status quo</h2>
<p>For almost six decades, political and economic power has been confined within a group around Kenya’s first two presidents – Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi. Raila Odinga joined this group in the sunset years of Moi’s tenure and counted on it to propel him to power in the just concluded elections. The group has leverage over state agencies and the security apparatus. It exploits state power to advance commercial interests spread across the entire gamut of Kenya’s economy.</p>
<p>Kenyatta’s family, for instance, has vast business <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2018/07/07/crony-capitalism-and-state-capture-the-kenyatta-family-story/">interests</a>. The Mois are also fabulously <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2020-02-04-inside-mzee-mois-business-empire/">wealthy</a> . Ruto has accused these families of state capture – exploiting their control of the state to enrich themselves primitively.</p>
<p>Ruto is also certainly <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/city-news/2000224690/william-ruto-how-he-rose-from-roadside-kuku-seller-to-multi-billionaire">a man of means</a>. According to his opponents in the government he too has extensive <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202109020465.html">business interests</a>. It’s for this reason that Ruto has <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2021-09-04-how-the-state-plans-to-puncture-rutos-hustler-narrative/">been accused of hypocrisy</a> for championing the downtrodden, or ordinary Kenyans whom he refers to as <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/politics/article/2001422559/ruto-i-have-shown-hustlers-they-can-also-be-rich">“hustlers”</a>. </p>
<p>Pivotal to Ruto’s campaign was his <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2021-07-29-dp-ruto-this-is-what-bottom-up-economic-model-means/">bottom-up economic model</a>. Its pillars are the dispersal of economic and political opportunities, and dignifying the poor. It invokes equity, inclusivity, social justice and fair play. </p>
<p>His “hustler nation” movement was buoyed by <a href="https://www.pd.co.ke/news/blame-the-government-for-unemployment-dp-ruto-96287/">mass unemployment</a>, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ken-opalo/article/2001434385/jubilees-legacy-of-poverty-amid-huge-infrastructure-bill">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/kenya-extreme-inequality-numbers">inequalities</a> and state excesses such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/kenya">extrajudicial executions</a> and runaway corruption.</p>
<p>Ruto successfully reinvented himself as the agent of class consciousness hitherto absent in Kenya’s political discourse and competition. By rebranding himself as the antithesis of the status quo and personification of the hopes of the poor, his messaging resonated with a cross spectrum of the marginalised.</p>
<p>As the victor, his work is cut out for him. He will have to overhaul Kenya’s socioeconomic and political edifice to assuage the restless and disenchanted populace. He has to provide leadership that will disabuse the Kenyan society of tribal consciousness, embed civic values and national identity. If he does not, he risks becoming a casualty of his success.</p>
<h2>The making of a winner</h2>
<p>Following disputed elections in 2017, Kenyatta and his close allies embarked on a campaign of vilification against Ruto. He was soon edged out of the government and remained as Kenyatta’s principal assistant in law only. Kenyatta <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/politics/article/2001373923/has-president-uhurus-executive-order-abolished-joint-presidency">transferred</a> his official responsibilities as deputy president to a loyal cabinet minister in an attempt to whittle down the office and clip Ruto’s political wings.</p>
<p>The aim was to delegitimise and frustrate him into resigning, thus knocking him out of the succession race. Ruto exhibited resilience despite the frustrations.</p>
<p>In Kenya’s media, including social media, Ruto was the villain; the bogeyman. Through newspaper headlines, hashtags, prime time news and talk shows, he was cynically <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2018/08/24/ruto-says-poll-that-ranked-him-most-corrupt-kenyan-politician-is-fake-news/">depicted</a> as the skunk of Kenya’s politics solely associated with vices such as corruption, land grabs, impunity, unbridled ambition, insolence, warlord politics, and ethnic cleansing. He exploited this sense victimhood to his advantage.</p>
<p>These vices, however, pervade Kenya’s political landscape and the depiction was more information by partisanship than moral rectitude. His accusers are no better.</p>
<p>Ruto cut his political teeth under the mentorship of the long-serving autocrat Daniel arap Moi in the early 1990s. Facing presidential opponents for the first time in 1992, Moi mobilised the youth vote with the help of young politicians, under an outfit known as <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202010070108.html">Youth for KANU ‘92</a>. Ruto was one of the youthful politicians who crafted the successful – but equally <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/life-and-style/dn2/money-and-youth-schemes-kanu-crafted-to-keep-power-901298">infamous</a> – re-election strategy in 1992. This involved Moi sanctioning the <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/financial-standard/article/2001419844/taxpayers-still-paying-for-states-90s-money-printing-debacle">printing of money</a> used to bribe voters, among other things. </p>
<p>Ruto’s entry into parliament in 1997 was in defiance of his mentor. Moi, a fellow Kalenjin from the Rift Valley, had tried to prevail on Ruto not to run. Moi exited in 2002 and Ruto astutely won over the Kalenjin voting bloc and used it as a launching pad into national politics. Moi had wanted to bequeath it to his son, Gideon. Hence the fallout between Moi and Ruto.</p>
<p>The Kenyatta-Moi-Odinga axis, which Ruto has propped up in the past, turned against him, fearful that he would end their economic and political stranglehold. They perceived Ruto – relatively young, astute, ambitious, prescient and gallant – as a threat to their dubious privileges. Now that Ruto, has won the presidency, time will tell whether their fears were exaggerated.</p>
<p>In 2010, Ruto stood out from this coterie and mobilised against the passage of the current constitution. He later defended his stand on the grounds that he did not approve of some parts of the constitution – but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJSf-coUoOI">embraced</a> it once it was passed.</p>
<p>He faulted Kenyatta for violating the same constitution through blatant defiance of numerous court orders and weaponising oversight bodies and state agencies against Ruto and his allies. Ruto also accused Kenyatta and Odinga of a conspiracy to illegally amend the constitution to consolidate their power, and entrench ethnicity through the Building Bridges Initiative. The attempt was quashed as unconstitutional by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57094387">high court</a>, <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/appeal-court-upholds-ruling-against-bbi-3519108">appeals court</a> and finally the <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/eyes-on-supreme-court-as-bbi-ruling-draws-near--3719972">supreme court</a>.</p>
<h2>Political traction</h2>
<p>Despite his rhetoric, Ruto is a creature of Kenya’s political culture, notorious for a lack of scruples. Its elite is anglophile in outlook, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/charles-njonjo-and-the-genesis-of-kenyas-fixation-with-security-178547">disdainful of the poor</a>. It is also mired in <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/2402/truth-justice-and-the-unbroken-line-of-kenyas-elites/">impunity and tribalism</a>.</p>
<p>What is significant is that Ruto’s reframing of the political discourse into <a href="https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/9/hustlers-versus-dynasty-kenyas-new-class-politics/">hustlers versus dynasties</a> has accorded him traction, helped him win the presidency and set the tempo of this election despite the outgoing government’s abysmal scorecard. He made the election about the rule of law, constitutionalism, equalisation of economic opportunities for the poor and marginalised and political competition based on cross cutting social economic interests.</p>
<p>This contrasted with Odinga, who publicly <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/raila-uhuru-adviser-in-my-government-3750736">defined</a> himself as the status quo candidate, an extension of Kenyatta tenure and therefore out to preserve the exclusive political and economic arrangement that dates to colonialism. It was a move that cost him the presidency on the fifth attempt.</p>
<p>The stakes are high for Kenyans. The Ruto victory has broken the back of dynastic dominance of Kenya’s politics and economy. Peripheral actors will emerge as he reorganises Kenya’s state and politics. As to whether Ruto will live to his lofty promises and prise open the economy for the benefit of all, that remains an open question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Westen K Shilaho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As an outlier in Kenya’s political power matrix, Ruto was elbowed out by the establishment. But he has somersaulted back by appealing directly to the masses.Westen K Shilaho, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for PanAfrican Thought and Conversation (IPATC), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1572882021-03-26T12:26:12Z2021-03-26T12:26:12ZMontenegro was a success story in troubled Balkan region – now its democracy is in danger<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391222/original/file-20210323-22-m8nlbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2986%2C2038&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Celebrating Montenegrin independence on May 21, 2006. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/podgorica-serbia-and-montenegro-a-supporter-of-montenegrin-news-photo/71003303?adppopup=true">Diminar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tiny Montenegro has long been different from its neighbors in the former Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>After a decade of bloody civil wars that included <a href="https://theconversation.com/srebrenica-25-years-later-lessons-from-the-massacre-that-ended-the-bosnian-conflict-and-unmasked-a-genocide-141177">ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide</a>, Yugoslavia in the 1990s split violently along ethnic lines into six different independent republics. But Montenegro escaped the worst of the war and for years remained with Serbia – its dominant, Russian-allied neighbor – as part of the “<a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0504/04022.html">rump Yugoslavia</a>.” </p>
<p>In 2006, Montenegrins <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/22/balkans1">voted for independence</a> and separated from Serbia peacefully. Montenegro became a <a href="http://en.unesco.org/creativity/cdis/profiles/montenegro">stable and inclusive democracy</a>. It is a mountainous, postage-stamp sized country of 640,000 on the eastern Adriatic Sea. </p>
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<p>Rather than maintain the Slavic ethnic identity of Serbia, Montenegro made room for all kinds of people. It was home to Montenegrins – who are Orthodox, Muslim, Catholic and atheist – yes, but also Bosniaks, Albanians, Roman-Catholic Croats and Serbs. <a href="https://eurojewcong.org/communities/montenegro/">Montenegro also has a Jewish community</a>.</p>
<p>Montenegro’s post-independence leaders in the socialist party worked to build a broad civil society that <a href="https://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/ajis/article/viewFile/9561/9219">recognized the many identities of its citizens</a>. Many refugees from the Balkan wars sought <a href="https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-refugees-in-montenegro/">safety in Montenegro</a>. </p>
<p>Its political system favored neither majorities nor minorities, a value system inherited from Yugoslavia. In 2017, Montenegro joined NATO, the transatlantic security alliance, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-an-alleged-coup-and-montenegros-bid-for-nato-membership-74795">against Russia’s wishes</a>. It <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/02/01/montenegro-wants-to-join-the-eu-but-will-brussels-have-it">wants to join the European Union</a>. </p>
<p>Montenegro’s Balkan success story – and its very national identity – is now in danger after a right-wing coalition aligned with <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-malign-influence-montenegro">Serbia and Russia</a> <a href="https://www.total-montenegro-news.com/politics/5837-djukanovic-s-dps-goes-to-opposition-branches-after-31-years">took power in December</a>. </p>
<h2>A language grows and struggles</h2>
<p>A fight over the Montenegrin language is symbolic of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-montenegro-government-idUKKBN26T2B7">broader political fight playing out in Montenegro</a>.</p>
<p>All the former Yugoslavian republics – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia – share a mutually intelligible language, previously called Serbo-Croatian. The differences among them are comparable to the varieties of English spoken by Americans, Australians, British and South Africans. </p>
<p>Since Yugoslavia broke up, each new Balkan nation has used language to <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1808/10248">create a common political and cultural identity</a> for itself, establishing each language with its distinctive style and standardizing its usage. </p>
<p>As my <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m6EZq4IAAAAJ&hl=en">research</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/language-and-identity-in-the-balkans-9780199208753">others’</a> show, some were more successful in that effort than others. Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are now well established as national languages, used in schools, the press, business and government. </p>
<p>Montenegrin, however, remains contested. </p>
<p>It is embraced by citizens who stand for an inclusive, multi-ethnic Montenegrin society. But those who view Montenegro as fundamentally an extension of the Serbian state consider Montenegrin merely a dialect of Serbian. According to a leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, “<a href="https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/crnogorski_jezik_amfilohije/2276351.html">Montenegrin does not exist</a>.” </p>
<p>Montenegro’s new coalition government seems to side with the Serbs on the language question. </p>
<p>In March the new minister of education, science, culture and sports, Vesna Bratić – <a href="https://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/politika/484387/bratic-vrijedjala-dezulovica-kontekstom-brani-stav-da-je-dezulovic-djubre-ustasko">who identifies as a Serbian nationalist</a> – threatened to close the Faculty of Montenegrin Language and Literature in the old royal capital of Cetinje and has <a href="https://www.pobjeda.me/clanak/odbor-o-fakultetu-za-crnogorski-jezik-i-knjizevnost">blocked its funding since January</a>. The institute has led efforts to standardize the Montenegrin language and foster scholarship about Montenegrin literature and culture. </p>
<p>In a young country still forging its national identity, erasing the Montenegrin language that has bound its people together is akin to eliminating the Montenegrin identity. </p>
<h2>A nation falls apart</h2>
<p>Multi-ethnic Montenegro has so far achieved stability through a balancing act that recalled how Yugoslavian premiere Josip Broz Tito <a href="https://europe.unc.edu/background-titos-yugoslavia">ran multi-ethnic Yugoslavia for much of the last century</a>. </p>
<p>Yugoslavia, founded in 1918, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/short-history-yugoslav-peoples?format=PB">was dominated by Slavic-speaking Serbs</a>, Croats and Slovenes but was home to many Hungarians and Albanians, among other non-Slavic minorities. It was also divided religiously, between Roman Catholicism – the faith of Slovenians and Croatians – and the Eastern Orthodox Christianity of Serbians, Montenegrins and Macedonians.</p>
<p>After the Second World War, Marshal Tito and his Partisans – having driven out Nazi occupiers – led Yugoslavia under socialist rule. For four decades, Tito maintained order and quelled rivalry within Yugoslavia with an iron fist and by careful balancing of conflicting claims for cultural dominance. </p>
<p>From the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade, Tito promoted <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-macedonia-to-america-civics-lessons-from-the-former-yugoslavia-143322">a one-party system and ideology</a> fostering “brotherhood and unity” among Yugoslavia’s many disparate traditions and communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white image of a very elderly Churchill sitting and laughing with a younger Tito" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391219/original/file-20210323-2283-1kf8j7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wartime leaders Tito, right, and Winston Churchill, in Split, Yugoslavia, in 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/winston-churchill-et-le-maréchal-tito-lors-de-leur-entrevue-news-photo/953407732?adppopup=true">Keystone France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That delicate balance broke down after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/05/05/archives/tito-dies-at-87-last-of-wartime-leaders-a-rotating-leadership-took.html">Tito’s death in 1980</a>. </p>
<p>Wars erupted in Yugoslavia along national, ethnic and religious lines. Serbian and Croatian paramilitaries seeking to carve out ethnically pure states carried out <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/yugo-hist4.htm">ethnic cleansing operations against their rivals in each others’ territories</a> and elsewhere. Bosnia and Herzegovina – fragmented among Catholics, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox – witnessed <a href="https://theconversation.com/international-court-upholds-srebrenica-massacre-verdicts-37003">the gravest atrocities</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walk on a mountainous road, wearing backpacks and carrying language; there is snow on the ground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391228/original/file-20210323-15-9k5kdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugees from Kosovo cross the mountains on foot to reach Montenegro in 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/refugees-from-pec-cross-the-mountains-on-foot-to-arrive-in-news-photo/540011190?adppopup=true">David Brauchli/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>History repeats itself</h2>
<p>Montenegro now seems to be at risk of a similar unraveling with its long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists out of power. While rhetorically supporting Montenegro’s NATO and EU membership, Montenegro’s new political leadership is ideologically aligned with Serbia and Russia.</p>
<p>Many Montenegrins are appalled by their young democracy’s unexpected <a href="https://youtu.be/29jwDywtTmc">twist of fate</a>. They fear Serbian cultural hegemony will negate their progress in nation-building and move Montenegro away from European values – <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-s-balkan-insecurities/">and toward Russia</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin is watching the struggle over Montenegro’s future closely. Russia has traditional <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-montenegro-putin-idUKKBN1HI2CB">cultural and religious</a> ties to Montenegro, and having Montenegro in Putin’s “portfolio” would give <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/stop-giving-putin-a-free-pass-to-europes-backyard-opinion/ar-BB1eBcdS">Russia access to a Mediterranean port</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Putin and another man in a suit look at each other intensely, flanked by two other serious-looking men, against a gilded backdrop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C37%2C5064%2C3327&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391213/original/file-20210323-20-1m5hrjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Montenegro’s ambassador to Russia meets Vladimir Putin in 2018. The two countries have longstanding ties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russias-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-and-russian-news-photo/944781460?adppopup=true">Alexei Druzhinin\TASS via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Montenegrins even worry that violent ethnic conflict could begin again anew. For them, the Balkan wars are still a fresh memory. And they’ve seen several <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-illiberal-states-why-hungary-and-poland-are-turning-away-from-constitutional-democracy-89622">democracies in Eastern Europe</a> – Poland and Hungary chief among them – come under autocratic rule. </p>
