Research

Social disputes can be the cause of many civil conflicts in countries all around the world. However, there are factors that give rise to the struggle between or among social classes; and these issues can be related to economic hardship or differences among social classes, religion, cultural social or ethnic differences and many other problems that can directly or indirectly cause social uprising. To explain extant and recent cases of religion-ethnic conflict in Africa, (Kaplan 1994) “seeks to account for them by reference to three main factors: cultural dysfunction; loose family structures; and communalism and animism”, (J. Haynes 2007) describing Africa’s recent civil wars, like those in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as anarchic and primitive. He claims that they were initially caused by fixed ethnic and cultural realities, limiting the involvement of the western world.

Nevertheless kaplan’s theory, (Collier and Hoeffler n.d., p. 1) offer another explanation for ‘‘the rising trend of African conflict’’ identified by SIPRI: ‘‘Africa has experienced a rising trend of conflict because its economies have performed so poorly both absolutely and relative to other regions’’ (J Hayne 2007). The cause of civil war is not always automatically the result of deep problems within Africa’s social structure; or necessarily from obvious or serious religious and, or ethnic fragmentation. The cause of civil conflict can also be associated with the contingent effect of discouraging economic circumstances and development disappointments. There are two major points that are worth taking a look at with regards to discouraging economic circumstances. First, because of the obvious ethnic and religious divisions in many African nations, it is of no surprise that for most regional states, it has been proven difficult to build nation-states or build a nation in which the citizens share common beliefs, language and culture. Second, African states, are always seeking to build their countries’ struggling economies toward self-sustainability in order to alleviate endemic poverty, have terribly failed. Therefore, it can be argued, that many social disputes in African countries are for economic and developmental reasons, rather than because of Africans’ allegedly anarchic and primitive characteristics, that many African countries have experienced civil conflicts many believe is due to religious-ethnic concerns over the past four decades. According to (Collier and Hoeffler n.d., p. 17), “civil wars in Africa do not necessarily result from the kinds of problems that Kaplan points to; rather, the often deep problems in Africa’s social structure that sometimes result in civil war, are a contingent effect of straightened economic circumstances” (J. Haynes 2007). For instance; there are data showing that some African countries such as Cameroon, Tanzania and Malawi that have high levels of ethnic and/or religious division have not experienced postcolonial civil wars. However, the propensity regarding this seems related to how these states are able to deal with popular concerns, especially ones concerning massive, rapid, social and economic changes that exemplify modernization.

Because of East Africa’s religious and ethnic diverse background, government methods in dealing with potential societal division between religious groups or factions are vague. It has been difficult for any East African state to retain democracy for a long period of time since the early 1960s. The early 1990s civil war broke out in Somalia and around the same time Liberia, another country from the western region of Africa was also experiencing a civil war due to ethnic issues. A few years after, ethnic riots broke out in Kenya October of 1995. It has been observed that economic and developmental failures, combined with a state inability to deal with these issues, have been especially related to the cause of civil war in Africa. In some African countries, ethnic and/or religious problems can lead to or have led to serious political and societal conflicts, even including civil war that can last for decades. Like in Liberia where ethnic scape-goating based on the rationalization that one group is being treated unfairly. The government of Liberia violated basic human rights, including the freedoms of speech, assembly and the press, eliminating all legal avenues for the people to speak and share their dissatisfaction or grievances. Thus, the only option was to turn to armed violence.

According to Jakobsen and Soysa, the reason a group of people rebel is different from the reason an individual will result to violence as it relates to the cause of civil war. (T. G. Jakobsen and I. Soysa, 2009) “Group-grievance explanations contrasted with individualistic, rational choice explanations for predicting civil war”. This can serve as a motivation for civil conflict based on shared grievances against unfair treatment and economic or social injustice. On the other hand, a study by the World Bank suggested that men rebel for private gain rather than fairness which have been seriously criticized. Is civil war violence truly based on injustice, grievance or greed? Is it based for self-serving reasons, or more on justice-seeking motives of the masses as many explanations of ‘ethnic conflict’ suggest? (Grossman 1991, 1999) “models rebellion is an industry that generates profits from looting, so that 'the insurgents are indistinguishable from bandits or pirates” (Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler 2004). These types of rebellion are entirely motivated by greed. Rebels join these movements in order to acquire wealth from looting or taking advantage of the spoils of war ranging from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars in a country’s natural resources. (J. Haynes 2007) In Collier and Hoeffler17 debated article about ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, factors related to opportunity and grievance as motivations for rebellion were tested and their findings explained that opportunity had more descriptive power than grievance. He explained that those who rebel do so because of the lack of democracy or simply because they hate another ethnic group or religion. They defined Grievance as “widely shared dissatisfaction among group members about their cultural, political and/or economic standing”

