Inter-religious and Cultural approach to Conflict Management
Nigeria, some say, comprises between 300 and 400 ethnic groups and a multi-cultural entity or country made up of different ethnic nationalities such as the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Tiv, Birom, Angas, Jukun, Kuteb, Kataf, Urhobo and Itsekiri amongst numerous others. In turn, members of these diverse ethnic nationalities belong to different faiths. This […]
Nigeria, some say, comprises between 300 and 400 ethnic groups and a multi-cultural entity or country made up of different ethnic nationalities such as the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Tiv, Birom, Angas, Jukun, Kuteb, Kataf, Urhobo and Itsekiri amongst numerous others. In turn, members of these diverse ethnic nationalities belong to different faiths. This implies that within a family, it is possible to find Muslims, Christians and adherents of African Religion co-habiting and co-mingling.
The preceding statement also clearly points to the fact that Nigeria is a pluralistic religious country with Islam, Christianity and African Religion being the major Religious groups. Pluralism here simply entails the absence of any one adopted state religion and that the Nigerian citizen is free to practice the religion he/she chooses without let or hindrance.
As could be expected with any multi-cultural and multi-religious country, conflicts occur intermittently between these groups, based on cultural and religious intolerance and extremities. In Nigeria, inter-religious conflict has often occurred and is most prevalent between the Muslims and Christians, while the African religions are simply ignored, left alone or wished away. The United States Institute of Peace (2011:2) in its recent document, “Interfaith Conflict Resolution (ICR)” subscribes to the assertion above when it posited that, in recent years in Nigeria, tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims have been killed in violent conflicts. The document specifically observed that: The country’s (Nigeria) Plateau State has been particularly hard hit. In Yelwa-Nshar in the Shendam local government area, almost 1,000 individuals were killed in one month alone, provoking reprisals in both Kano State and South-eastern States.
It is to be noted that several factors are linked to this conflict, among which are issues of ethnicity, economic differentials, land ownership, migrating patterns and political power. Furthermore, substantial tensions between Muslims and Christian faith communities have contributed to the violence, and the conflict has often been characterised as a religious one.
This brings to mind the Boko Haram attacks on Churches in Bauchi, Gombe, Madala near Abuja, Jos, and the Bayero University, Kano most recently (Adamu 2012:1). This has not only created inter-religious tensions between the Muslims and Christians, but it has generated a lot of heat and passion on the political scene as well.
The Nigerian government has often embarked on a fire-brigade approach deploying the military to quell these conflicts whenever and wherever they occur. However, this approach has not only proved ineffective and inefficient, but a near-complete failure as attackers defy the presence of the military to carry out onslaught on their targets.
In the face of the failure of the military approach to resolving religious conflicts in Nigeria, this paper explores the inter-faith approaches as alternative to conflict resolution and conflict management strategies. This is because inter-faith dialogue has never been proved wanting as a tool for conflict resolution.
A few concepts need to be clarified here. For instance, inter-faith, which simply connotes something between groups. Thus inter-faith would mean between faith or religious groups. Hornby(2006) is of the opinion that inter-faith is connected with people of different religions. The Special Report 123 of the United States Institute of Peace (2004) explains that inter-faith dialogue involves people of different religious faiths coming together to jaw-jaw/dialogue.
It is important to note that dialogue as used in this context is not limited to a verbal exchange alone, but could be expanded to encompass many different types of conversations as in setting goals and formats. However, inter-faith dialogue does not narrow down to debate; hence its intent is not a debate. Thus, inter-faith dialogue, in this sense, aims at mutual understanding, not competition; at mutual problem-solving, not proselytising.