<p>The West learned the hard way 25 years ago that conflict in the former Balkans can end in tragedy. Will this history repeat itself in Montenegro?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc L. Greenberg has served as a volunteer expert international advisor to the Democratic Alliance of Montenegro, a political group.</span></em></p>Western leaders learned the hard way 25 years ago that conflict in the Balkans can become ethnic cleansing. Add Russia into the mix, and Montenegro’s new problems are US and European problems, too.Marc L. Greenberg, Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of KansasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1534692021-02-01T15:25:22Z2021-02-01T15:25:22ZHow DRC’s colonial legacy forged a nexus between ethnicity, territory and conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380440/original/file-20210125-15-18cq1mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Internally displaced persons gather for government briefing in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the scene of violent clashes between rival communities since 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by ALEXIS HUGUET/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout history, ethnic stereotypes have been used to justify <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/waves-of-war/46DE8110E37E2BEBE2D0673E59235BDB">mass violence</a>, <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14250.html">exclusion</a>, oppression, and <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3637242.html">inequality</a> in many corners of the world. In times of violent upheaval and conflict, ethnic narratives often come to the fore. This is true even when the origin and the stakes have little to do with ethnicity. This colours people’s understanding of the conflict’s stakes and fault-lines. </p>
<p>In such moments, people may start to think of conflicts in ethnic terms. They may begin to attribute certain cultural, or genetic, characteristics of their adversaries as the cause for conflict. A perceived ethnic adversary may be regarded as “violent”, “aggressive”, “greedy, "savage”, “rebellious”, “restless”, “backwards”, “undemocratic” or “cunning”. This makes it easier to cast them as a threat to one’s own ethnic community. </p>
<p>Such stereotypes are not simply created on the spot by opportunistic leaders. Rather, they should be understood as identity categories embedded in society’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313/313127/black-skin--white-masks/9780241396667.html">power structures</a>,<a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/race-and-the-education-of-desire">discourses</a>, and, more broadly, in people’s ways of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674510418">thinking and feeling</a>. In brief, across the world people are socialised into thinking, feeling and acting as members of an ethnic community, or group.</p>
<p>Because ideas of ethnic territories are a major source of political friction and persecution in the world, it’s important to investigate how they are created and used in conflicts. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718520301858">recent article</a>, I dissected how ethnic territories have been imagined and constructed historically, and how they have been used in political struggles for power and resources in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).</p>
<p>Formerly known as Zaire, DRC is the second largest country in Africa and home to <a href="http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=congo+population&d=PopDiv&f=variableID%3a12%3bcrID%3a178%2c180">90 million people</a>. A sizeable part of its rural population is administered under no less than 250 traditional chiefdoms. These are ruled by customary chiefs, who are recognised by the government and who apply both modern and customary laws. In addition to chiefdoms, there are myriad smaller customary units such as groupings and villages. </p>
<p>The focus of my study is the area directly west of Lake Kivu, known as Kalehe Territory, which has been the <a href="https://ifro.ku.dk/english/staff/?pure=en%2Fpublications%2Fcontesting-authority(7e9f070f-8766-4663-b553-7127d296eec0).html">scene of violent conflict</a> for more than two decades. The main conclusion I draw is that the ideas of ethnic territories used by actors in struggles over power and resources in DRC have their <a href="https://www.gov.uk/research-for-development-outputs/ethnogovernmentality-the-making-of-ethnic-territories-and-subjects-in-eastern-dr-congo">roots</a> in the way in which the territory was run under Belgian colonial rule. </p>
<p>This matters today because ethnicity still plays an important role in politics and violent conflicts in eastern DRC. Evoking ethnic narratives remains an effective strategy of mobilisation because of entrenched <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo-148546">mutual distrust</a> and prevailing fear. This is especially so in areas marked by persistent violent conflict such as Kalehe and Uvira further south.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo-148546">Why history matters in understanding conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo</a>
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<h2>Ethnicity, territory and conflict</h2>
<p>A key component of how DRC – and other territories across Sub-Saharan Africa – were run was the creation of <em>chefferies</em> or chiefdoms. </p>
<p>Chiefdoms were envisioned as mutually exclusive ethnically discrete territories ruled by a single customary chief governing through customary law. The colonial authorities used them to rule indigenous people indirectly as “tribes” or “races”, in their natural environment, and through their own customs and political institutions. </p>
<p>Across the world colonial regimes created “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718520301858?dgcid=rss_sd_all">ethnic territories</a>”. By creating “ethnic territories” they sought to balance demands for profit and self-financing with objectives of maintaining order, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/651942">managing dispossession</a>, and upholding racial boundaries and hierarchies. </p>
<p>Hundreds of chiefdoms were created in DRC. The object was to ensure that order could be maintained at the same time as the indigenous populations were turned into productive and taxable subjects. Customary chiefs with extensive powers became particularly important intermediaries. They were framed as the embodiment of traditional indigenous political institutions despite the enormous diversity of these. </p>
<p>However, the indigenous political units were not the pliable natural units imagined by the colonisers. Rather, they were complex polities populated by people with diverging interests and complex external relations. In eastern DRC, local leaders – such as the Bashi chief Kabare and the Banyungu prince Njiko – mounted <a href="https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9910344730602121">rebellions</a> against the colonial authorities. As a result, violent repression became a common theme. </p>
<p>Over time, the territorial model fragmented. As a result, the creation of ethnic territories became a dynamic process where boundaries were determined by political struggles. Violence, and the threat of violence, played a big role. </p>
<p>At the same time, theories of racial superiority – of mixed biblical and scientific vintage – were <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3171483">harnessed</a> to authorise colonial decisions to create ethnic territories and impose paramount chiefs on previously independent polities.</p>
<h2>Buhavu chiefdom</h2>
<p>I focused on the creation of <a href="https://books.google.dk/books/about/La_cr%C3%A9ation_de_la_chefferie_buhavu_et_s.html?id=4xchHQAACAAJ&amp;redir_esc=y">Buhavu chiefdom</a> in the 1920s. It was made up of several hitherto <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/218548?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">independent indigenous polities</a>. This brought together culturally diverse populations into a single chiefdom under the rule of the Bahavu chief. </p>
<p>But several indigenous leaders and groups refused to recognise colonial overrule. These included rival Bahavu chiefs and leaders of the people collectively known as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/218548?origin=crossref&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Batembo</a>. The Batembo lived in small independent communities on the eastern edge of the Congo River Basin. Among the Batembo, authority was dispersed among several clans and groups. This meant that the idea of a mono-ethnic territory ruled by a single chief was significantly at odds with the existing political culture. </p>
<p>These communities and their leaders were forced into submission through severe repression, making the creation of the Buhavu chiefdom <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/terror-and-territory">a violent act of exclusion and inclusion</a>. </p>
<p>Its creation violated the area’s existing cultural diversity and political institutions. It also silenced subaltern and rebellious voices, and concentrated authority in the hands of indigenous royal élites willing to collaborate with the colonial authorities. </p>
<p>Independence from Belgium in 1960 created opportunities for a new set of Congolese actors to shape politics. In Buhavu chiefdom, a group of leaders, claiming to represent the Batembo ethnic group, demanded the right to territorial self-rule. They justified this demand on grounds that it was an economically sustainable and culturally homogeneous area. As such, they argued, it deserved to be recognised as a self-governing entity.</p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Glory-Monsters-Collapse-Africa/dp/1610391071">Congo Wars</a>, the first in the mid-1990s and the second between 1998-2003 – the struggle to create a Batembo territory became engulfed in the larger dynamics of regional war. Batembo leaders mobilised a powerful militia, which fought alongside Congolese government troops against Rwandan army units and their Congolese allies. This they justified on the grounds that DRC was threatened by a plan to forge a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rebel-governance-in-civil-war/myths-set-in-motion-the-moral-economy-of-mai-mai-governance/2FF83FD1EB80311509BE2F414E15BF46">“Tutsi-Hima” empire</a> in Central Africa sanctioned by the major western powers. Their new-found military strength also inspired Batembo leaders to push for the creation of their own ethnic territory called “Bunyakiri”. </p>
<p>But the politics that emerged after the second Congo War did not play out in their favour. Their soldiers either demobilised or became integrated in the Congolese army. And the group’s leaders were sidelined or outmanoeuvred once they entered the arena of national politics. Today, Batembo leaders still clamour for the creation of an independent chiefdom.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The numerous conflicts in eastern DRC cannot be ascribed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo-148546">ancient hatreds</a> between ethnic communities. There are many different causes of the complex conflicts in eastern DRC. Nevertheless, the idea of discrete and mutually exclusive ethnic territories do play an important role in these conflicts. </p>
<p>This idea was introduced and institutionalised by the colonial administration, and, in fact, violated the existing political institutions and cultural diversity of eastern DRC. Hence, colonial ways of administering indigenous populations has played an important role in sowing the seeds of ethnic tensions in the present.</p>
<p>It seems logical, therefore, that a reconciliation process in eastern Congo should entail a reckoning with colonial ways of thinking about ethnic territories. This will not be an easy task given the vested interests in the status quo. On the one hand, customary chiefs and political and military leaders derive much of their power from the idea of ethnic territories. For many ordinary Congolese, on the other hand, chiefdoms provide both customary land rights and political inclusion since belonging to a chiefdom is a prerequisite for citizenship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kasper Hoffmann works for the University of Copenhagen and Gent University. The research for this article was funded by a joint PhD grant from Roskilde University and the Danish Institute for International Studies, the European Research Council (ERC), Ares (2015) 2785650-ERC-2014-AdG-662770-Local State, and UK aid from the UK government (GB- 1-204428); the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.</span></em></p>Because ethnic territories are a major source of political friction and persecution in the world, it’s important to investigate how they are created and used in conflicts.Kasper Hoffmann, Post-doctorate researcher, Department of Conflict and Development Studies, University of CopenhagenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1504032020-11-19T16:58:18Z2020-11-19T16:58:18ZEthnic violence in Tigray has echoes of Ethiopia’s tragic past<p>Violence has engulfed northern Ethiopia and, as usual, it is the civilians caught in the middle of this bitter ethnic conflict who are paying the highest price. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/ethiopia-investigation-reveals-evidence-that-scores-of-civilians-were-killed-in-massacre-in-tigray-state/#:%7E:text=Amnesty%20International%20can%20today%20confirm,the%20night%20of%209%20November.">Amnesty International</a> reported on November 12 that a brutal massacre had taken place in the town of Mai Kadra in the northwestern province of Tigray. Scores – maybe hundreds – of people, described by Amnesty as seasonal labourers, were killed with knives and machetes.</p>
<p>Fighting has also been reported near the border town of Humera where the Ethiopian army is understood to have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/10/ethiopias-pm-not-rebuffing-calls-for-calm-as-clashes-continue">wrested control of the airport</a> from the Tigray People’s Liberation Army (TPLF). So far an estimated <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/thousands-of-ethiopian-refugees-flee-into-sudan/2044407">25,000 people</a> have fled to Sudan, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ethiopia-conflict-sudan-bombings/ethiopians-fleeing-to-sudan-describe-air-strikes-machete-killings-in-tigray-idUKKBN27T1OL">from the Humera area</a>, an area that can be seen as a microcosm of the tensions that are pulling at the complex ethnic fabric across Ethiopia.</p>
<h2>Ethiopia’s ‘Casablanca’</h2>
<p>Back in 1993, while I was casting around looking for potential PhD research sites, a friend and colleague recommended I go to Humera, a town in the far northwest corner of Ethiopia. “It’s like an Ethiopian Casablanca,” he told me. I duly went to check it out. What I found held not so much the mystique of an old Islamic city but a bustling community of Tigrayan former refugees who had recently been repatriated after a decade in camps in eastern Sudan where they had sought refuge during the civil war that raged in Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991.</p>
<p>Originally highlanders, they were resettled into the fertile lowlands around Humera with the expectation that they would become smallholder farmers, supplementing their incomes working on the commercial sesame and sorghum farms in the area. Humera itself was a war-ravaged, dusty town that was just coming back to life after years of neglect. Remnants of the civil war could still be seen: in the walls of buildings that had been pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel, the carcasses of old abandoned tanks, and a local administration that was largely run by the former cadres of the TPLF, as a civilian administration had not yet been installed.</p>
<p>Although they were repatriating to Ethiopia from Sudan, the Tigrayans were not returning to their highland communities of origin. They were settled by the new regional administration into an area of northwest Ethiopia that had once been part of the Gondar province, but had been newly incorporated into the Tigray region in a process of redistricting that took place as soon as the Tigrayan-led government took power in 1991. </p>
<p>Repatriating 25,000 Tigrayans to these western lowlands became a way of laying claim to the land. Most were settled onto plots that had made up the unsuccessful state farms under the Marxist “Derg” government that had controlled the area from 1974-91 in the areas known as Mai Kadra, Rawayan and Adabai.</p>
<p>Life in the first years for newly repatriated refugees was difficult. They had to rebuild their lives from virtually nothing and learn to farm new crops using different methods than they had been accustomed to in their original homes. The Tigray region was faced with enormous post-war reconstruction needs, and many of the returnees in these three sites felt that they had been forgotten by the regional authorities once they returned. They received only meagre food and cash assistance for the first few months after returning and then were expected to become self sufficient. Gradually, however, people came to think of <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801489396/this-place-will-become-home/#bookTabs=1">this place as home</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing Ethiopia's Tigray region." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370382/original/file-20201119-14-2tlpyd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tigray is at odds with Ethiopia’s central government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Hammond</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>At first, people in the local area got along with each other reasonably well. Amhara, Tigrayan, Welkait and other ethnic groups coexisted peacefully. The strongest resentment to the redrawing of regional boundaries to incorporate the area into Tigray region seemed to come from further away – from the city of Gondar a day’s drive to the south and the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa in the centre of the country. In these places the symbolism of shifting regional boundaries and seizure of land fed into a growing narrative of resentment against the Tigrayan-dominated central government. </p>
<h2>Explosion of violence</h2>
<p>These tensions have escalated over the years. The Humera area was largely isolated by the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war which lasted for two decades from 1998 to 2018. The main route for transporting sesame, its largest cash crop, out of the area – through Eritrea – was closed, and the town’s location along the banks of the Tekezze River which separates the two countries in the west was within the militarised zone.</p>
<p>Since coming to power in 2018, Abiy Ahmed, the first Oromo prime minister, has made overtures to the Eritrean president, Isaias Afewerki, seeking to end the border conflict with that country and implement the peace treaty originally agreed in 2000. His efforts helped him secure the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2019/summary/">2019 Nobel Peace Prize</a>.</p>
<p>But internally he has been focusing his efforts on weakening the Tigrayan-led government. He has replaced the former ruling party with a new Prosperity Party, which the former Tigrayan leadership has refused to join. When national elections were postponed, citing the risks posed by COVID-19, the Tigrayan regional government went ahead and held their own election on September 9. The central government refused to recognise the results and declared its intention to install an administration of its own choosing, thereby <a href="https://theconversation.com/residual-anger-driven-by-the-politics-of-power-has-boiled-over-into-conflict-in-ethiopia-150327">ramping up the tensions</a> between the centre and the region.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/residual-anger-driven-by-the-politics-of-power-has-boiled-over-into-conflict-in-ethiopia-150327">Residual anger driven by the politics of power has boiled over into conflict in Ethiopia</a>
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<p>The real losers in this political crisis are, of course, the civilians caught in the middle of the fighting. For the people of Humera and its surroundings, who fled civil war during the 1980s, then lived through the border war with Eritrea and are now again on the front lines, the fighting brings back the trauma of past wars and displacements.</p>