There are two opposing schools that claim to explain collective violence, deprived actor and rational actor schools. These approaches to understanding violence related to civil war are very different. Deprived actor (DA) logic, state that grievance is cause by repression, which can lead to arm rebellion. Grievance is rationalized as an initiating factor of rebellion with promise of potential rewards which serves as motivation for rebels. This is called the (RA) Rational Actor.

Another Relative Deprivation explains the experience of an individual being denied something to which he/she feels entitled eliciting violence behavior in an effort to reclaim what is rightfully his/hers.

As noted by (J. Haynes 2007) “It is impossible accurately to predict or account for ethnic or religious conflict by reference to simple fragmentation models”. Adding, it is very important that the government method of achieving balance of maintaining a fair level of social peace is more important than these cultural or religious divisions. The former British colonies of Uganda and Sudan with significant Christian and Muslim electoral districts are perfect candidates for a case study because each country in varying ways exemplifies the involvement of both religious-ethnic and economic issues that have brought about long lasting grievances seen in the countries by ethno-religious groups.

On the other hand, (Mamdani 1988, pp. 1170 – 1171) “argues that what distinguished Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement from other rebel groups in Uganda during the 1980s was that its leadership did not come from the middle class but from within peasant society” (J. Haynes 2007). He indicated that the peasantry’s loss of faith in traditional leaders and the inability of the government to come to suitable political resolution or program for area of rising conflicts or offer significant economic development to poor communities such was the case with the Acholi people of northern Uganda and the Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement government.

Government and Rebellion Movement

The objective of rebellion is either to capture the state to implement change or to break away from it. To stage a rebellion one must first decide if it can be accomplished taking into consideration the consequences of a failed rebellion or even victory. We should also take in to account ability on the government to defend itself or fight back. In (Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler 1998) article, Grossman argues, that the military technology option of rebel factions are limited, whereas the government can mount up a wide range of military equipments if they the budget is assessable and available. This can be an issue for rebel faction even if the funds can be obtained. For countries with substantial military power, a rebellion can be almost impossible or extremely difficult. In this condition for the rebels, the longer the war last, the more difficult it is to accomplished victory depending on the government military expenditure as well as the rebel’s. According to Grossman, in this kind of situation it would benefit the rebels to join forces with other rebel factions for the same cost but seeks different rewards or plan a rebellion that is precise and timely.

Natural resources such as diamonds and oil are the turning point in fueling civil war. Countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia, have suffered civil unrest that were primarily funded by conflict diamonds. When you take a look into the second Liberian civil war, you will find no given explanation or analytical framework to explain the reason the war was fought. There are speculations or claims that civil conflicts arise from a confluence of problems including, the distribution of resources, and admittance to power, and contrasting issues of what is right, wrong and unjust. There were also issues relating to human right violations, including many constitutional rights that were taking away from the Liberian people including freedom of speech and press. The result was a second rebellion.

(Fearon and Laitin 2003) present a "rural insurgency" (Volker Krause and Susumu Suzuki 2005) model and argue that a country with poor economy, a large population, and high revenue dependency on the exportation of oil is more likely to experience civil war more so, if it is a newly independent state or country, with political instability, ruled by a weak government, and has borders or territory suitable to rural guerrilla attacks.