There are several ways through which inter-faith dialogue could be organised and targeted at different populations of the society or community. These could be through four groups: high, middle and grass-root levels, and a grand gesture group.
i. High-level Groups are religious leaders or elites who could be organised to convene and speak collectively as advocates for peace. Elites are people in top-level positions in politics, religion, academia, and other fields who have the potential to influence, widely, the group’s ideas, practices and values. Seeing that the elites are often fingered as being behind most of the religious conflicts in Nigeria, targeting the elites group could prove very effective in curtailing or/and nailing the rampant religious skirmishes between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria.
ii. The approach of The Mid-Level Group is to bring together mid-level religious leaders or people whose occupations are thought to hold sway or influence over smaller groups of people, in an intimate and personal way. This programme could be aimed at teachers or local clergy for instance. As a result, these religious leaders could visit one another’s school and deliver lectures. This would then foster and build relationships between the two religious groups.
iii. The Grassroots Group: The participants in this inter-faith dialogue/conversations are individual citizens whose relationship is intimately, impactful on their families, friends, customers, and others, with whom they have personal relationships. Two renowned faith activists Pastor James Movel Wuye and Imam Muhammed Nurah Ashafa, two clerics in Plateau State who have contributed to peace building efforts, not only in the Plateau State but Nigeria as a whole, as classic examples for the grassroots group, have been internationally recognized.
Pastor Wuye and Imman Ashafa had both been participants as youth leaders in the violent clashes between their communities, and they had both sustained injuries during these conflicts. As joint National Coordinators of the Muslim/Christian Youth Dialogue Forum and for their previous involvements, their programme had far tremendous credibility in their communities. The two clerics have thus continued to be respected religious figures who now lead the youth in the direction of peace.
Thus, working at the grassroots level involves the participants giving young people a conducive ambiance to learn about other groups, teaching them ways in which their own religious tradition supports, peaceful coexistence, training them in conflict resolution skills, and addressing their pursuit of practical life issues.
The programme gives these at-risk youth the basic skills they need to have a better life. It is a programme that meets the yearnings of provides something the people want, for instance, to learn a practical skill or trade, and become successful in life endeavours and aspirations. The grassroots programme can be particularly important with the Almajiri youths in Northern Nigeria who are often at the centre of conflicts-burning houses and killing people wantonly, without being critical or perceptive about their involvement.
iv. The Grand Gestures Group make grand gestures that are singular in nature, yet, their impact, lies in the drama they create. An example of the grand gesture can be seen in former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s dramatic visit to Israel during the protracted Egypt-Israel conflicts. This gesture commands media attention and illuminates efforts at reconciliation. The grand gesture could also be seen when the late pope John Paul II entered into and prayed in a Mosque in one of his visits to Turkey and Morocco.
Another concept that requires clarification is Culture
Culture has ramifying effect and impact on the life and living condition of human beings all over the world. This accounts for the indefiniteness of its definition to the extent that the British foremost culture theorist from the materialist school, Raymond Williams, in his book, Keywords (1976) asserts that “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” Williams did not however reveal the two other most complicated words but we can hazard a guess from what he said after, at least about one of those words. He established a contrasts between culture and nature when he avers that in all the ways that culture has been used, ‘implicitly and explicitly,’ it contrasts with nature because all the ‘things that humans produce or do are cultural, whereas the things that exist or occur without human intervention are part of the natural world.’ There is, to a large extent, a common, global ground on the perception of culture, with regard to the fact that, and as summatively couched by Harambos & Holborn (1980), ‘culture determines how members of society think and feel: it directs their actions and defines their outlook on life. Culture defines accepted ways of behaving for members of a particular society’ but this varies from society to society, which explains why there is a collective conscience in every given society which transcends the wishes, aspirations and choices of individuals, and it controls, or at least moderates their behaviour. This shared collective conscience is then passed down from generation to generation.
Uses and Types of Culture
In order to tease out a coherent, working definition of culture sociologists and cultural theorist generally do context the basic and fundamental ways in which the word culture is currently as well the main types and categories of culture. rn (1980, 2004) thus;
a) Culture perceived as a state of mind. In this sense, you become cultured if you advance toward perfectionism, if you drive toward a goal, an aspiration, an individual human achievement; it is ‘a quality which individuals possess and which make them qualify as ‘cultured human beings’. This is an elitist, high cultural definition, scaling levels of individual superiority, as we shall find out later.
b) Culture as ‘a marker of civilization’. This is also elitists as it sees certain societies as superior to others. Eurocentricism ranks the West as more civilized than other societies, especially the so-called developing world; whites as superior to blacks. The extreme perception of this denotes racism and xenophobia. It takes some societies as more cultured and more civilized than others. This perception is called ‘theory’ of social evolution by Spencer,1971)
c) Culture defined as ‘collective artistic and intellectual works in a given society—culture as subtends in libraries, theatres, galleries, museums, concert halls. This is often referred to as high culture.