<p>The grievances of each side are real and legitimate. But the violence that is now spreading across Tigray and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54942546">into Eritrea</a> and neighbouring regions is not resolving them. It is only adding to them, heaping pain and outrage onto a dangerous bonfire that is already burning out of control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Hammond receives funding from the European Union. She is Team Leader of the Research and Evidence Facility for the Horn of Africa. She is also Global Challenge Leader for Security, Protracted Conflict, Refugees and Forced Displacement for UK Research and Innovation's Global Challenges Research Fund. </span></em></p>As ever, civilians are caught in the middle of warring ethnic groups in this strife-torn region of Ethiopia.Laura Hammond, Reader in Development Studies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1391072020-06-10T19:51:33Z2020-06-10T19:51:33ZDrivers v cyclists: it’s like an ethnic conflict, which offers clues to managing ‘road wars’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340797/original/file-20200610-82651-idbmq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7315%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/forcing-right-way-on-road-driver-1111918487">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Motorists and cyclists are akin to ethnic groups, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894">our research</a> shows. This means we might want to look to multiculturalism in managing relations on the roads.</p>
<p>As we exit lockdown, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cars-transition-from-lockdown-is-a-fork-in-the-road-here-are-two-possible-outcomes-for-future-travel-139885">car and bicycle use will increase greatly</a>. Commuters may be swapping one risk for another – an increased risk of traffic accidents and congestion for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-coronavirus-restrictions-ease-heres-how-you-can-navigate-public-transport-as-safely-as-possible-138845">risk of coronavirus infection on public transport</a>. Cities overseas are increasingly turning to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-crisis-return-of-traffic-pollution">segregated car and bicycle lanes as a solution</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-recovery-public-transport-is-key-to-avoid-repeating-old-and-unsustainable-mistakes-138415">Coronavirus recovery: public transport is key to avoid repeating old and unsustainable mistakes</a>
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<h2>Segregation isn’t a panacea</h2>
<p>However, segregation can be difficult to implement. Its construction may be costly and increase traffic congestion. </p>
<p>In addition, when many motorists incorrectly view car licensing as the main means of financing roads, it can be a politically risky project. Simply, there are many more motorist than cyclist voters.</p>
<p>Claims that segregation is a panacea are debatable anyway. Vehicle segregation in Australia dates to the 19th century. Its purpose then was to designate roads as being <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279622103_The_disruptive_traveller_A_Foucauldian_analysis_of_cycleways">mainly for “car-riages”</a>, to the exclusion of activities such as walking and trading. In turn, cars came to be <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263276404046059">viewed as the “natural” vehicles</a> of the road.</p>
<p>This engendered a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894">sense of road entitlement and aggressive driving</a>. So segregation, the very thing designed to protect cyclists from motorists, lies at the root of why some motorists are a danger in the first place.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235357394_Hell_is_other_cyclists_Rethinking_transport_and_identity">Research also suggests</a> motorists’ conduct towards cyclists becomes less responsible in mixed traffic settings as segregation increases elsewhere. Basically, danger is displaced to the suburbs.</p>
<h2>Why is aggression on roads so common?</h2>
<p>Given this, segregation must surely be complemented by promoting safety in mixed traffic settings too. This requires an understanding of behaviour on the roads and how to promote good behaviour.</p>
<p>It is not enough to put motorists’ aggression towards cyclists down to “road rage”. Aggression on the roads is more common in some places than others, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369847805000884">in the Antipodes more than in the UK</a> for example. </p>
<p>We would not conceive of aggression in other contexts, such as ethnic conflict, as being the result of a universally aberrant state of mind. We would take social and cultural circumstances into account. So why do otherwise in the case of roads?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-cyclist-death-toll-is-mainly-due-to-drivers-so-change-the-road-laws-and-culture-102567">Rising cyclist death toll is mainly due to drivers, so change the road laws and culture</a>
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<h2>What does this have to do with ethnic conflict?</h2>
<p>The ethnic conflict analogy is not coincidental. Ethnicity is a useful point of reference for thinking about the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894">identities and relations of drivers and cyclists</a>. </p>
<p>Much like disability and LGBTQI activists, a growing body of cycling activists see cyclists as having <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369847816302388">characteristics like those of an ethnic minority</a>. In these terms, one could argue segregated car and bicycle lanes perpetuate a form of historical domination: driving is the equivalent of “whiteness” and segregation a form of infrastructural “apartheid”.</p>
<p>However, we do not want to take the analogy that far. Cyclists do not meet cultural criteria of minority status. And so, in times when ethnic minority status is an increasingly influential advocacy discourse, the cyclist-equals-oppressed ethnic-group equation can be exposed as purely tactical.</p>
<p>What we do observe, however, is that identity formation among motorists and cyclists mirrors that of ethnic group formation. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894">Our research</a> analyses what several hundred respondents had to say in online public forums about motorist-cyclist relations in Melbourne. </p>
<p>Our analysis reveals motorists and cyclists have distinct identities, involving both their sense of themselves and of the other group of road users. There is also a widespread sense, even among cyclists, that cars are the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258192332_The_'System'_of_Automobility">“natural” vehicles of the road</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340502/original/file-20200609-165349-5wgll9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cyclists and motorists have a distinct sense of identity, of themselves and of each other.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gwoeii/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our analysis also reveals an array of derogatory ethnic-like stereotypes that motorists and cyclists hold about one another. Interestingly, like some Bosnian former Yugoslavs who deny their ambiguous ethnic status by declaring militant Bosniac (Muslim), Croat or Serb patriotism and hatred of the ethnic other, cyclists who also drive often express the most extreme views. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/contested-spaces-virtuous-drivers-malicious-cyclists-mindset-gets-us-nowhere-73371">Contested spaces: 'virtuous drivers, malicious cyclists' mindset gets us nowhere</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Drawing on multicultural tolerance</h2>
<p>If ethnicity is a useful point of comparison for thinking about the identities and relations of drivers and cyclists, then it makes sense to go a step further. It may also, à la multiculturalism, offer pointers to how to manage relations between drivers and cyclists.</p>
<p>At the heart of multiculturalism is a <a href="http://elplandehiram.org/documentos/JoustingNYC/Politics_of_Recognition.pdf">politics of “recognition”</a>. We see it in a range of practices such as cross-cultural awareness training. Likewise, vehicle use education could pay more attention to increasing awareness of the capacities and limitations of other vehicles.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cars-bicycles-and-the-fatal-myth-of-equal-reciprocity-81034">Cars, bicycles and the fatal myth of equal reciprocity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is also recognition in the legal practice of “<a href="http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/Cultural_Defense">cultural defence</a>”. Crime and punishment are not determined solely by a universal standard, but also with regard to a defendant’s cultural background. </p>
<p>Likewise, a shared code of conduct could govern conduct on the road, tempered sensitively to the unique capacities of particular vehicles. The “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop">Idaho stop</a>”, for example, permits cyclists in that state to treat stop signs as yield or give way signs if conditions are safe to do. Research has shown this <a href="https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/the-idaho-stop-gets-added-momentum-with-chicago-study/">increases safety on the roads</a>. Versions of this law have been passed in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop">Delaware, Colorodo, Arkansas and Oregon</a> since 2017.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/4140910" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An explanation of the ‘Idaho stop’ law, which has been in place in that state since 1982.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Practices such as these might lead to greater “tolerance” between different road users. Putting this another way, we argue for the road to be reconceived as a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894">multiautocultural</a>” space.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/seeing-red-why-cyclists-ride-through-traffic-lights-12916">Seeing red: why cyclists ride through traffic lights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Drivers and cyclists develop distinct identities of themselves and others in ways that mirror the formation of ethnic identities. And on-road segregation runs the risk of reinforcing this process.Andrew Dawson, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, The University of MelbourneJennifer Day, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870102018-01-11T11:02:43Z2018-01-11T11:02:43ZLocal conflict and the economy: what can we learn from Indonesia’s Maluku<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201106/original/file-20180108-83556-u0xd8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A view of Ambon, the capital of Maluku, where conflicts have crippled the province's economic growth.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been almost 20 years since Indonesia faced socio-economic crises marked by internal conflicts. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00074918.2017.1298720?needAccess=true&journalCode=cbie20">My recent study</a> shows Maluku’s (and North Maluku’s) economy could have recorded much higher growth – an estimated 60.3% gap in 2011 – had the conflict not happened.</p>
<p>The economic indicator used is commonly translated to income per capita. This means the 60.3% gap would also translate into the estimated gap in income per capita. As this indicator also represents overall economic performance, the gap relates to lower business and market activities, and hence employment opportunities.</p>
<p>The province of Maluku (referring here to the province before its borders were redrawn in 1999) recorded one of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2233865913475434">the highest death tolls</a> from internal conflict during the 1998–2000 period. Maluku recorded almost <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2233865913475434">5,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced</a>. The region accounted for around half of all fatalities (9,399 deaths) from the country’s regional conflicts during this period. </p>
<p>However, before my study, the impact of this conflict on the province’s economy had not been calculated.</p>
<h2>How to calculate the loss</h2>
<p>Calculating this is not an easy task because the economic downturn in Maluku could be due to the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/CIB9798/98cib13">Asian financial crisis</a> rather than the localised unrest. Therefore, this study uses “synthetic” estimates of the economy in other regions that endured the same economic downturn but did not experience violent conflict. </p>
<p>The method creates a synthetic control using a combination of similar provinces in the pre-conflict period. The choice of control provinces is not subjective or arbitrary but driven by data.</p>
<p>After excluding provinces that also had high levels of conflict, the results show the pre-conflict per-capita economy of Maluku is best fitted by a weighted combination of four provinces: Bengkulu, North Sumatra, Jambi and South Sulawesi. A comparison of the trajectories of Maluku and its synthetic estimate shows how conflict affected the local economy. </p>
<p>The gap between synthetic Maluku and actual Maluku widened to more than the size of the actual Maluku economy in 1999. It means the actual economy was less than half what it could have been. The gap narrowed in 2000, but then widened during 2001–2003, meaning between 1999 and 2003 actual Maluku showed no signs of catching up with its synthetic control. </p>
<p>By 2011, the gap between the two Malukus had increased to 60.3% of the actual Maluku economy. The trajectories support the view that the persistence of violence, including <a href="http://www.michr.net/new-violence-in-indonesias-ambon.html">the incident in 2004</a>, is the reason the real economy trajectory is considerably affected. </p>
<p>Based on quick estimation for 2016, the gap between the two Malukus hasn’t changed much. This shows conditions in Maluku have stabilised in the past five years but this does not allow the economic trend to get back to where it used to be.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200058/original/file-20171219-5004-mbhe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gross Regional Product per capita: Maluku and synthetic Maluku, 1975–2011 (Rp million in 1993 prices)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the methodology could not directly explain the reason for the gap, the study further investigated this. Looking at other conflict areas in Indonesia, it could be argued the scale and length of the conflicts in Maluku have rendered the province unable to recover more quickly. </p>
<h2>Plunging business confidence stunts growth</h2>
<p>Another investigation looked at the conditions affecting Maluku’s economic performance – also known as growth determinants – in comparison to its synthetic counterpart. </p>
<p>In the period 1985-1998, the conditions between synthetic and actual did not have exactly the same trajectory but there was not much fluctuation in them. After the 1999 conflict, the relative value of manufacturing industry and infrastructure dropped only slightly compared to the synthetic counterpart. However, the relative value of investment and mining dropped considerably. </p>
<p>This trajectory indicates plunging business confidence. The relative value of infrastructure has slowly returned to its pre-crisis position after five years, boosted by government funding. But private sector investment, and hence private economic activities, did not return to Maluku after the crisis and conflicts. </p>
<p>One important lesson from this study is the potential impact of local conflict in Indonesia. This has become important considering competition among local political elites tends to raise tensions that could go beyond local elections.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/335371468050337376/Decentralization-and-violent-conflicts-the-case-of-North-Maluku-Indonesia">report by Cutura and Watanabe (2004)</a>, the conflict in North Maluku is also affected by a centuries-long political rivalry between the Sultans of Ternate and Tidore and political tensions related to the gubernatorial election at that time. </p>
<h2>More reason to end conflict quickly</h2>
<p>Although the study cannot conclusively say the results for Maluku were due to violent conflict alone, it shows the economy might have been able to bounce back if the violence had not continued for so long. The prolonged nature of the conflict, accompanied by significant violence across the province, seems to have eroded business confidence, in turn affecting the economic performance of Maluku. </p>
<p>Therefore, one implication of this study is that it is essential not only to prevent violent conflict, but also to make sure that when it does erupt, it does not last long. Addressing conflict quickly is important to restore business confidence and private investment and prevent long-term impact on the local economy. </p>
<p>But there is one danger of central government intervention. The conflict may change from a horizontal conflict (a dispute confined to the region) to a vertical conflict (a conflict with the central government). Therefore, any intervention to resolve a local conflict will require the involvement of community leaders. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00074918.2017.1298720?needAccess=true&journalCode=cbie20">full version</a> of this article is published in the December 2017 issue of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yogi Vidyattama tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Comparing real Maluku and synthetic Maluku (a Maluku without prolonged conflicts) shows that Maluku could have 60.3% more economic growth had it not experienced conflicts.Yogi Vidyattama, Senior Research Fellow in Social and Economic Modelling, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/807112017-07-10T23:31:01Z2017-07-10T23:31:01ZIran’s ethnic harmony suggests terrorism won’t thrive there<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177449/original/file-20170709-539-1ljo8je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iranians watch a soccer match between Iran and Uzbekistan at a Tehran cafe last month. Compared to their neighbours, Iranians are not plagued by ethnic tensions. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>IMAM KHOMEINI’S MAUSOLEUM AND IRAN’S PARLIAMENT COME UNDER ATTACK</em></p>
<p>This was a headline <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnWK4wUbTuY">on a breaking news story</a> published last month by Press TV, an Iranian online news publication. The news spread like wildfire through Telegram — a very popular digital platform for Iranians — as people shared pictures and videos of the event as quickly as the internet allows. The attack, which left more than a dozen people dead, was considered the first ISIS-associated atrocity to shock the citizens of Iran.</p>
<p>Iranians, Canadians and the rest of the world have since been asking the question: Are Iranians now going to suffer the same fate as those who are being terrorized by ISIS in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and even Turkey? Iran’s neighbours, after all, are often in a state of chaos caused by extremists.</p>
<p>The factors contributing to both Iran’s national fragility and its strength in the face of terrorism are varied and multiple. As someone who’s extensively studied the region, I’m going to concentrate on the factor of ethnicity. First, however, let’s start with some background on ethnicity in the aforementioned countries, and then examine Iran’s. </p>
<h2>Iraq</h2>
<p>From its inception as a modern state in 1921, Iraq proved to be incapable of stemming the expansion of racial and ethnic divides throughout the country, and the unfortunate result is fractured political and territorial unity. Ethnic tensions are boiling over particularly in Kirkuk, a city located in northern Iraq. The rivalry between Kurds and Arabs for supremacy over Kirkuk created a zone of conflict in Iraq, which has resulted in some observers arguing that we should put to rest the idea that Iraqi, as a national identity, even exists.</p>
<h2>Turkey</h2>
<p>The same ethnic clashes present in Iraq occur in Turkey. Many studies have delved into the long history of <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/turkeys-kurdish-predicament/">conflict between Kurds and Turks</a>, suggesting that Kurdish minorities have been systematically discriminated against by Turkish citizens and the Turkish government alike. It’s this ethnic tension that provided the breeding ground in which the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) mobilized Kurdish ethnics for armed confrontations against the government of Turkey.</p>