However, it remains the claim by Henderson and Singer as well as Hegre et al, that a lot of political scientists rely on the hypothesis that firm domestic governance can reduce civil conflict. They argue that it contains a legitimate approach for peaceful conflict resolution. Due to the possibility of peaceful negotiations or resolutions and very high cost of rebellion because of democratic constraints, very strong governments are less likely than other political regimes to engage into civil war.

Religious Affairs

A large number of civil unrest in Africa is related to ethnic and religious splits or hatred. Many countries such as Sudan, Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda Ivory Coast, Uganda and many more have experienced either ethnic or religious struggle, or both. In this section, we will examine religious affairs as it relates to violence conflicts especially in Africa.

Looking at a third of Uganda’s 23 million population are Roman Catholic, 1/3 Protestant and 16% Muslim, these religions have coexisted for centuries. After Uganda’s independence, a syncretistic politico-religious movement called the Holy Spirit Movement pop out of northern Uganda and stood against the government of Uganda in 1963. In the 1980s, a series of battles were fought between the Holy Spirit Movement politico-religious group and the National Resistance Army of Uganda. The fact that many Africans find religion as a means of altering or changing their striving situations, accepting these Africans revolutionaries hiding behind religions were the perfect excuse to do something to change their circumstances. In 1987 the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was founded following the defeat of the Holy Spirit Movement. (J. Haynes 2007) The LRA was founded with the sole purpose of governing the country in accordance with the Ten Commandments of the bible which had nothing to do with politics.

Sudan is a different story. The institutionalization of Islam has manifested itself and achieved the status of state ideology. The religious conflict in Sudan is primarily between the Muslims and Non-Muslims in a fight for economic resources with respect to religious-ethnicity and the decision of who gets what in the allocation of the region’s resources. Non-Arab partially Christian groups such as the Dinka, Nuer and Nuba have been the victims for a long period of time by the state at the mercy of the ruling Islamic military.

Conclusion

It is conclusively important to remember that all living beings have a sense of territorial protection on their surroundings and as humans, we have developed a stronger sense of ownership as we evolve from tribal groups to nations with internal and external ideological conflicts. The lack of a balanced liberal outlook on novel political views and their contradictory presence with traditional ones and bad economics, social, ethnic, cultural instability and religious fundamentalists resulting from corrupt leadership, are the main contributors to civil wars. Of all these differences, religion has played the majority role in brewing up conflicts.

This is so true when you examine African politics in view that all modern African innovations are an influence from outside the continent; pointedly religious, technological and political. The lack of equilibrium between the outside influential sources and the internal poverty infused in a pot of a political vacuum and an intellectual liquidation; greed and traditional conservatism becomes status quo as a daily breed for hard liners and thereby resulting into conflicts and civil wars never to end. The long standing sentiment that at one time lines were drawn on a piece of a paper that had the map of Africa on it to create nations or protectorates as they were originally called, to benefit former colonial masters without considering the tribal dynamics of their societies and resulting in tribal lands being split between different countries may not look very troublesome in other parts of the world.. But African societies strive on a single social norm of community life. Therefore, sentiments from this one aspect of conflict range from the heads of states to the man who lives deep in the jungle. For an African, belonging is not a geographical factor. It is a community blanket.

The introduction of different religious domains and political styles that were not primarily African simply to the benefit of the foreign influence that introduced them without first paying attention to what works for Africa, but instead impose religious and political ideologies that worked well elsewhere was a mistake like salt patched into a gushing wound for a quick fix, one can conclude.

There is not a discipline or school of thought today that can claim knowledge to a solution to the long standing African struggle for stability. It is well concluded at the present time that the majority of African leader and society as a whole have settled to believing that this gruesome lifestyle of political power imbalances and corruption, poverty, religious conflicts, senseless mascaras of the innocent, constant guerrilla movements, warfare and war mangling war-lords is in fact a way of life. That is disturbing.

As in a chronic disease health care undertaking, one keeps hoping that the terminally ill mother will one day bear child to a disease-free son. The hope for Africa is in its youth and what the future holds for them. Let the international community be the constant care giver to the African youth and allow them some avenue to high institutions of intellectual exposure and quality education, thereby slowly creating a new society of liberal thinkers with a common goal to one day save their motherland. Only Africa can save Africa.