d) This usage is more ramifying as its perceives as the entire way of life of a people. Linton (1945) comprehensively described this culture usage, and this definition has assumed common usage among culture workers, theorist and sociologists ; ‘The culture of society is the way of life of its members; the collection of ideas and habits which they learn, share, and transmit from generation to generation ‘
Distilled from these senses of perceiving the usages of culture are various of cultural typologies assembled over time’ They include, High Culture, Folk Culture, Mass Culture, Popular Culture and Global Culture. Discursive elaboration on each of these cultural categories can take the whole time allotted for this Roundtable. Suffice therefore to simply outline their critical features and characteristics in order to draw basic distinctions.
i) Highly Culture, as I earlier hinted refers to high-brow cultural products and creations and cultural purist see them as the acme of human creativity. Classical arts exemplify this category of culture—the works of paintings of da Vinci, the opera of Beethoven and Mozart, the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Milton are usually cited as typifying high culture. We can easily, for our purpose take the drama of Soyinka, the fiction of Achebe and the art works of Onobrakpeya and Nwowu as models of Nigeria’s high culture. Apostles of High culture take it as superior in aesthetic terms to other forms of culture. This is certainly an elitist position.
ii) At the extreme end of High culture is folk culture, which is the culture of the grass root. It is pre-industrial, agrarian and belongs to the ordinary citizenry. It is, however, original, genuine and autonomous as well as being a representation/reflection of the people’s life and experiences. Traditional performances, dances, folk songs and music falling to this category, which is generally derided by elitist theorists as low class, less worthy than high art in taste and value. An extreme harbinger of such pejorative perception of folk culture is Strinati (1995) who says that ‘folk art can never aspire to be art,’. Some of Nigeria’s earlier drama scholars like Echeruo (1981) hold such view of indigenous performed drama as possessing only the rudiments of drama in comparison to classical, Western drama.
iii) Mass Culture is justifiably cognized as less valuable than Folk Culture. It is post-modernist, post-industrial, and it is born by the mass media in capitalist economies. It is basically a culture of mass production through industrial standardization, which waters down, even debases individual qualitative creativity. They include soap operas, pop music popular feature films. This is the fear associated with Nollywood, which is massively produced without attending to content and aesthetic quality. Note that, home videos is produced cheaply nowadays at the rate of twenty films in every two weeks!
iv) Popular Culture shares features and character with mass culture. It is a cultural product that is fancied by the masses (ordinary people) with little concern to skill or expertise and technical finish. Examples world-wide are TV programmes, pop music, mass-market films such as Star Wars and Harry Porter series, Balla Miller Shows in Nigeria, Onitsha Market Literature and its equivalent in the Soyayya novels, the market love stories and romance of Kano, with a robust cinema and filmic culture from where Kannywood has developed. A huge chunk of Nollywood series is in this category. This low perception in terms of quality is not generic as there are some popular cultural products that are enduring and valid. The Village Headmaster series, and most of the Yoruba Operatic Travelling theatre, though has gone extinct have very profound, socio-political relevance.
v) Global Culture is conceived within the concept of Globalization—the idea that the world is fast shrinking into a huge village culture—the growth of a culture that is all-embracing, impacting on all parts of the world. This is a rather far-fetched concept as yet as no such exists. Certainly, people all over the world possess different and differing lifestyle and there is no homogeneous global culture. I am tempted to agree with Featherstone (1990) when he argues that what subtends is not a global culture but ‘the globalization of culture as a process in which some aspects of culture cross state boundaries and become widely spread across most area of the world
A materialist perspective of culture, one which overlaps most of the uses and types earlier discussed is the social origination of culture. Karl Marx debunks the idea of culture deriving human instincts or from nature. He believes that ‘material circumstances and economic activities shaped human consciousness.’ This is the basis upon which he examines culture from the perspective of class-stratified societies and concluded that the dominant culture is the ruling class ideology, since the ruling class controls the means of production, the state infrastructure. Culture, as superstructure, is an “expression of the distorted view of the world” as determined by the ruling class. This is clearly analyzed in the oft-quoted passage from his Williams’ book title The German Ideology, which avers that
‘The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas;…The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that in consequence the ideas of those that the means of mental production are, in general, subject to it.