<h2>Afghanistan and Pakistan</h2>
<p>Ethnic conflict is even more salient in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The citizens of both countries have been terrorized by a series of carnages as ethnic tension continues to spur panic and destruction. Today, Pakistan is plagued by <a href="https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjSgdjYsvrUAhVJ2oMKHXwtDCEQFghTMAY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccsenet.org%2Fjournal%2Findex.php%2Fjpl%2Farticle%2FviewFile%2F25157%2F15666&usg=AFQjCNHCMK41POYC7bNSGrJXDjhu5_bdbQ">bloody combat and the subsequent thirst for vengeance among Punjabi, Balochi, Pashtu and Sindhi communities</a>. In Afghanistan, so-called <a href="http://www.understandingfata.org/about-u-fata.php">Federally Administered Tribal Areas</a>, consisting of the seven tribal communities of Bajaur, Mohmand, Khybar, Orakzai, Kurram and North and South Wazirestan, are rife with ethnic tensions.</p>
<h2>Ethnic conflict in Iran: myth or reality?</h2>
<p>Now, with the benefit of perspective regarding links between ethnic strife and national fragility, it’s clear that ethnic clashes stand out as one of the key factors behind the spread of terrorism. This opinion is in line with a number of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10242690902868343?src=recsys&journalCode=gdpe20">social/political studies</a> that have found that countries plagued with ethnic conflict are more likely to serve as host to the cancerous growth of terrorism. </p>
<p>And so is Iran’s ethnic situation going to spawn more terrorism, and put Iranians at risk of being routinely terrorized by extremists just as their neighbours are? A close look suggests that the answer is no. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177451/original/file-20170709-29852-1dx3fbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police officers control the scene around of shrine of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini after an assault involving several attackers in Tehran in June.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That’s because the status quo of ethnicity in Iran is distinct from its neighbouring countries. Iranians of different ethnic backgrounds define themselves not so much by how they differ from Iran’s national identity, but by what they have in common. Ethnic groups in Iran aren’t treated as non-Iranians, nor as those that were annexed by Iran; historically, they’ve been associated with different geographic regions within the country. </p>
<p>Different Iranian ethnicities living in different isolated communities aren’t excluded from the process of national identity formation. They share values and common social will that unite Iran’s local identities under a national one. And the state power in Iran has never been greatly contested by the different ethnic groups.</p>
<p>And so it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s unlikely there will be a dramatic uptick in terrorist activity in Iran that would be capable of mobilizing the country’s ethnic groups. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_presidential_election,_2017#Provincial_votes">The voter turnout of different ethnicities in the recent presidential election</a> — (Turks of East Azerbaijan: 69.6 per cent; Kurds of Kurdistan: 59 per cent; Blushes of Sistan and Baluchistan: 75 per cent; Lors of Kohgiluyeh-Boyer-Ahmad: 72 per cent) — also makes clear that ethnic groups are not fractured, atomized or disconnected. Rather, they’re politically engaged in their country. </p>
<p>Whether more bombs go off in the streets of Iran depends on the efficacy of security measures following last month’s attacks. But it’s improbable that terrorism is going to fester among Iran’s ethnic groups, or destroy the country’s ethnic harmony.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nima Zahedi Nameghi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unlike its neighbours, Iran’s different ethnic groups live in relative peace and harmony. Given terrorism is often spurred by ethnic conflict, will Iranians be spared further terrorist attacks?Nima Zahedi Nameghi, PhD candidate, Sociology, Laval University, Université LavalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722652017-03-05T19:13:42Z2017-03-05T19:13:42ZContested spaces: we shall fight on the beaches…<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159044/original/image-20170301-5504-9l8m8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People go to the beach in large numbers and for many different reasons, and sometimes that's a recipe for conflict.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crowded-beach-371178272?src=rU6F0l-T4o4s1musKx1Kcg-1-0">tazzymoto from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the first article in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/contested-spaces-36316">Contested Spaces</a> series. These pieces look at the conflicting uses, expectations and norms that people bring to public spaces, the clashes that result and how we can resolve these.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Picture this. It’s a beautiful sunny day. You arrive on the beach, find yourself a nice quiet area away from the crowds and set yourself up for a day of relaxation and fun in the sun. </p>
<p>But then a large group arrives and sets themselves up right next to you. They’re drinking heavily, swearing loudly and leaving their rubbish in the sand. And things are about to get worse. </p>
<p>In the distance you can hear the unmistakable buzz of a jet ski heading for your once-quiet part of the beach. The day is lost. You pack up and head home.</p>
<p>Australians are a beach-going people and research suggests that the scenario outlined above is likely to seriously annoy at least half of us. A <a href="http://www.marine.nsw.gov.au/key-initiatives/marine-estate-community-survey#Final%20reports">2014 survey</a> of New South Wales residents found that 58% of respondents considered anti-social behaviour a key threat to the social benefits of the coast. The survey was conducted for the state’s Marine Estate Management Authority (<a href="http://www.marine.nsw.gov.au/">MEMA</a>).</p>
<p>Anti-social behaviour topped the list of community concerns in the survey. This was closely followed by littering, overcrowding and the unsafe behaviour of some recreational boaters and jet skiers.</p>
<p>The strength of this response was somewhat surprising; we tend to think of the coast as a place of fun and relaxation, rather than a hot bed of conflict and simmering tensions. But Australians have always had strong ideas about the right way to behave at the beach.</p>
<h2>A tradition of free public access</h2>
<p>First and foremost we have defended the right of free access the beach. Australians have a long and ongoing <a href="https://carolinefordhistory.com/sydney-beaches-a-history/">history of resistance</a> to any development that might impede public access. </p>
<p>The legacy of this is a relatively “natural” coastal environment, even in our metropolitan areas. This reflects our preference for development set back from the beach and in public ownership.</p>
<p>But while we are keen to keep our beaches open for all, we have a slightly less egalitarian attitude towards how people should use the beach. </p>
<p>Public bathing on the beach only became commonplace and <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/bondi">acceptable in the late 19th century</a>. Board riding on public beaches was frowned upon in the 1960s – so much so that local councils in Sydney <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314619408595963">attempted to regulate surfing</a> through a registration system.</p>
<p>Today, activities such as surfing, swimming and snorkelling are generally agreed to be appropriate. In fact, these are seen as essential components of Australian beach culture.</p>
<h2>The unwritten rules of conduct</h2>
<p>Many beach activities are generally accepted and uncontentious as long as they are conducted within complex, unwritten models of appropriate behaviour. An example is the rules about “<a href="http://www.surfline.com/surfology/bill-of-lefts-and-rights/index.cfm?id=51320">dropping in</a>” among surfers.</p>
<p>These unwritten rules are constantly evolving. The rules may be <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/nswcultureheritage/PlaceMakingGeorgesRiver.htm">confounding to people not exposed to them from an early age</a>, including different cultural and ethnic groups. Conflict on the coast is often infused with underlying racial tensions, as the 2005 <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-from-the-cronulla-riots-how-much-has-really-changed-50585">Cronulla riots</a> demonstrated most dramatically. </p>
<p>Today these tensions live on and are particularly acute in relation to fishing. Conflicting cultural ideas about the size, species and number of fish and invertebrates considered appropriate to take is a regular <a href="https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/TfC/article/download/1558/1692">source of dispute</a> even for common species not covered by catch limits.</p>
<h2>When ideas about beaches are in conflict</h2>
<p>While racial tensions undoubtedly play a role, these are unlikely to explain all the tensions and annoyances that can emerge during a day at the beach. The MEMA survey indicated that we value the coast for its beauty and as a place for socialisation and enjoyment. This is largely based on the opportunities it provides for a healthy and active lifestyle. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159046/original/image-20170301-5529-1q08e53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One person’s idea of fun at the beach can be another’s hell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fleur-design/3612355391">The Pug Father/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dominant social norms therefore place the beach as a place of passive recreation focused on relaxation, appreciation of nature and wilderness-based adventure sports (such as surfing or fishing). Resentments appear to build when uses of the beach, and different users’ underlying value systems, come into conflict. In the scenario outlined at the start of this article, individuals or groups are potentially pursuing hedonistic or utilitarian values at the expense of nature-based or passive-use values. </p>
<p>Similar resentments have emerged in reverse. Individuals or groups who value the coast primarily as a place of social interaction, fun and active use often resist attempts to limit this use. An example is some <a href="https://theconversation.com/go-fish-why-fishers-dont-care-for-marine-parks-14558">anglers’ opposition to protected areas</a> or restricted-use zones.</p>
<p>A key to managing conflict therefore lies in improving our understanding of beach users’ value systems. This will help planners, policymakers and communities identify strategies that cater for the diverse interests and needs of different users. </p>
<p>In some national parks and council areas, for example, planning approaches have been developed to cater for a diverse range of recreational opportunities. Permitted activities and associated infrastructure are determined throughout the management area based on ensuring there are <a href="http://www.projectnatureed.com.au/web%20library/micro-ROS.pdf">opportunities along a spectrum of use</a> from active through to wilderness-based experiences. In NSW, government agencies are using the MEMA survey results to <a href="http://www.marine.nsw.gov.au/key-initiatives/threat-and-risk-assessment">identify and manage key threats</a> to the values of the coast.</p>
<p>In many ways, though, the conflict we see on our beaches may be a small price to pay for the free and open access to our beaches, which Australians have fought to preserve on many occasions. </p>
<p>Resolving these conflicts may partly involve planning, partly education and partly regulation. Those rules we consider non-negotiable need to be enforced – for example, the rules that keep us and other beach users safe. To a large degree, however, it also involves building tolerance, patience and empathy within our community so we can all enjoy our day out at the beach.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other pieces in the series as they are published <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/contested-spaces-36316">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Voyer has been involved in a number of projects that have received funding from the Commonwealth Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the NSW Recreational Fishing Trust and the NSW Department of Primary Industries. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Gollan works for the NSW Department of Primary Industries. </span></em></p>In many ways, the conflict we see on our beaches may be a small price to pay for the free and open access to our beaches, which Australians have long fought to preserve.Michelle Voyer, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of WollongongNatalie Gollan, PhD candidate, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697142017-01-02T20:20:52Z2017-01-02T20:20:52ZCinema opens a dialogue about coming to terms with Balkans’ past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148394/original/image-20161202-25656-1wjixkl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHBQ4VsQaic">Before the Rain (1994)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The transition from authoritarian regimes to democracy is never easy. Countries and their people must find ways to deal with traumatic and damaging histories. One of these ways has come to be known as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/09/what-is-lustration-and-is-it-a-good-idea-for-ukraine-to-adopt-it/?utm_term=.8d3d04f340bc">lustration</a>”.</p>
<p>In its narrowest sense, lustration aims to identify individuals responsible for human rights abuses and purge them from public office. Usually, this involves high-profile criminal trials. </p>
<p>Lustration also encompasses truth-seeking and reconciliation. These processes aim to repair the profound damage that periods of trauma and injustice do to civic traditions, social cohesion and intergenerational relationships.</p>
<p>The broader social function of lustration in “<a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/cpworkshop/papers/Kunicova.pdf">coming to terms with the past</a>”, then, is to rebuild trust and bring about changes in community behaviour following times of collective trauma.</p>
<p>After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many former communist regimes had to face painful truths about their past. Twenty-seven years later, this quest continues.</p>
<p>The transition from communist authoritarianism to democracy has been framed primarily by judicial and political procedures of lustration. Unfortunately, lustration efforts have been instituted very unevenly across the former Eastern Bloc – if at all. <a href="http://www.kas.de/wf/en/33.21550/">National differences</a> in political will, objectives and legal frameworks have made it difficult for the region to find a sustainable way forward. </p>
<h2>The Balkan case and the role of film</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Tito watches over a Serbian restaurant along the Belgrade-Nis Motorway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">chat des Balkans/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These problems are perhaps most pronounced in the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia. Here, memories of the <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230227798_2">authoritarian past</a> under Josip Broz Tito endure. Yet there is also ongoing disagreement over the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rp/1995-96/96rp14.pdf">ethno-nationalist wars</a> following the break-up of the Yugoslav state.</p>
<p>In other environments where formal lustration procedures have stalled or failed, alternative cultural forms of expression have explored aspects of witnessing and memory that could not be contained within legal frameworks.</p>
<p>In post-war Europe, for instance, literature was a powerful truth-seeking agent in breaking silences over traumatic pasts. This was especially so in Germany after the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Since the Cold War, film too has taken on this role. By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.</p>
<p>Many films have been made about the 1990s wars of the former Yugoslavia. Cinema itself cannot resolve issues of ethno-national conflict, nor can it tell us who was right and who was wrong: it cannot communicate a single, absolute “Truth” with a capital T. Yet films can open up dialogue on highly contentious issues. </p>
<p>Two well-known Balkan films, Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain (1994) and Theo Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze (1995), are perfect examples of this. Both express a contested, contradictory pre-Yugoslav Balkan history that is crucial to understanding why the ethno-national question in the region is yet to be resolved.</p>
<h2>The paradox of Balkan identity</h2>
<p>The tension between ethno-national difference on the one hand and a shared “Balkan” heritage on the other has shaped history in this region for centuries. The attempt to resolve this contradiction through the multi-ethnic socialist state of Yugoslavia merely exacerbated its cleavages.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Yugoslav wars (1991-2001).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Denton, Peter Božič, Paul Katzenberger & Paalso/Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under Tito, the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oCqWFQ1WKlkC&pg=PA180&dq=tito+benevolent+dictator&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eZiVT8u1Io_NswahzJyVBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=tito%20benevolent%20dictator&f=false">benevolent dictator</a>”, ethno-national co-existence through the ideology of <a href="http://europe.unc.edu/background-titos-yugoslavia/">Brotherhood and Unity</a> was promulgated. This was an uneasy accord, premised on the notion that all subsidiary national identities would wither away, leaving Yugoslav socialism to prevail.</p>
<p>Also, Tito’s state-endorsed “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3234278.pdf">partisan myth</a>” of Yugoslav unity whitewashed the lived reality of ethno-national warfare and Nazi collaboration during the second world war. Yugoslav modernity could therefore succeed only by disallowing any real articulation of ethnic difference. </p>
<p>When the Yugoslav state collapsed, “difference”, subsequently, found expression in grotesque and perverted forms. The ethno-nationalist wars of the 1990s were marked by a particularly grisly “intimate” violence between long-time neighbours and friends.</p>
<p>That Yugoslav modernity failed to resolve the paradox of Balkan identity is implicit within Manchevski’s and Angelopoulos’ films. Both directors re-articulate the “<a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/8720/">quest</a>” narrative, which has traditionally been used in cinema to combine visual explorations of travelled space with psychological processes of change, transformation and revelation.</p>
<h2>A cinematic ‘vision of survival’</h2>
<p>Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze depicts the epic journey of a successful yet existentially adrift filmmaker. “A” travels across the crumbling post-Cold War Balkan landscape in search of three lost reels of film shot by the <a href="https://monoskop.org/Yanaki_and_Milton_Manaki">Manaki brothers</a>, the filmmakers who introduced cinema into the region at the beginning of the 20th century.</p>
<p>A’s journey is traced cinematically as a historical and cyclical “odyssey”. Within a single “gaze” it takes in the entirety of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/">20th-century Balkan history</a> up to the ongoing tragedy in Bosnia, where the <a href="https://www.srebrenica.org.uk/">Srebrenica massacre</a> occurred just weeks before the first screening of Ulysses’ Gaze in Athens, August 1995.</p>
<p>Although the lost reels are eventually found and processed in Sarajevo, they are not watched, and the war continues around A. The great irony, then, is the seeker’s belief in the possibility of finding a single solution to the present conflict in the past; it is a search for a Balkan utopia that never existed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QB7RUwZuDZc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">From Ulysses’ Gaze, the pieces of a toppled Lenin statue are transported down the Danube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And yet the quest for these films does offer the protagonist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41661146?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“a vision of survival”</a>.</p>