Marxists have tended to deploy this statement as the fount upon which Marxist theories, including cultural, are fashioned and developed, and thus find all culture in capitalist societies as products of the ideology of the ruling class. This is the dominant ideology thesis which stresses that in a capitalist economy, a false consciousness is imposed on the working class.
As we find in this study, there is a critical inter-relationship between culture, socialization and identity. Culture as a summary of the away in which lives are produced, distributed and exchanged, factors such as class, ethnic nationalities, and gender influence and determine culture and the way conflicts are managed.
Conflict is another critical concept here. This is a universal social phenomenon and it is produced at all levels of social life and in all cultures. Conflict implies a situation of contention, contest, strive, collision, disagreement and struggle – in which people, groups or countries are involved in a serious disagreement and disharmonious state of affairs. In extreme cases, this could result into violent confrontation, combat between people, groups or countries. It is to be noted that conflict arises where there exists opposing ideas, opinions, feelings or wishes, antagonism, and discord, rendering resolution and compromise difficult. We can thus infer that the conflicts which engulf societies across the world have cultural dimensions: values, attitudes and ideologies.
Regarding national Development, Garba and Shamija (2005) explain that development refers to the transformation of society through its institutional and organisational structures, social rules, customs, usages and attitudes, in such a way that the society becomes more and more positive and responsive to desired modern changes. This implies that development as a concept is not purely an economic phenomenon as it encompasses more than the material and financial aspects of people’s lives. As a result, development as a multi-dimensional process necessarily affects all aspects of a people’s life.
National development denotes and connotes the rapid, radical and complete modernization of a nation through the conversion of a peasant/pre-industrial and agrarian society to an industrial one. This is seen by a change in the way of life, in expectations and motivations as well as the physical environment of daily life. This means that for nations to become developed, they need to abandon certain behavioural practices and ways of doing things and embrace another – a developed status or modernization.
Nigerians believe in different religious traditions such as indigenous African Religions (which the West erroneously and pejoratively described as paganism or heathenism), Christianity, Islam, etc and that the country is secular in nature, that is, it does not have a state religion.
As could be expected of any multi-cultural and multi-religious country, conflicts occur, sometimes resulting into violence with mortal consequences, as well as the loss property worth billions of naira. Some of these conflicts are political, cultural and religious in nature.
In the not too distant past, political conflicts such as that witnessed between the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP) in Benue State caused massive destruction to property and lives. The post 2011 Presidential elections violence which rocked Nigeria, leading to the loss of several lives, particularly in northern Nigeria, is still fresh in our memories. Similarly, cultural differences have led to confrontations between Ife and Modakeke, Tiv and Jukun, Birom/Hausa, Umuleri and Aguleri, Kataf and Hausa/Fulani, Jukun, and Kuteb etc (Jooji 2003:8). These cultural/political crises have produced organisations such as Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Arewa Peoples Congress (APC), Egbesu Boys and Bakassi Boys etc.
On the Religious plane, Nigeria has witnessed faith-based conflicts such as the Maitatsine uprising of the 1980s, Muslim and Christian conflicts in Adamawa, Taraba, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Plateau, Yobe and Borno States that have dire consequences on the nation. The increasing frequency of violent incidences with religious coloration in Nigeria could be said to have reached an all-time peak with the Boko Haram insurgency. While the Boko Haram does not spare Muslims (consider the targeting of certain Emirs), the way in which Churches have come under attack from the group without corresponding attacks on Mosques puts Christians at the receiving end of the groups campaigns as can be seen from the attacks on Christian Churches in Madala near Abuja, Gombe, Bauchi, Plateau, Kaduna, Borno and Kano States.
Whether in its own right as a proxy for political battles, religion has long contributed to violent conflict around the world and Nigeria in particular”. While we recognize the fact that cultural and religious differences can undoubtedly be sources of conflict in Nigeria, our concern here is to explore inter-faith as well as cultural approaches to conflict management for sustainable national development in Nigeria.
It is worth noting that every society has developed techniques and tactics through which disputes are mediated and settled. These techniques, tactics and mechanisms vary greatly from one culture to the other, depending largely on people’s perception, inter-personal relationships, communal and societal relationships. This worldview includes how conflict and its resolutions are recognised. For instance, conflict resolution or management in western societies is generally a formal affair with legally-binding agreements being reached through an impartial third party. However, in some other societies conflict management and control are not always identified or supported by formal institutions but are, nevertheless, binding in their own cultural ways. This means that, the need for social harmony determines the way in which conflicts are managed and the extent to which conflict management is legally, morally, or culturally binding on individuals and/or groups involved in a conflict.
Having established the background on inter-faith and cultural approaches to conflict management, LeBaron (nd.2) emphasises that there is no single definitive approach to negotiations. According to him, there are only effective and less effective approaches with contextual imperatives. Since the conflicts witnessed in Nigeria are basically inter-religious/inter-faith-based/inter-ethnic cultural in nature, conflicts, we find it expedient to focus attention on the inter-faith approach to conflict management, and thereafter, zeroing on the cultural approaches before harmonising the two approaches.
(i) Inter-Faith Approaches to Conflict Management
Before examining the inter-faith approaches to conflict management in Nigeria, we shall briefly take a look at peace making in Christianity and Islam as enshrined in their Sacred Texts. This is because most of the religious conflicts witnessed in Nigeria involve members of these two faiths:
Regarding peacemaking in Islam, the Holy Qur’an has several surahs that address this issue; for instance one of the passages reads: “But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace” (The Quran 8:61). Another passage also reads: “And Allah summons to the abode of peace, and leads whom he wills to the straight path” (The Qur’an 10:25). Ayman (2009:6) further points out that prophet Mohammed (SAW) ordered his fellow Muslims to salute others – Muslims and non-Muslims with peace, when he admonished “peace before Speech”. It is therefore based on this injunction that it is a rule in Islam that during war and conflict, an enemy warrior who pronounces the word peace is spared.
As a result, Muslims are governed by rules which dictate the relationship with non-Muslims to be based on justice, mutual respect, cooperation, and communication.
In Christianity, the art of peacemaking is a cardinal objective of the religion even as preached by the founder, Jesus Christ. The Holy Bible is therefore awash with texts that call for pacifism in the face of war and violence. In Matthew 5:9, Jesus says: “Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called children of God”.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ called on his followers to practice forgiveness and to take responsibility for their actions or failure to act (cf Matthew 6:12-15, 7:1-5). Similarly, Jesus Christ called on political authorities to rule justly by recognising the dignity of all. Jesus also condemned the arbitrariness of kings who ‘rule over’ their subjects while calling themselves their ‘benefactors’. Instead, his followers are called upon to lead by serving others, which resonate the democratic model of leadership as public service (cf. Luke 22:25-27).
The above sense of justice extends to all segments of the society, as Jesus draws near to them, even to the socially marginalised deemed impure or socially inferior. Jesus’ model of sharing meals and teaching with all demonstrates radical social inclusion and social justice. Justice is also linked to peace; for instance Isaiah prophesises that when justice comes, peace will be its effect (Isaiah 32:16). This explains why Jesus’ message of peace is intimately and inextricably linked to his promotion of justice throughout his ministry (Ayman 2009:8).
It is observable from the scriptural texts cited above that both Islam and Christianity hold fervently to the tenet of peace and call for restraint in the face of provocation. Another observable trend noticeable in the two religions is the strand of justice which flows in both teachings as the key to a peaceful and “non-conflictual” society. The pertinent question to ask is why these tenets which are enshrined in the Holy Scriptures are not being followed, a failure which result into frequent skirmishes between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria as perpetrated by the elite and elsewhere in the world today.
There is, however, the need to take initiatives to reduce hostility when tensions between two competing people, communities and faiths are escalate. As Ayman (2009) succinctly notes that, ‘Islam and Christianity are scripturally based religious traditions; therefore any interventions for peacemaking must be grounded in and justified by scriptures. Each of these two religions brings a wealth of material from their sacred texts. This lays the foundation for a coherent ethic and method for just peacemaking, strengthening the possibility of peace talks and addressing the root causes that lead to the violent conflict.’