<p>Although A’s journey does not lead to the discovery and restitution of a particular Balkan idyll, the self-knowledge and understanding he gains about the contradictions of Balkan history suggest that these societies can only move forward by accepting their multiplicity, not by trying to resolve it.</p>
<p>A’s belief that this paradox is to be realised through film itself – that is, through the search for the lost Manaki reels – draws attention to the power of cinema in post-Yugoslav truth-seeking processes.</p>
<h2>Opening up the dialogue</h2>
<p>Manchevski’s Before the Rain corresponds to the same traditional “epic” understandings of Balkan history that are expressed in Ulysses’ Gaze. </p>
<p>When Aleks, an award-winning war photographer, returns to Macedonia after a 16-year absence, he discovers that “home” no longer exists. The bucolic village he left behind, where Orthodox Macedonians and Albanian Muslims once lived together peacefully, has descended into sectarian violence.</p>
<p>The cinematic trope of the “frontier”, so central to the Western genre and a foundational myth for the <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300078350/american-west">American nation</a>, traditionally narrates the merging of different peoples and cultures at civilisational boundaries through colonial expansion. </p>
<p>The frontiers in Before the Rain do not articulate this narrative of national realisation. Instead, these frontiers reify the impact of the Balkan region’s geographical nexus at major civilisational fault lines, and its long history of domination by successive empires.</p>
<p>The “frontiers” in this film are temporal, not geographical. They are defined violently by each individual group seeking distinction from the other, but with reference, ironically, to events within a shared history of imperial occupation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wHBQ4VsQaic?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The repeated line “time never dies, the circle is never round” communicates director Milcho Manchevski’s message about temporal frontiers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The paradox of frontiers in Before the Rain, therefore, is that temporal frontiers of ethno-nationality operate in a geographical space that different nations have historically shared. Manchevski plays out this irony in a final archetypal “Western” shoot-out, which results in intra-ethnic, not inter-ethnic, bloodshed.</p>
<p>The absurdity of this ending is that each side must kill one of their own to uphold the imagined frontiers of ethnically homogeneous spaces where they have historically never existed. This conveys that “difference” is an implicit and ineradicable component of Balkan identity.</p>
<p>As the history of Yugoslavia’s break-up shows, any ideological attempt to suppress this difference will merely result in perverted articulations of nationhood.</p>
<p>Yet the ending’s even-handedness, its implication that “all sides are equally guilty” of warfare, in turn raises important questions about collective guilt and responsibility that formal lustration processes cannot encompass. This suggests that film has the capacity to prepare the ground for the understanding of collective culpability that is required to “come to terms with past”.</p>
<p>Before the Rain and Ulysses’ Gaze both demonstrate that cinema does not play a substitutive role for the failures of lustration in the post-Yugoslav environment. Rather, it has a <em>pre</em>-lustrative role.</p>
<p>Cinema fulfils this role by opening up dialogues on ethno-national difference and contested understandings of nationhood. These dialogues communicate the level of self-knowledge and participation required of the broader social and national community if it wishes to atone for past wrongdoings and become more stable and democratic in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danica Jenkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cinema can be instrumental in opening up dialogue on collective culpability for the past. Manchevski’s Before the Rain and Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze are perfect examples of this.Danica Jenkins, PhD Candidate in European Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/703482016-12-14T14:49:21Z2016-12-14T14:49:21ZRoyal massacre and king’s detention point to what Uganda is becoming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149845/original/image-20161213-1596-pnm8u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A police officer takes a picture of a royal guard to Charles Wesley Mumbere, king of the Rwenzururu kingdom, during the November crackdown.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/James Akena</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The state security assault on palace guards in which more than 100 were killed at the end of November exemplifies present day Uganda in many ways. Press accounts said <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Police-palace-raid-royal-guards-Mumbere/688334-3467804-15teptlz/index.html">bloody clashes</a> erupted when a patrol by police and troops was attacked by royal guards in the western Ugandan town of Kasese. </p>
<p>There were reports that President Yoweri Museveni had <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Museveni-pleaded-with-Mumbere-on-phone/688334-3468488-121i4rf/index.html">pleaded</a> with King Charles Wesley Mumbere of the Rwenzururu kingdom to disband the royal guards prior to the assault.</p>
<p>The king has since been arrested and remains in custody facing serious charges. His kingdom is in disarray. The crisis fits within a history that has antagonistically set the nation in a delicate situation, exacerbated by a state that feeds on ethnic manipulation for patronage. </p>
<p>Historically, colonialists helped create and build chieftaincies for collaborating groups. Today, the Ugandan state is seen time and again to facilitate sub-ethnic group breakaways from other kingdoms to form their own. Much as this is often dressed up as a promotion of cultural freedom or autonomy, but on many occasions its timing reveals its poorly disguised motives. Indeed, while the idea of kingdoms as cultural trusts is not a bad one, the way they have been politicised makes them problematic.</p>
<p>The Museveni government has made some attempts at enhancing ethnic pluralism. But in many ways, both by omission and commission, it has set different ethnic groups at loggerheads in a colonial “divide and rule” style.</p>
<p>As the late Professor Dani Nabudere once <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/200909210758.html">observed</a>, colonialists messed Africa up by grounding it on antagonistic ethnic relations – and its post-colonial leaders seem to continue to read from the colonial script when it serves their political ends. The ethnic card is played for shortsighted administrative convenience and to win support from some groups. </p>
<p>But it is also sometimes used to punish those deemed not to support the sitting government.</p>
<h2>Roots of royal resentment</h2>
<p>The current Rwenzururu kingdom crisis can be traced back to feelings of discrimination against the people of Kasese by the Tooro kingdom to which they then belonged. It took stiff resistance for them to eventually break away in 1962 and later <a href="http://mobile.monitor.co.ug/News/The-Bakonjo--Bamba-clashes----Looking-beyond-the-fights/2466686-1453512-format-xhtml-x83kr8/index.html">form the Rwenzururu kingdom</a>. This was a conglomeration of more than six ethnic groups, but with the Bakonzo at the helm. </p>
<p>Perhaps this triumph would last. But the multi-ethnic composition of the kingdom offered an opening both for future internal ethnic boundary transformation and political manipulation. </p>
<p>It was just a matter of time before different subgroups started demanding autonomy under their own kingdoms, a demand that fell conveniently into the government’s patronage politics. The result, so far, is three breakaway kingdoms established with the government’s recognition. </p>
<p>This has attracted much resentment from the Rwenzururu kingdom, which feels that the government is out to split and weaken it. This is the crux of the current bad blood, suspicion and conflict between the two. It is being escalated by the fact that the area has become predominantly <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Drawing-parallels-between-Mengo--Kayunga-and-Kasese-crises/689844-3473390-fv20x0z/index.html">pro-opposition</a>. The interface between party politics and monarchical disgruntlement sometimes makes it difficult to understand what exactly the issue is.</p>
<h2>Buganda tensions with government</h2>
<p>What we see in Kasese is a process also evident in the larger and more established <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Buganda">Buganda kingdom</a>. There have been attempts by subgroups such as the Bakooki and Banyara to break off into separate kingdoms. Such attempts have often been made with conspicuous government backing and have coincided with misunderstandings between Buganda and government. </p>
<p>The climax of these tensions came in 2009 when the Kabaka (King) of Buganda was <a href="https://ugandabeat.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/riots-after-kabaka-blocked-from-visiting-kayunga/">stopped</a> by the government from visiting Kayunga, which is officially part of his territory. Backed by heavy security deployments, the government insisted that the Banyara had installed their own king and did not want the Kabaka there. What followed were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8260130.stm">horrible riots</a>. There were around 30 reported casualties. </p>
<p>Such manipulation can also be seen vividly in the country’s decentralisation process. The official rhetoric behind decentralisation is to take services closer to the people. But it is very clear in many cases that districts are drawn along ethnic lines – often in response to ethnic agitation for “our own district”. </p>
<h2>Ethnic citizenship and exclusion</h2>
<p>The effect of such administrative logic is mainly two fold. First, it creates what Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani calls <a href="http://thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.ke/2013/05/political-identity-citizenship-and.html">“ethnic citizenship”</a> – an impression that the district belongs to the “sons of the soil”. This in turn breeds exclusionary tendencies in allocation of opportunities and, in so doing, triggers conflict. </p>
<p>Second, such a setup provides an incentive for other ethnic groups to demand their own districts along ethnic lines. An endless spiral of division is set in motion. This is how Kasese district was created in response to marginalisation. Yet even today, in response to the tensions in the area, Museveni has suggested Kasese be <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kasese-to-be-split-into-four-different-districts/688334-3415580-ns2qeb/index.html">split into four</a> districts.</p>
<p>So it comes as no surprise that nationhood in Uganda is still an elusive idea. Many people associate with their ethnic groups more affectionately than with the country. The tribalism that manifests itself in public service and allocation of resources, which also pushes every group into desiring its own district or kingdom, is partly a consequence of these strong ethnic ties. </p>
<p>It is also partly due to a careless failure by the state to build a strong sense of nationhood. Kasese is just one of the many ethnic landmines in Uganda that was bound to explode.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70348/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jimmy Spire Ssentongo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It comes as no surprise that nationhood in Uganda is still an elusive idea. Many people associate with their ethnic groups more affectionately than with their country.Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, Jimmy Spire Ssentongo is an Associate Dean (Research and Publication), School of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Uganda Martyrs University, Uganda Martyrs UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/676682016-11-13T06:57:38Z2016-11-13T06:57:38ZCentral Mali gripped by a dangerous brew of jihad, revolt and self-defence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145056/original/image-20161108-16685-772ptk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An army soldier in Douentza in the Mopti region of central Mali in March 2013, before the government lost control.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/farafinet/8587883167/in/photolist-e5T9ta-e6ikAS-e5Yvuu-e6im4w-ehPma6-e5Yqy9-e5SVUg-e5T1b6-e6cFKr-e5SYhc-ehPnzT-dUwWXq-e6ikbj-e5YYbN-e5SU2r-e5YNzQ-e5YJs5-e5Tbaz-e5Yt6E-e5Ysd5-ehV9K5-ehPimR-e5Yu1G-e5YCT1-e5Z3nG-e5TenT-e5Tksx-e5YTyf-e5Z7g5-e5T4hH-ehPmYT-e5T3tF-e5T1Wr-e5T5eP-e5TdUV-e6cFmx-e5YV7N-iaLK79-e5YF2E-e5T6Nk-e5Tce6-fpqG45-e5Z6h9-ia8bxz-e5Tqk2-fzmSQ7-dRbeEm-zseUx5-zrSJp7-zcWEDd">Farafi net.com/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the conflict in northern Mali endures, another hot spot south of the Niger river is attracting increasing attention. It involves two main areas in the centre of the country: the Macina heartland (Fulani historical-political region, between Mopti and Segou) and the Hayré (northeast of Mopti).</p>
<p>The wave of dissent began shortly before the French military intervened against jihadis who had taken control of northern Mali in 2012. In early 2013, Amadou Kufa, a Fulani Islamic preacher from central Mali and an ally of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyad_Ag_Ghaly">Iyad Ag Ghaly</a> (leader of Ansar Dine, one of three jihadi groups in the north), summoned his fighters to expand south beyond the area under the jihadis’ control.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141382/original/image-20161012-8398-1ietxq1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Key cities of Mali.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ml.html">CIA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That triggered the French-led Operation Serval in 2013. When the Islamist coalition was ousted from the cities it controlled (including Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal), jihadi activity was reconfigured. Kufa, now allegedly commanding the <em>katibat</em> (brigade) called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macina_Liberation_Front">Ansar Dine Macina</a> (formerly Front for the Liberation of Macina), still leads violent actions in central Mali.</p>
<p>However, it would be false to attribute <a href="http://militaryedge.org/embedmap/?map_id=12253&mapZoom=6&mapCenter=17.02527268537679%2C-0.791015625">political violence in this region</a> solely to groups embracing jihad. At least two more rationales exist. One is about community self-defence. The other involves a struggle led by Fulani herdsmen, more vulnerable than other Fulani communities of the area. </p>
<p>Importantly, the “Fula” struggle does not exclusively target the state. Community elites, seen as state accomplices and advocates of an unsatisfactory status quo, are tacitly challenged, too.</p>
<p>Opportunistic banditry further complicates the situation.</p>
<h2>Diverse dynamics</h2>
<p>Recent violent clashes reflect the diversity of these dynamics. In August 2016, Nampala (in the west) suffered a deadly attack jointly claimed by the jihadis and armed groups claiming to defend the Fulani cause. In May, <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20160504-mali-bilan-tensions-peul-bambara-region-mopti">interethnic fights</a> between Bambara and Fulani communities shook the Dioura area. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145058/original/image-20161108-16718-1q805jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These bulls belong to Fulani herders, who compete with other tribes for pastoral resources.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hugues/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To the east, ancient tensions between Dogon farmers and Fulani herders have fuelled frequent revenge attacks. The frequency of these has been exacerbated by the absence of the state since the March 2012 coup. </p>
<p>Further east, the border between Mali and Niger is another <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/06/20/mali-niger-une-frontiere-entre-conflits-communautaires-rebellion-et-djihad_4954085_3212.html">hotbed of tensions</a> between Fulani herders and Tamasheq herders (also called Tuareg) in particular. Widespread cattle theft organised by criminal networks, competition for grazing land and jihad intermingle. </p>
<p>All this violence has caused exoduses to Burkina Faso and towards <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/17/refugees-claim-abuse-by-soldiers-as-malis-conflict-spreads">the Mauritanian camp of Mbera</a>. The result is a deep humanitarian crisis.</p>
<h2>Pointing the finger of local elites</h2>
<p>In a shifting and fragmented political context, these conflicts obviously do not work independently of each other. There have been multiple alignments among protagonists – including alliances, break-ups and short-term collaborations. </p>
<p>In 2012, as Tamasheq separatists and then jihadis took partial control of central Mali, fractures re-opened among some elements of Fulani society, and between Fulanis and their neighbours. In the absence of the state and its army, local elites were seen as unable to protect citizens against the Tamasheqs of the National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA).</p>
<p>Those previously threatened by the MNLA perceived its ousting by the jihadist Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) in summer 2012 as a partial relief. Two recent reports, by the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/fr/africa/west-africa/mali/central-mali-uprising-making">International Crisis Group</a> and the anthropologist <a href="http://www.grip.org/fr/node/2008">Boukary Sangare</a>, detail how the MUJWA capitalised on the turbulent history between Fulanis and Tamasheqs and the immediate security needs of non-Tamasheq populations.</p>
<p>These alliances with the jihadis, oscillating between pragmatism and ideological adherence, were severely punished following the French intervention. In the Hayré (Douentza), according to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/02/19/mali-abuses-spread-south">multiple testimonies</a>, Malian armed forces carried out numerous actions. These included cattle theft, intimidation of local people, arbitrary arrests and sometimes summary executions.</p>
<h2>Consistent militancy but fluid allegiances</h2>
<p>Further to the south, in the Macina heartland, fear of the army and a sense of abandonment by the state prevail. But militancy is more consistent here, expressed in the form of jihad or ethnic identity-based discourses. </p>
<p>Amadou Kufa operates here. The newly created Alliance for the Safeguarding of the Fulani Identity and the Restoration of Justice claims to do so as well.</p>
<p>Through his sermons, Kufa managed at first to convey his message of a return to a mythical time of prosperous faith, when the Fulani – now victimised, according to him – were masters of the faith. In his recent testimonies he has expressed a wish to submit any infidel to his style of faith. He has also renounced ethnic considerations.</p>
<p>Cohesion within his movement is subject to speculation. Kufa’s recruits seemingly follow <a href="https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/WestAfricaReport17.pdf">heterogeneous logics</a>. An indicator of the variable indoctrination of these fighters (estimated at a few hundred) is the fluidity of their allegiances. Some have been recovered, with government approval, by Fulani cadres such as <a href="http://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/340339/politique/mali-hama-foune-diallo-mercenaire-delta/">Hamma Founé Diallo</a>.</p>
<p>The warlike, more than genuinely jihadi, attitude of these youths makes their integration in state-backed military units somewhat feasible. In recent years Mali has specialised in delegating security governance to community-based outfits. Pro-government militias have been more active in the north than the regular army. </p>
<p>But Fulani personalities perceived as legitimate are rare among these youths. And attempts to recycle young Fulanis for combat within non-Fulani entities such as The Platform – a coalition of armed northern pro-government movements composed mainly of Arab and Tamasheq loyalists – are hampered by mutual distrust and <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20160612-mali-violences-affrontements-10-tues-douentza-huit-dix-personnes-tuees">persistent tensions on the ground</a>.</p>
<p>As such, most of Macina and the whole Hayré remain exposed to violence emanating from isolated groups of herders in revolt against the state, or groups funded by Kufa’s movement and its godfather, Ansar Dine.</p>