A just conflict management and resolution in the inter-faith programme, therefore, must transcend the immediate prevention or resolution of violent conflict and recognise the need to create sustainable peace in a manner that is itself just. The following are approaches to a potential successful inter-faith conflict management in Nigeria:
a. Setting an objective – Clear goals and objectives are the first step towards an inter-faith dialogue. To be effective, the dialogue must be clearly purposeful. The ultimate goal of inter-faith dialogue is to achieve understanding and reconciliation among the groups involved.
b. Learning about the “Other” – This approach can be achieved through listening and understanding in events of dialogue, exploring similarities and differences and by sharing sacred texts.
c. Developing Empathy – Faith-based peacemaking largely depends on strong relationships anchored on trust, empathy, and care. This approach is achievable when members of different religious traditions become more knowledgeable about and less prejudicial of each other. This enables them forge important bonds for peace-making
d. Admitting to Problems and Shortcomings – This approach advocates for mutual apology and forgiveness from members of different religious traditions involved in a conflict. It is quite beneficial for people of each community to have members of the other communities come to grips with the problems and shortcomings that they experience.
e. Building Relationships – This goal or approach can be achieved when members of different religious tradition address misperceptions and breaking stereotypes that each group holds about one another. While it is a fact that total agreement on divisive issues is rare, nevertheless, helping the participants to move away from extreme interpretations can be a significant achievement.
(ii) Cultural Approaches to conflict Management
According to LeBaron (nd.7) many African ethnic nationalities have indigenous systems of conflict-resolution that are presently extant and subsist. These systems rely on particular approaches to negotiation that respect kinship ties and elders’ roles and the structures of local society generally.
In Nigeria, for instance, people are organised in extended families, village, lineage and lineage groups. A belief in the continuity, the ability of ancestors to affect people’s lives maintains social control, and makes the need to have formal laws or regulations minimal. Negotiation happens within social networks following prescribed laws. Women in conflict with their husbands, for example, are to defer and apologise, preparing a ritual meal to symbolise the restoration of harmony. Husbands have subtle appeasement codes for aggrieved wives.
Among the Ibibio of Akwa-Ibom State of Nigeria, the goal of restoring social networks is paramount and individual differences are expected to be subsumed in the interest of the group. To ensure that an agreement in a negotiation holds, parties do promise never to invoke spiritual powers on their opponent in the future.
The aim of any process, formal or informal, in conflict management and resolution is to affect a positive outcome without a residue of bitterness or resentment. As a result, elders normally intervene in a conflict or negotiation; and because such elders wield substantial power “physically and metaphysically”, their words are often respected. The elders could remove protective shields at best and cause personal disaster at worst. The Tiv of Central Nigeria as an ethnic nation fashion out several avenues at conflict management and resolution. Operating a gerontocratic system where authority resides intrinsically in the hands of the elders; the voice of the elders is said to be the voice of wisdom. As such, the decision of the elders is binding and because they are believed to have access to spiritual powers, their words are final, lest they bring retributive justice to disobedient ones.
The Tiv, therefore, have the ya (compound), ye igyo, (elders from (different compounds) Ityo (patrialineage) and tar (land/clan) units or councils through which conflict is managed and resolved. The ya (compound unit), consists of paterfamilias who is the eldest person in the compound and his younger brothers and their wives and children. The ya is the strongest emotional centre of Tiv life in the sense that all the uniting factors in Tiv social system are thickly clustered together; kinship and domestic ties of family and common residence (Atel 2004)
Conflicts at this level are resolved by members of the ya council headed by the orya (compound head) and other elderly members of the compound. Problems settled at this unit include quarrels between husband and wife, adultery, theft and any misunderstanding involving members of the compound. The ya council could fine a culprit or publicly flog an erring youth and if the offence involves theft, restitution is made. However, in their egalitarian and communal nature, the orya (compound head), though the head, cannot take decision on matters alone but does this in consultation with the members of his household or compound.
a) Similarly, the restoration of the cultural structures that support reconciliation in the community have to be explored. Where such structures exist, there are normally traditional reconcilers in the community whose work as mediators towards the maintenance of peace, and harmony in the country is required. The skills that such people employ are designed to resolve normal and commonplace conflicts that occur in the community and which threaten, to a great extent, the stability of the community (Starken et al 1999: 4).
b) The third most important avenue of cultural intervention in post conflict situations would be to enable people gain access to justice. Since the state’s judicial system is porous and weak, many people in conflict-relations would not be able to pursue justice through the state’s legal system; and this is very true of the Nigerian Legal System, which is tardy, protracted and expensive.
Many traditional societies, however, have their own informal legal systems, though not recognised by the state, but which nevertheless have efficacious authority within the community. A good example of this can be seen in the ‘gachacha’ traditional courts established in Rwanda after the genocide. The establishment of these traditional courts and their recognition by the state could go a long way in post conflict situation management. Hence, it is always better to manage conflict as locally as possible, and as quickly as possible and in a culturally-appropriate manner. These information cultural structures for conflict management should be given recognition by the State.
The importance of inter-faith and cultural approaches to conflict management in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasised. Some of the important dimensions of inter-faith approach to conflict management indicate that:
1. Inter-faith dialogue/approach and other forms of religious peacemaking reveal that even though there has been the general consensus that religion is the primary source of conflict, there are other factors such as economic, political and cultural issues which come into play in most of these conflicts.
2. Islam and Christianity share certain sacred texts, and this can be particularly helpful in understanding and identifying shared values.
3. In Nigeria, it is important that religion should contribute to peace making; this then opens the door for religious peacemakers. Moreover, peacemaking is considered a sacred duty; this trend endows the peacemaker with an exalted social profile in the community.
4. The tenets of Islam and Christianity commit them to work for justice and peace as they have well-known established structures and processes for achieving this task. A good example from the Christians in Nigeria is the Catholic’s Church’s Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) which is operational in all dioceses of the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
5. Above all, religious beliefs in Islam and Christianity encourage believers to look beyond self-interest to a greater good, a tendency that can encourage conflicting parties to seek the common ground.
There are several challenges that confront and impact on inter-faith and cultural approaches to conflict management in Nigeria. These include:
1. The difficulty to engage some groups in inter-faith dialogue because of their belief that such encounters are not permitted by their faith, or it could simply be because they hold chronic prejudices towards other faith groups.
2. The existence of the possibility that secular governments may be nervous about engaging with religious institutions.
3. The possibility capacity for inter-faith dialogue and other forms of religious and cultural peacemaking to open old wounds.
4. Since religion is a sensitive issue, incorporating religion into peacemaking efforts is sensitive and when done, must be handled carefully.
5. Cultural differences in Nigeria constitute a barrier to peace-making through the cultural approach.
Conclusion
The foundation of inter-faith approach in conflict management in Nigeria and elsewhere is the recognition that in order to achieve sustainable change in the ideas and actions of a religiously identified community, religious actors and cultural institutions must genuinely support that change.
Also, mutual tolerance is essential for conflict prevention and resolution, and inter-faith programmes should be designed to enhance tolerance between participants through interactions with one another in an atmosphere of relative security and mutual respect. These programmes can foster empathy, and help participants develop genuine relationships and evolve a more complex and sophisticated mutual understanding.
Furthermore, there should be the training in conflict resolution for social workers, primary health care workers, development workers, teachers and other people involved in community type work. This would engender an invaluable and positive post-conflict healing.
Similarly, there is the need to involve women in conflict resolutions. Presently, the engagement and active participation of women in peace and reconciliation efforts are often disregarded. This is regardless of the fact that in many conflicts, women and children are always vulnerable because of their weak positions. Apart from that, women are always deeply involved in caring for the wounded victims and provide food and nurture to the extent that they even become the instigators of peace. Yet, when negotiations are in progress, they are excluded.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy that Muslim and Christian relations have gone through various ups and downs in Nigeria. Both Islam and Christianity are scripturally based religious traditions, therefore, a just peacemaking initiative must be grounded in and justified by the scriptures. Finally, there are invaluable cultural ethos, are features in indigenous Nigerian societies that must be re-engineered for conflict-management in contemporary society.