<p>The Alliance for the Safeguarding of the Fulani Identity and the Restoration of Justice embodies an explicitly Fulani militant agenda. It emerged following defections from allied associations of Fulani youth. Among them, Bakaye Cissé and Oumar Aldianna initially led the movement. </p>
<p>It is hard to assess its strength, especially since reports of <a href="http://www.jeuneafrique.com/369441/politique/mali-lansip-rj-groupe-arme-peul-se-dechire/">ongoing internal factionalisation</a>. Its main leader, Aldianna, has said his force will fight the Malian army wherever necessary. That has upset Fulani elites who are accustomed to conciliation and fear even greater stigmatisation of their communities in Mali.</p>
<p>Meetings from March to July between the government and Fulani cadres have not created a realistic prospect of government security intervention in central Mali. The Niono forum in May, between Bambara and Fulani from Kareri, and visits by the justice minister to Bamako prisons in July were beneficial. But they did not end the tensions.</p>
<p>In this context, Ali Nouhoum Diallo, the National Assembly president from 1992 to 2002 and a native of Hayré pastoral communities, launched a <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20160911-mali-manifeste-faveur-peuls-exactions-centre-ali-nouhoum-diallo">coalition of Fulani cadres</a> in September 2016. Long before then, he was a leading figure in reporting abuses by the state in central Mali. His co-ordination, along with his acerbic tone towards the government, roused fears of national division and agitated Fulani civil society. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145061/original/image-20161108-16733-1i90tp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A street in the Mopti region of central Mali where the economy has stalled and humanitarian relief is badly needed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/guillaumecolin/3672361016/in/photolist-zVJju-z1yU-81LdLn-81PndW-6AvNZf-6AvP9Y-z1cV-z1fx-7kiBYf-9hv3Wf-7EXo2z-7F2gVw-7F2gnJ-7EXrp2-7F2g3S-7F2jwy-7F2j8o-z3MZ-BbKY-7F2gp7-7EXr8K-7EXq6v-7EXpyc-7F2ii7-7EXpMD-dSdnTV-7EXqeP-BbMR-7kiytj-7EXpHe-7EXnXt-7EXrUc-7F2gg9-7F2ix3-7kiy79-7kiyof-7F2fK3-7F2jkm-7EXrsn-7F2iK7-7EXpm2-7EXpNX-7F2i2h-7EXrAX-7EXpWM-7F2h7f-7EXoFv-7F2jyd-7EXpQT-7EXrhZ">Guillaume Colin et Pauline Penot/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Centre gripped by fear</h2>
<p>Fear is omnipresent in the region and economic development has stalled. Humanitarian relief is badly needed. Despite complaints against the army, several civil society representatives desire the return of the state (or rather a state). </p>
<p>Northern Mali has long been the focal point of political turmoil and of international attention. Today, the centre – a buffer zone – is in the grip of an intense political crisis. This has possible transnational ramifications as Fulani communities on the continent are closely connected.</p>
<p>In the uncertain context of multiple co-existing conflicts, the attitude of Malian authorities, starting with the security forces, may still decide the trajectories of mobilisations in central Mali.</p>
<p>More generally, the situation shows how the presence of armed jihadi actors stirs up local political tensions. It also shows that political developments in this area intimately depend on specific social configurations. Douentza, Gao, Timbuktu or Kidal reacted to confrontations with the jihadis in their own way. In some cases they create novel social configurations and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZCNgERXppY">governance</a>. </p>
<p>It is essential that those who claim to want to help rid Mali of the jihadi threat recognise the diversity of these configurations and of the social experiences deriving from them in times of crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dougoukolo Alpha Oumar Ba-Konaré is a founding member of the Observatoire Kisal.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvan Guichaoua ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>With northern Mali mired in conflict, increasing instability in the centre of the country is worrying observers. The attitude of the Malian authorities holds the key to defusing these tensions.Yvan Guichaoua, Maître de conférences sur les conflits internationaux, University of KentDougoukolo Alpha Oumar Ba-Konaré, Chargé de cours, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641862016-08-25T14:27:18Z2016-08-25T14:27:18ZFailures of a weak state are to blame for Nigeria’s ethnicity problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135172/original/image-20160823-30216-dzxk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups and more than 500 languages. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuter/Akintunde Akinleye</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If truth be told, Nigeria has an ethnicity problem. It is evident in high-profile cases of sometimes <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2010/01/201012314018187505.html">violent tensions</a>. But perhaps most damagingly, it is also demonstrated in the low-profile everyday mistrust and prejudices with which many Nigerians view fellow citizens of ethnicities other than their own.</p>
<p>The pervasive ethnic stereotyping and myth-making that goes on between ordinary civilians has the capacity to destroy the very fabric of Nigerian society. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s ethnicity problem is at least one of the reasons why Nigeria maintains its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_presidential_election,_2011">bizarre presidential rotation system</a>. Under the unofficial system, the presidency shifts after two terms between the major political regions ––the South East, the South West, and the North. </p>
<p>It is no coincidence that these three regions also broadly coincide with the three major ethnic groups – Igbo (south east), Yoruba (south west), and Hausa (north). </p>
<p>Inspired by the colonial settlement when the country was <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/43454654/A_history_of_identities_violence_and_sta20160307-11182-578spp.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1471961017&Signature=OLwXmVwLQ%2FFDzlIjR%2Bpt0qXbRb8%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DA_history_of_identities_violence_and_sta.pdf">divided into three administrative regions in 1954</a> – Northern, Western and Eastern – the rotational system has rarely ever spurred the economic or political development of the incumbent’s region, let alone the entire country. Yet the system is maintained because there would be a <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/image/nigeria-power-sharing-agreement-jeopardized">bloody revolt</a> if the ethnicity whose turn it was was ever denied presidential power.</p>
<p>Although ethnicity is far from being a uniquely Nigerian phenomenon, it presents a serious challenge to Nigeria’s stability. </p>
<p>If we are to believe Robert Putnam’s thesis on <a href="http://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/96-04.pdf">national cohesion</a>, trust is at the very centre of any successfully functioning society. But this trust is something that nation after nation, and country after country, has always had to build. And in Nigeria’s case, an inability to take nation-building seriously has enabled the persistence of the country’s ethnic divisions. </p>
<p>Ethnic divisions persist in countries like Nigeria not because the “cultures” of those countries are predisposed to ethnic strife, but as a result of a weak state. It is a weak state that has, up until now, been incapable of capitalising on policies that enhance and benefit a singular Nigerian national identity. </p>
<h2>There is no government</h2>
<p>In some academic understandings, the problem countries like Nigeria have with ethnicity is entirely accounted for by the fact that they simply have too many. </p>
<p>Countries like Nigeria, which has more than 250 ethnic groups and more than 500 spoken languages, are tautologically explained to simply be <a href="http://myweb.fsu.edu/creenock/Research/jop%202001.pdf">too “culturally” heterogeneous</a> to ever be cohesive. It does not help that often “culture” takes on any and whatever meaning the user wishes to imply.</p>
<p>Yet most societies have always been, and continue to be, composed of multiple ethnic groupings. Those societies where the state has been successful at lessening the political and economic importance of ethnic attachment have been those able to establish <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100154260">a singular national identity</a> through the education system and the dissemination of standardised public goods. </p>
<p>This is a process that the political scientist and anthropologist, James C. Scott, terms <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Not-Being-Governed-Anarchist/dp/0300169175">“internal colonisation”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135174/original/image-20160823-30209-12xhqf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nigeria’s failure at nation-building explains the maintenance of the country’s bizarre system of rotating presidents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Dan Kitwood/Pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“There is no government”, is a common refrain in Nigeria. What it means is the state literally does not reach or touch large parts of the geographical population. It is the major characteristic of a weak state. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w11275">strong state</a> is able to reach all parts of its geographical domain in the form of formal taxation, the provision of public amenities, and the physical and legal protection of citizens without needing to oppress or suppress challenges from civil society. </p>
<h2>The failures of a weak state</h2>
<p>States like Nigeria – administratively large and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Zaria_massacre">occasionally oppressive</a> – are actually not very well equipped to fulfil the basic functions of a state. </p>
<p>Despite the new government’s laudable goals to <a href="http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/03/01/experts-seek-improved-tax-system-to-raise-nigerias-revenue/">improve tax generation</a>, the state is yet to develop effective and efficient mechanisms of formal national tax collection outside of Lagos. </p>
<p>This means most ordinary people pay exorbitant amounts in informal, and often untraceable taxation. For these, formal taxes cannot be linked to any distinct benefit provided by the state. In most parts of the country, state-funded education at all levels is poor if not entirely unavailable. Public hospitals have been gutted and are in a state of <a href="http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/204788-nigerians-shun-public-hospitals-minister.html">disarray</a>. </p>
<p>In far too many cases, the provision of justice goes unfelt by a great many. Where it is made to operate, it is to the abridgement of the <a href="http://punchng.com/man-named-dog-buhari-sent-prison/">legal rights of many citizens</a>.</p>
<h2>The failure to build a nation</h2>
<p>Sadly, where the Nigerian state does make an impact on the lives of individuals, these benefits are rarely in the provision of public goods available to all without consideration to wealth, gender, or ethnicity. Instead, it is in the provision of narrow economic benefits to individuals with personal links to specific actors in government. </p>
<p>As such, the socioeconomic importance of ethnic ties is maintained, and so is ethnic-based mistrust.</p>
<p>All of this is not merely a narrow matter of the failure of economic and social policy. It is much more. It is the failure to build a nation.</p>
<p>It is the failure to bring the bulk of the population under the protection of a Nigerian state in which they are able to trust regardless of their ethnicity or the ethnicity of their president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64186/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ethnic divisions persist in countries like Nigeria not because the ‘cultures’ of those countries are predisposed to ethnic strife, but as a result of a weak state.Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí, PhD Candidate in Political Science, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/583502016-06-27T11:09:53Z2016-06-27T11:09:53ZThe West’s Christian world view is a hindrance to peaceful co-existence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127358/original/image-20160620-8875-1njlj77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ancient battles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How do you identify yourself within the human race? Religion and ethnicity may both play a part, and at first glance seem to be distinct categories. We may think of religion as a choice we make freely, whereas our ethnicity or race is stamped at birth. But there are complex overlaps between these elements.</p>
<p>What is the connection, for instance, between being Christian and being British or English? In his 2016 Easter address, the British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of the British values he sought to defend as “Christian values”, and of the pride we should feel that Britain is “a Christian country”. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XI3v6ciJGlU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>In doing so he connected Britishness with being Christian. It is therefore no surprise that a <a href="https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-online.pdf">recent report</a>, which highlighted the overlaps between race and religion in the UK, suggested that some religious groups and communities suffer forms of prejudice and exclusion that “prevent them from seeing themselves as belonging fully to the national story”. </p>
<p>Religion and ethnicity, race, or nationhood are linked in complex ways. The most prominent conflicts in the contemporary world are ones in which religion and ethnicity (or nation, or race) are connected, whether we think they should be or not. White, Western, and Christian are often set in opposition to brown, Arab, and Muslim.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127360/original/image-20160620-8867-qj6rw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Conflicts of identity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>But this is not a particularly modern phenomenon, and ancient texts are important in understanding the roots of these issues. The Bible in particular and its (mostly Western) interpretations can be implicated in constructions of identity in both religious and ethnic terms. </p>
<p>Scholars often depict Judaism at the time of Christian origins as an exclusive, particular group identity. Judaism is seen as a kind of ethnicity or race from which others were excluded, despite evidence that Jews were often socially integrated into their wider societies and also welcomed sympathisers and converts of various kinds to join them. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/205391/">scholarly caricatures of Jews</a> helped to generate violent anti-Semitism, a form of racial and religious prejudice, that most horrifically enacted in the Holocaust. By contrast, Christianity is frequently depicted as a universal, all inclusive movement which welcomes all people, from all races and backgrounds. The Apostle Paul declared: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+3%3A28&version=CEB">Galatians 3.28</a>). This sounds rather like the welcoming, universal message of tolerance and acceptance that modern liberals like to reiterate. </p>
<p>But there is another side to this appealing message, just as there is when Cameron praised freedom and tolerance but insisted that Britain is a Christian country. Saint Paul’s basis for acceptance and belonging demands an allegiance to Jesus Christ. Early Christians, like Jews, described their group identity in ethnic or racial terms. They saw themselves as brothers and sisters, descendants of Abraham, following a common way of life, raising their children in a “Christian” way. They identified themselves as a particular “people” in a world of sinful “pagans”. It is no coincidence that a sense of identity as a Christian people often combines aspects of religious, ethnic, and national characteristics. </p>
<p>Both early Jews and early Christians, in other words, saw themselves as a particular kind of “people”, even though they articulated this in different ways. When Christian interpreters ignore this similarity, and instead depict Judaism as exclusive and closed, and Christianity as all embracing and inclusive, they (perhaps unwittingly) reflect and reinforce the imperial ideology of the white, Christian West. Everyone can live peacefully and tolerantly together, as long as it is under the umbrella of the system of values and practices that we determine and impose – often with overwhelming military power. <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-islam-most-religions-are-discriminatory-13817">Religious mission and imperialism</a> stand awkwardly close together.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127362/original/image-20160620-13808-1q17yxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Unifying?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/2017/postgraduate/programmes/TMADIASP_C/">study of race</a>, “whiteness” came to attention only relatively late. Being “white” was, in a sense, the unnoticed, unremarked kind of racial identity – precisely because it was the dominant, default perspective, from which “others” were observed. But what that in turn reflected was the dominant position of the white population, whose racial identity did not need, it seemed, to be examined. Yet such a masked, assumed position of domination was (and is) precisely at the heart of the problem of race and racism. </p>
<p>A similar presumption of dominance that operates in the case of whiteness often also operates in the case of “Christianness”. It is, in effect, the white Christian West which sets the parameters within which others may find their place. It does this, all too often, in ways that conceal the fact that this is a white, Christian programme, which requires others to accept its framework, values, and commitments, or – despite its stress on freedom and tolerance – <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference">face its uncompromising force</a>.</p>
<p>Until we can find better paradigms for peaceful coexistence, is it any wonder that those from other ethnic and religious backgrounds feel their own values and identity are being compromised in the process?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Horrell receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and works for the University of Exeter, UK. </span></em></p>We need to change our outlook if we are going to improve international relations.David Horrell, Professor of New Testament Studies, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588072016-05-12T13:39:39Z2016-05-12T13:39:39ZNigeria faces new security threat fuelled by climate change and ethnicity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122099/original/image-20160511-18150-3dh5o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tensions between cattle herders and crop-farming communities in Nigeria have escalated in the past few months.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forging national unity has been a perennial challenge to Nigeria’s evolution as a country. Since independence from Britain <a href="http://global.britannica.com/place/Nigeria">56 years ago</a>, the country continues to weather severe existential storms that strike at its very core. </p>
<p>These make national cohesion and political stability largely elusive. They include: a bloody civil war in the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wqN9BgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=nigeria,+civil+war+in+the+1960s,&ots=MNQBqSFHzE&sig=FliM_Tj9ThQpF9sdp-bk8d5UbnQ#v=onepage&q=nigeria%2C%20civil%20war%20in%20the%201960s%2C&f=false">1960s</a>; decades of corrupt military dictatorships; perennial inter-ethnic distrust; occasional religious strife and political insurrection; minority and resource rights agitation; and a trademark corrupt political and ruling class.</p>
<p>Recently, Nigeria’s sociopolitical and geopolitical tensions have taken on another dimension. This is evident in the escalating bloody clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farmers. Though there are <a href="http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/eke/050816.html">alternative narratives</a>, the ongoing tensions reflect, in a way, climate change-induced resource scarcity that threatens food and national security.</p>
<p>Nigeria is by far Africa’s most ethnically diverse country. It has an estimated <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=x3gAB7A6-bgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA243&dq=nigeria,+250+ethnic+nationalities&ots=xhCGc2w5-M&sig=7eiVMD-9mY2Iu36ffpnT-PCxhno#v=onepage&q=nigeria%2C%20250%20ethnic%20nationalities&f=false">250 ethnic nationalities</a>. Its most visible faultline is its stark religious divide between the Islamic North and Christian/animist South. This is a less accurate simplification of a complex dynamic. </p>
<p>Before <a href="http://global.britannica.com/place/Nigeria">Nigeria’s independence</a>, the British in 1914 coupled independently administered protectorates of southern and northern Nigeria by fiat as an act of convenience, before bowing out 46 years later in 1960.</p>
<h2>Boko Haram</h2>
<p>Triggered by a complex mix of factors, Nigeria’s security challenges continue to escalate. In the past eight years the Boko Haram insurgence has placed the country on the global <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-boko-haram-is-the-worlds-deadliest-terror-group-54216">jihadist map</a>. </p>
<p>The failure to rescue the nearly 250 <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/13/africa/chibok-girls-new-proof-of-life-video/">Chibok girls</a> Boko Haram abducted is a scar on the conscience of the government.</p>
<p>And a recent skirmish between the military and members of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35342215">Shiite Islamic sect</a> points to the escalating security crisis. The military is accused of extrajudicial killings of Shiite adherents.</p>
<p>The development puts Nigeria’s abysmal <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/nigeria">human rights record</a> under stress. It also potentially places the country in the middle of muscle-flexing by competing Islamic powers outside its borders. For example, Iran was quick to express concern over the Shiite <a href="http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2015/12/16/massacre-of-shia-in-northern-nigeria-an-opening-for-iran/">incident</a>. Iran is a leading Shiite nation, with its eyes on the treatment of a Shiite religious minority in a country with majority Sunni adherents.</p>
<p>While the Boko Haram insurgence keeps mutating, Nigeria is experiencing another dangerous chapter in its security challenge. </p>
<h2>A new security threat</h2>
<p>In the past several months <a href="http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/203225-herdsmenfarmers-clashes-nigerian-govt-proposes-ranches-herdsmen-insist-grazing-routes.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">tensions have escalated</a> between nomadic cattle herders and traditional crop-farming communities. Some traditional and farming communities in central and southern Nigeria have been overrun by herders who are accused of grazing their cattle on crop fields. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/04/04/the-agatu-massacre/">country’s media</a> is dominated by reports of maiming, killings, rape and other forms of banditry associated with highly armed nomadic herders. Unofficial figures put the death toll from one such incident in Enugu State, in the south-eastern region, at <a href="http://pulse.ng/local/in-enugu-many-killed-as-suspected-fulani-herdsmen-invade-community-id4959890.html">about 100</a>.</p>
<p>In the absence of state protection, these events have fuelled affected communities’ support for ethnic or regional militias as a civic defence strategy. The clashes between herdsmen and farmers strike at the core of Nigeria’s vulnerable ethno-political faultlines. They also have ramifications for climate change and food security.</p>
<p>Crop farmers produce more than 80% of Nigeria’s food. Leaving this critical lifeblood of the country’s economic and cultural life at the mercy of herders and their cattle is not an option. Farmers, the majority of whom are women, constitute the bedrock of the country’s <a href="http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/publications/lawalwa/IMPACT%20OF%20INFORMAL%20AGRICULTURAL%20FINANCING%20ON%20AGRICULTURAL%20PR.pdf">informal economy</a>. And the unofficial farming sector is the country’s <a href="http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/01/integration-of-agriculture-informal-sectors-into-economy-could-increase-insurance-penetration-mokwunye/">highest employer</a> of labour. Now this key economic sector is under siege.</p>
<p>Itinerant herding is an age-long practice. Like all aspects of culture and civilisation, its purveyors must adapt to new realities. In a multi-ethnic society like Nigeria, coexistence, and not conquest, is a sacred code of social cohesion. </p>
<p>The ongoing resource and environmental tension represented by the clash between herders and crop farmers has embedded religious significance. Most itinerant herders are northerners and adherents of the Islamic faith. Their clashes with farmers happen mainly in the central and southern regions, where most people are Christian and animist.</p>
<h2>Climate change, religion and ethnicity</h2>
<p>Perennial ethnic and religious suspicion in Nigeria often fuels apprehensions of an ulterior jihadist agenda. This has a significant security dimension that can easily be exploited. There is a perception of state impunity for the herders, given the evident lack of resolve to rein them in. Noble Laureate Wole Soyinka <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201604290228.html">has said</a> the government’s response </p>
<blockquote>
<p>smacks of abject appeasement and encouragement of violence on innocents. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nigeria needs an urgent response before the current crisis festers like the Boko Haram malaise. </p>
<p>The herder-farmer crisis demonstrates the reality of the climate change and resource control interface, and its embedded security challenges. The scarcity of water and shrinking of grazing fields in the desert north appear to be pushing herders southwards to the grasslands of the savannas and forests.</p>
<p>The skirmish over natural resources, namely water and grazing fields, could become more dire as the impact of climate change takes hold. That struggle has significant security implications for Nigeria and other African countries. Its resolution requires thoughtful intervention. This should include a combination of policy options rooted in technology and innovation, as well as political and sustainability policy responses.</p>
<p>Nigeria could be a perfect test case of the intersection of these interrelated elements. A national strategy based on innovation, security, sustainability and political will is urgently required. It needs to be designed to mediate the present agro-ecological tension that threatens Africa’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-06/nigerian-economy-overtakes-south-africa-s-on-rebased-gdp">largest economy</a> and its <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/africa-population/">most populous nation</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chidi Oguamanam receives funding from the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council . He is affiliated with the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) Network </span></em></p>Escalating clashes between herders and farmers in Nigeria threaten the country’s national and food security. A response based on innovation, sustainability and political will is urgently needed.Chidi Oguamanam, Professor of Law, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526012016-02-16T04:21:47Z2016-02-16T04:21:47ZSobukwe’s pan-Africanist dream: an elusive idea that refuses to die<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111330/original/image-20160212-29214-1lp2idg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C671%2C4716%2C3507&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Foundation essay: Our foundation essays are longer than usual and take a wider look at key issues affecting society.</em></p>
<p>Is Africa really for Africans? American commissioner to Africa and abolitionist <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/delany-major-martin-robison-1812-1885">Martin Delany</a> asked this question a century and a half ago following his sojourn in Africa and Europe. </p>
<p>Attempts to answer it spawned pan-Africanism - an idea that refuses to die. This question is asked in memory of South African leader <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/robert-sobukwe-overview.htm#.Vr2c9fl97IU">Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe</a>, a doyen of pan-Africanism who died in February 1978. </p>
<p>What became of Sobukwe is a consequence of a myriad of factors, starting from his days at <a href="http://ectoday.co.za/business/a-legacy-of-black-excellence/">Healdtown Comprehensive School</a>. A speech he made as head boy at the school emphasised co-operation between blacks and whites, demonstrating his sense of awareness of the issue of race at a young age.</p>
<p>Such awareness evolved into an ideological posture, nurtured and refined by many factors that spawned his Africanist orientation. It was at Fort Hare, a university from which a great many African leaders graduated, where much of this happened. His study of Native Administration as a subject and interaction with a lecturer who taught it, <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/robert-sobukwe-how-can-man-die-better-detail?Itemid=6">Cecil Ntloko</a>, sharpened his political consciousness. </p>
<p>To these add the pursuit to forge synergy of African people’s struggles against colonialism as institutionalised in the All-African Convention of 1935; his interest in African politics; and John Galsworthy’s play titled Strife - a story of <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/robert-sobukwe-how-can-man-die-better-detail?Itemid=6">“a struggle between Labour and Capital”</a>.</p>
<p>While a member of the African National Congress (ANC), Sobukwe embraced its Youth League’s definition of African nationalism that emerged during the leadership of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/anton-muziwakhe-lembede">Anton Lembede</a>. It was at odds with the mother body as it </p>
<blockquote>
<p>emphasized the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=YR9JUxYlJOkC&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=Leo+Kuper+emphasized+the+exclusive+basis+of+African+solidarity,+as+a+race+and+as+a+nation&source=bl&ots=_rsEb8So99&sig=uimfHaCfTMWd7s9rVCygNFF3pBU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii7sXB-vnKAhUGuRoKHQc-B98Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=Leo%20Kuper%20emphasized%20the%20exclusive%20basis%20of%20African%20solidarity%2C%20as%20a%20race%20and%20as%20a%20nation&f=false">exclusive basis of African solidarity</a>, as a race and as a nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sobukwe developed the philosophy of African nationalism to even higher intellectual heights. He believed that African nationalism was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a basis for the complete unity of the African people, and the basis for achievement of national freedom for the African people as a step towards a fully <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/robert-sobukwe-how-can-man-die-better-detail?Itemid=6">fledged democratic order</a> in South Africa.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He dedicated his life selflessly to this cause. The lesson he left for humanity was his ideological stand that there is <a href="https://ilizwe.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/speeches-of-r-m-sobukhwe.pdf">only one race</a>, the human race. Perhaps if we had listened to Sobukwe’s teachings, the world would not be struggling today with blatant racism.</p>
<h2>The fathers of pan-Africanism</h2>
<p>Delany argued in his <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=9dBC2U-EgBsC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=%E2%80%9CAfrica+for+the+African+race+and+black+men+to+rule+them%E2%80%9D,+Official+Report+of+The+Niger+Valley+Party,+Martin+Delany&source=bl&ots=cwzA3gCqKo&sig=h_tvXH6ZexCXeOBityvlH_FPR9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPgvKBgvLKAhWJ0xoKHWOWAz8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CAfrica%20for%20the%20African%20race%20and%20black%20men%20to%20rule%20them%E2%80%9D%2C%20Official%20Report%20of%20The%20Niger%20Valley%20Party%2C%20Martin%20Delany&f=false">1861 Report</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa for the African race and black men to rule them</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Attempts to achieve this date back to the struggles against slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and racism. </p>
<p>They became systematised into a pursuit called pan-Africanism. It aimed to elevate the human race of African origin from <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029079?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">centuries of humiliation</a>. Pan-Africanism came to engender the spirit of African unity among the native Africans and those in the <a href="http://panafricanperspective.com/pheko.htm">diaspora</a>.</p>
<p>Following Edward Blyden’s theorisation of <a href="http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/292/277.full.pdf">African Personality</a>, a Trinidadian barrister, <a href="http://www.africanidea.org/pan-Africanism.html">Henry Sylvester-Williams</a>, coined Pan-Africanism. The concept came to frame efforts to </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Unity-The-Evolution-Pan-Africanism/dp/0582645220">re-establish the dignity</a> (of Africans) in a world that has hitherto conceded [them] none. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Blyden is considered the father of pan-Africanism. But, pan-African scholar <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pan-Africanism-Exploring-Contradictions-Development-Interdisciplinary/dp/1840143754">William Ackah</a> argued that pan-Africanism does not have “a single founder or particular tenets that can be used as a definition”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-w.e.b.-dubois">WEB DuBois</a>, <a href="http://marcusgarvey.com/">Marcus Garvey</a>, <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/gah/hayford-joseph-ephraim-casely-1866-1930">Joseph Casely-Hayford</a>, and <a href="http://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/Who%20We%20Are/who-was-george-padmore">George Padmore</a>, among others, enhanced the profundity of the concept. It later evolved into an ideology, a philosophy, and a movement. It enthused the first generation of post-colonial African leadership, chief among them <a href="http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/pan-afrikanism-afrocentricity/37699-pan-africanism-imperialism-unity-struggle-towards-new-democratic-africa.html">Kwame Nkrumah</a>.</p>
<h2>So what is it?</h2>
<p>Pan-Africanism is a socio-political worldview. As an ideology, it represents integrative intent directed at fundamental change in society. In <a href="https://consciencism.wordpress.com/history/consciencism-philosophy-and-ideology-for-decolonisation/">Nkrumah’s words</a>, Pan-Africanism</p>
<blockquote>
<p>guides and seeks to connect the actions of millions of persons towards specific and definite goals. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a philosophy “based on the belief that Africans share common bonds and objectives and … advocate[s] unity to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1803448.Pan_Africanism_in_the_African_Diaspora">achieve these objectives</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111325/original/image-20160212-4413-xbsme6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Philosophy is the instrument of ideology for a desired social, economic and political order. According to <a href="https://consciencism.wordpress.com/history/consciencism-philosophy-and-ideology-for-decolonisation/">Nkrumah</a>, it “performs ideological function when it takes shape as political philosophy”, laying “down certain ideals for our pursuit and fortification”, and becoming “an instrument of unity by laying down the same ideals for all the members of a given society”.</p>
<p>After decades of decolonisation, an inevitable question is whether a desired social, economic and political order as envisaged in pan-Africanism has been realised.</p>
<h2>Is Africa really for Africans?</h2>
<p>Africa is a construct of colonial imagination, which the 1885 <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195337709.001.0001/acref-9780195337709-e-0467">Berlin conference</a> perfected in the resolution to balkanise her for imperial ends. </p>
<p>This <a href="http://nobidadetv.com/archives/9690">destroyed</a> “the cultural and linguistic boundaries established by the indigenous African population”. Africans became estranged from one another, separating into different nationalities.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.dfa.gov.za/foreign/Multilateral/africa/oau.htm">Organisation of African Unity</a> was established in 1963 to foster unity and solidarity. But it did not deconstruct the Berlin conference stratagem of continued domination of the continent. Its focus was on colonial freedom. It did not change the narrative of the scramble for Africa. This “showed the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3677657/Nationalism_and_Pan_Africanism_revised_-_decisive_moments_in_Nyereres">limits</a> of the pan-Africanism of African states”. </p>
<p>The decolonisation project secured the independence of the African states, but their evolution followed the pattern of fragmentation determined in Berlin. Hence, Africans characterise each other as foreigners in their colonially determined boundaries.</p>
<p>Sometimes this assumes the form of hatred and violence - <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2015/05/xenophobia-south-africa-150501090636029.html">xenophobia</a>, <a href="https://writix.co.uk/blog/the-history-of-rwanda-genocide">ethnic</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil</a> wars. And African leaders jealously protect their sovereignty. These are the contradictions that drive Africa’s history.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://dilemma-x.net/2013/02/10/black-history-month-the-united-states-of-africa-the-diasporas-remittances-in-2012/">United States of Africa</a> remains an elusive ideal. This is a pity because an important lesson of geopolitics is that the world’s largest economies derive their strength from their unity.</p>
<p>Nkrumah was conscious of this. He was so committed to the pan-African ideal of a united Africa that he was even prepared to give up the sovereignty of Ghana. </p>
<p>He knew that for Africa to be for Africans it must unite. This requires, as Dialo Diop correctly <a href="http://bookze.xyz/pub/mafube-tafelberg">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>mutual and reciprocal surrender of sovereignty among states on the basis of common interest and free popular consent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the concept of <a href="http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">African Renaissance</a> former South African president <a href="http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/1998/mbek0813.htm">Thabo Mbeki</a> articulated a pan-African agenda in the 21st century. He did so with profound clarity and a sense of mission, underscoring the significance of collective self-reliance of African countries. </p>
<h2>Securing African future a pan-African way</h2>
<p>Contemporary institutional arrangements to pursue the pan-African agenda in the <a href="http://www.au.int/">African Union</a> and <a href="http://www.au.int/en/organs/pap">African Parliament</a> are laudable. But, do these institutions really exemplify the Unity of Africa or that of her leadership? </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111284/original/image-20160212-29207-80aocd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am asking this question because ugly scenes of violence against African foreign nationals dominate our space. Why is pan-Africanism not yet a fully lived experience? Some appear to ascribe a reason for this to <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=rZCPAQAAQBAJ&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Kwandiwe+Kondlo.+2009&source=bl&ots=DBMapBB540&sig=7QCMczbrM6OxQVlzoacW8nOMlbg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNx_iH9O_KAhXFvBoKHQitC2YQ6AEITzAJ#v=onepage&q=Kwandiwe%20Kondlo.%202009&f=false">continentalism</a>. This suggests that the African Union and African Parliament are used as a means to achieve this rather than pan-Africanism. </p>
<p>Most African leaders are stuck in the sovereignty of their nationalism. So are their followers. Burundi’s stand against the African Union’s decision to <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/burundi-african-union-wont-impose-peacekeepers-421557?rm=eu">deploy peacekeepers</a> is a case in point. Pan-Africanism is pitted against nationalism. This makes Africa weak and vulnerable. It gives way for <a href="http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/ashcroft3a.html">“a continuity of preoccupation”</a>. </p>
<p>As the decoloniality scholar <a href="http://www.thethinker.co.za/resources/48%20Thinker%20full%20mag.pdf">Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni</a> explains, the colonial matrices of power continue </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to exist in the minds, lives, languages, dreams, imagination, and epistemologies of modern subjects in Africa and the entire global South.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Africa to be for Africans, pan-Africanism should be a lived experience, not an ideological project for political rhetoric. </p>
<p>A body of pan-African thought exists. This has been developed by outstanding African scholars, political scientists, historians and philosophers living in Africa and the <a href="http://panafricanperspective.com/pheko.htm">diaspora</a>. It is the responsibility of African universities to accommodate it in their curricula to ensure that the future leaders of this continent have a pan-African orientation when they graduate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from National Research Foundation(NRF) for his post-graduate studies. He is affiliated to the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM)- an organisation that he served as its President from 2012-2015. He is the Chief-Editor of the Journal of Public Administration. </span></em></p>Robert Sobukwe developed the philosophy of African nationalism to even higher intellectual heights. The lesson for humanity was his ideological stand that there is only one race - the human race.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530822016-01-28T10:47:02Z2016-01-28T10:47:02ZDemagogues in history: Why Trump emphasizes emotion over facts<p>You may have heard <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/why-a-demagogue-is-more-d_b_8925508.html">news media</a> and political rivals describe Donald Trump as a “demagogue” this presidential primary season. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-demagogue/index.html">Hillary Clinton</a> used the term to describe Trump in a MSNBC interview:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That’s what a demagogue does: They say whatever they need to say to try to stir up the passions of people.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The term demagogue is conventionally <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demagogue">defined</a> as a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on prejudice and emotion rather than reason.</p>
<p>America has a deep and abiding history of demagogues, including Louisiana’s <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED189660">Huey Long</a>, Alabama’s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2211204?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">George Wallace</a>, and Washington D.C.’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/12/pat-buchanan-believes-donald-trump-is-the-future-of-the-republican-party/">Pat Buchanan</a>. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2439325">research</a>, I examine the efforts to hold demagogues around the world accountable for spreading violent propaganda. Kenyan Vice President <a href="http://www.ijmonitor.org/category/kenya-cases/">William Ruto</a> and former Vice President of Serbia <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/seselj/cis/en/cis_seselj_en.pdf">Vojislav Šešelj</a>, for example, are currently awaiting verdicts in The Hague for allegedly inciting violence against other ethnic groups. Dutch politician <a href="http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/09/02/geert-wilders-hate-speech-trial-moved-to-2016/">Geert Wilders</a> is facing charges of insulting a group of people based on race, and inciting discrimination and hatred. </p>
<p>For better and worse, America is an outlier in its legal tolerance of demagogues who incite ethnic and racial hatred, in large part because of First Amendment jurisprudence after World War I that left political speech to compete in ”<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14321466231676186426&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">the marketplace of ideas</a>.“ </p>
<h2>A demagogue check list</h2>
<p>The rhetoric of political <a href="http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/socialpsychology/n397.xml">persuasion</a> is remarkably the same in different countries and across history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108359/original/image-20160117-20924-u4uruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alabama Governor George Wallace standing defiantly at a door while attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, on June 11, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In speeches, politicians embrace repetition, since even an outright lie gains legitimacy if it is repeated often enough. Politicians adopt unusual speech patterns like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/04/greene.grammar.day/">ungrammatical phrases</a> and long pauses, that entice their audience to listen more closely. </p>
<p>Populists often conjure vivid images and intense emotions that highlight the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-trump-religion-history-20151226-story.html">sacred security of national boundaries</a>. They often use innuendo to besmirch the reputation of opponents. Some claim <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-republicans-the-religious-right-and-evolution.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1">divine inspiration</a> for their cause. </p>
<p>Often coming of age in an atmosphere of uncertainty or instability, demagogues are different than garden variety populists. </p>
<p>Demagogues do not reassure the electorate with a rational assessment of risk as mainstream politicians tend to do. Instead, they play up existing threats, embrace a narrative of victimhood and sow despair. </p>
<p>Mocking, humiliating and denigrating scapegoats is their stock in trade. Rwandan radio broadcasters followed this pattern during the <a href="http://unictr.unmict.org/en/cases/ictr-99-52">1994 genocide of Tutsis</a>. </p>
<p>Demagogues often seek to instill fear by constantly telling their followers they are under mortal threat. <a href="https://www.ias.edu/ias-letter/2015/wilson-lillie-propaganda%5D">Our research</a> shows that encouraging an audience to take revenge on their adversaries, usually minorities and outsiders, is a particularly effective way to mobilize a base to action. </p>
<p>This is when political demagoguery turns from merely worrying to dangerous.</p>
<h2>Who qualifies as a demagogue?</h2>
<p>All successful politicians employ the techniques of populism. </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton has been known to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/12/why-arent-hillary-clintons-exaggerations-of-her-life-story-not-bigger-news/">exaggerate</a> and <a href="https://ffbsccn.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/hillary-clinton-the-master-of-repetition-and-parallel-structure-your-communication-tip-of-the-day/">repeat</a> herself. Ted Cruz speaks with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/03/24/ted-cruz-principled-or-smug-know-it-all/">operatic pauses</a> and has leaned heavily on <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/12/10/ted-cruz-religion-2016-evangelicals/76945128/">religious imagery</a> for his credibility. Bernie Sanders paints a haunting picture of <a href="http://www.thestreet.com/story/13323001/1/in-demdebate-bernie-sanders-reiterates-plan-to-end-income-inequality.html">inequality</a> in America and his villain is always <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/26/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-launch-vermont/">big corporations</a>. </p>
<p>Most presidential candidates have suggested unsavory things about their opponents and virtually all of them paint a frightening image of what will happen if they’re not elected. </p>
<h2>Crossing the line</h2>
<p>But Donald Trump is the only current presidential candidate who crosses the line from populist to demagogue.</p>
<p>Trump exaggerates his personal wealth and his ability to solve intractable foreign policy problems. He proceeds through innuendo, for instance expressing <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/01/04/donald_trump_and_the_politics_of_disgust_373191.html">disgust at Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break</a> during the last Democratic debate. Contempt and disgust are also expressed at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_us_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b">Mexicans</a>, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/donald-trumps-hatemongering-moves-african-americans">African-Americans</a>, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/08/09/trump-insult-women-history/">women</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/20/opinions/obeidallah-trump-anti-muslim/">Muslims</a>, and the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/11/26/trump-called-out-for-appearing-to-mock-disability.html">disabled</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2580521">Our research shows</a> that directing moral disgust at a target group unconsciously consolidates the identity of the in-group, his followers, who may as a result feel more empowered and in charge of their destiny. </p>
<p>Donald Trump has not refrained from moral justifications for violence. He wants to bring back <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/23/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-if-it-doesnt-work-they-deserve-it-anyway/">"waterboarding”</a> with the logic that “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us.” When a protester shouted “Black Lives Matter” at a rally in Alabama and was punched, Trump condoned the violence afterwards, saying <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/22/black-activist-punched-at-donald-trump-rally-in-birmingham/">“Maybe he deserved to get roughed up.</a>” </p>
<p>Trump’s blanket <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/republicans/12052760/republican-debate-donald-trump-las-vegas.html">vilifying of all Muslims</a> is seen by <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/22/america-look-at-what-donald-trump-is-doing-to-us.html">some</a> as condoning the increasing number of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-hate-search.html?_r=0">hate crimes against Muslim Americans</a>. </p>
<p>Even the ardent defender of free speech <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/#JohStuMilHarPri">John Stuart Mill</a> recognized that defaming a group when there’s an angry crowd outside their house constitutes criminal incitement to violence.</p>
<h2>A house of cards</h2>
<p>For a short time, Huey Long, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan attained prominent positions of political influence as a result of their invective against ethnic minorities. The <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/iowa-poll-trump-takes-caucus-lead/article/2000770">polls</a> five days before the Iowa Caucus seem to indicate success for Trump too.</p>
<p>But a reliance on whipping up anger and resentment is an unstable, high-risk strategy. Even Niccolo Machiavelli warned in his how-to manual of political deception <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Prince.html?id=bRdLCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Prince</a> that “The populace is by nature fickle.” Supporters quickly turn against crafty leaders once they realize that they are being manipulated to satisfy the demagogue’s own egotistical craving for admiration and power. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the political instability and conflict inherent in the demagogue’s tactics precipitates his political downfall. Those who live by chaos ultimately perish by chaos.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108363/original/image-20160117-20933-13irphf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Senator Huey Long.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Public awareness is key to stopping a demagogue.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1994.tb00329.x/abstract">famous study</a> demonstrated that just telling youths that they were about to be persuaded by a speaker made them more skeptical of the message. Laying bare the hackneyed techniques of the demagogue can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Linda_Kean/publication/249683228_Conferring_Resistance_to_Peer_Pressure_Among_AdolescentsUsing_Inoculation_Theory_to_Discourage_Alcohol_Use/links/0deec5334374b19242000000.pdf">inoculate</a> listeners against them. </p>
<p>Demagogues are vulnerable because they set up massively unrealistic expectations. Eventually it becomes apparent that their claims lack sound basis. The ability of the media to puncture the bubble is one reason why demagogues <a href="https://theconversation.com/heroes-or-scoundrels-how-popular-culture-portrays-journalists-and-what-that-means-for-the-2016-campaign-52249">despise them</a> so intensely. Perhaps this explains Trump’s <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/watch-megyn-kelly-address-donald-133701812.html">attacks on Megyn Kelly</a> of Fox News.</p>
<p>At various points in its history, America has learned that scapegoating religious and ethnic minorities is not the best way to cope with uncertainty and challenging times. Rather, facing the future without fear and hatred is the only chance we have of uniting our diverse population and achieving economic inclusion and political stability. </p>
<p>In Trump’s case, the likeliest scenario is still one of political self-destruction. Egotism, hubris and a penchant for violence inevitably sow the conditions for the demagogue’s own demise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Ashby Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Insults are tossed about in an election year but the word “demagogue” has a particular bite. But what is a demagogue and how do the 2016 candidates compare with demagogues in history?Richard Ashby Wilson, Professor of Anthropology and Law, Gladstein Distinguished Chair of Human Rights, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/507302016-01-11T04:36:39Z2016-01-11T04:36:39ZHow the rise in ethnic tensions at Kenya’s universities is hurting the academy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106461/original/image-20151217-8081-1doqvwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethnic tensions at Kenya's universities are not new. But the intensity is increasing, and ethnicity is interfering with how universities are run.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There were high hopes for Kenya’s public universities after the country gained <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/kenya-granted-independence">independence</a> from Britain in 1963. Universities were meant to become instruments of national integration. Sadly, 53 years on, that dream appears well and truly dashed. Ethnic tension is a daily reality on the country’s campuses.</p>
<p>In November 2015 the Masaai Mara University was closed after students from different ethnic groups clashed in the wake of <a href="http://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/shame-as-university-is-shut-over-ethnic-chaos-among-students/">a campus soccer match</a>. Earlier in the year, Moi University was <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/Moi-University-Closure-Students-Clashes/-/1107872/2789524/-/13hb5vm/-/index.html">shut down indefinitely</a> after student leadership elections ended in ethnic clashes. </p>
<p>Ethnic consciousness has been a part of Kenya’s higher education politics since the first decade of independence. Now it is becoming more intense and violent.</p>
<h2>A history of government control</h2>
<p>In 1963, Jomo Kenyatta’s new government reconstituted the University of Nairobi as a centre for national development. Its role was to promote national unity and spark socio-economic transformation. But Kenyatta didn’t want the university to become a focal point for political opposition. To guard against this, the institution’s senior leadership was appointed from his own Kikuyu ethnic group.</p>
<p>This provided a strategic bulwark against academic staff and students who opposed the regime’s dictatorial tendencies. Still, the link between ethnicity and university remained largely covert during Kenyatta’s tenure. It became <a href="http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Moi-the-passing-cloud-that-did-not-go-away/-/1950946/2112270/-/format/xhtml/-/nh63s4z/-/index.html">more obvious</a> when President Daniel Moi came to power in 1978. </p>
<p>The Kikuyu community <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3991360.pdf?acceptTC=true">strongly opposed</a> Moi’s election. Moi consolidated his hold on power by enshrining one-party rule in the constitution. He also set out to politically and economically empower his native Kalenjin community. People from this ethnic group were appointed to senior government posts and Moi worked to revitalise his home region’s economy. This was precisely what Kenyatta had done during his own tenure.</p>
<p>Moi also <a href="https://www.csbsju.edu/Documents/Peace%20Studies/pdf/Human%20Rights%20Abuse%20in%20Kenya%20Under%20Moi.pdf">outlawed</a> the University Academic Union at the University of Nairobi, alleging that it concentrated on politics rather than on academics’ bread and butter issues.</p>
<p>Ethnic consciousness within universities hardened for good after a failed military <em>coup d'etat</em> in 1982. University students played a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/29/world/leader-of-kenyan-coup-attempt-said-to-have-been-a-private.html">prominent role</a> in the uprising. Moi responded by swiftly outlawing all centralised university-wide student associations at the University of Nairobi and its constituent college, Kenyatta University College.</p>
<p>They were replaced by decentralised welfare associations based on students’ home origins. This was the beginning of the “tribal associations” that have become ubiquitous in Kenyan universities. The country’s second public university, Moi University, was established in the president’s own ethnic backyard.</p>
<h2>Ethnic tensions deepening</h2>
<p>Kenya became a multiparty democracy in the early 1990s. This saw the emergence of many parties formed along ethnic lines and also had ramifications for universities. </p>
<p>Then, in 2010, the new <a href="http://www.kenyaembassy.com/pdfs/the%20constitution%20of%20kenya.pdf">Constitution</a> established ethnic-based country governments. These have been clamouring for their “own” universities, which would be run independently of the national government. President Mwai Kibaki responded in 2012 and 2013 by creating 23 new public universities and university colleges. He was trying to consolidate his legacy among Kenya’s various ethnic groups while retaining state control of higher education. </p>
<p>The “new” institutions are actually middle level technical establishments that have been converted into universities. They mostly offer programmes in business, education, arts and the humanities. These are relatively cheap to teach but are not really in demand in the labour market, so the institutions probably aren’t doing much to address Kenya’s 40% graduate <a href="http://www.africaontheblog.com/kenyas-over-educated-and-unemployable-youth/">unemployment rate</a>.</p>
<p>The nexus between ethnicity and university development has compromised governance, too. Chancellors, council members, vice-chancellors and other senior administrators are often selected from an institution’s immediate surrounds. This means that appointments are happening along ethnic lines, sometimes with no consideration of merit.</p>
<p>The same trend is becoming common in academic appointments and promotions. This causes huge tension. The University of Eldoret erupted into <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/University-of-Eldoret-Dispute-Isaac-Melly/-/1056/2631562/-/25x5jrz/-/index.html">open warfare</a> in February 2015 because locals felt they had been passed up for promotion in favour of those from other ethnic groups.</p>
<h2>A new focus is needed</h2>
<p>Kenya’s leaders must stop managing universities by focusing on ethnic demands and political rewards. Instead, appointments must be guided by merit and real attention must be paid to institutions’ manpower needs. This approach could go a long way to mitigating the lingering effects of ethnicity in Kenya’s universities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ishmael Munene does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kenya’s universities have become hotbeds of ethnic tension and conflict. This has affected everything from staff appointments to broader institutional governance.Ishmael Munene, Association Professor of Research, Foundations & Higher Education, Northern Arizona UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.