Conceptualizing ethnicity and nation building in Malaysia: A lesson from Nigeria

Conflict of ethnic origin keep presenting its ugly consequences to most of the developing and developed societies, with no much lessons learned. This ethnic conflicts usually starts with a mere complain or grievance that is most of the time ignored, this minor issues if not well tackled could metamorphosed into a widespread genocides, killings, maiming, destruction of valuable properties or in a form of social vices, like addiction, armed robbery, prostitution and host of other vices. Hence this paper presents a catalogue of the various ethnic confl icts that occurred in Nigeria from 1999-2002, immediately after the coming up of a democratically elected government in the country. The paper concluded that, the unassuming right provided by the Nigeria democracy might have contributed to the escalation of the conflicts, that has direct relationship with ethnicity. It also presumed that, the conflicts may also be associated with long military dictatorship in the country, which likely socialised the citizens to learn the act of intolerance, hostility and the act of violence. The lessons drawn from Nigeria experience were married with the recent happening in Malaysia, so that it will serve as a lesson to Malaysia to act fast not to allow its issue degenerates to an uncontrollable stage. This paper, therefore, make use of documented records from both official documents and eyewitnesses records to generates all its data and argument for this presentation. “Tribalism is the bane of independent Africa...There are 2,000 language Groups of which 50 are prominent, and countless more subdivisions of tribe and clan.This complex heritage has been only slightly eroded by inter-marriage and the drift to the cities. Nor have the eff orts of African leaders to impose a national identity on their diverse peoples, assembled within borders inherited from colonial days, worked well. African state builders tread a narrow path between the fact of tribal loyalties and the need to minimize inter-tribal hostility.” “Tribalism in Africa,” The Economist (September 10, 1994), pp. 46, 48

Ethnicity and the dilemma of ethno-communal conflicts in North-Central Nigeria : the case of Nasarawa State

This paper considers the contemporary phenomenon of ethno-communal conflict and its dilemmas in north-central Nigeria, with particular reference to Nasarawa State. By way of a synthesis of primary and secondary research, enabled by a combination of field interviews/discussions and library sources, the paper posits that the incidence and prevalence of ethno-communal conflict in north-central Nigeria has been influenced by the socio-ecological dialectics of the region. It observes that existence of multiple primordial cleavages in the area has created an enabling ambience for volatile inter-group relations and identity contestations. Hence, it is submitted that contemporary trajectories of communal conflict in Nasarawa State reflect a fundamental contradiction of identity/ethnic politics; situation that has been complicated by elite politicking and the apparent failure of the government to moderate conflict drivers and fault lines in a manner that leverages mutual and sustainable inter-group coexistence/inter-ethnic relations

Trauma as counter-revolutionary colonisation: narratives from (post)revolutionary Egypt

We argue that multiple levels of trauma were present in Egypt before, during and after the 2011 revolution. Individual, social and political trauma constitute a triangle of traumatisation which was strategically employed by the Egyptian counter-revolutionary forces – primarily the army and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood – to maintain their political and economic power over and above the social, economic and political interests of others. Through the destruction of physical bodies, the fragmentation and polarisation of social relations and the violent closure of the newly emerged political public sphere, these actors actively repressed the potential for creative and revolutionary transformation. To better understand this multi-layered notion of trauma, we turn to Habermas’ ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’ thesis which offers a critical lens through which to examine the wider political and economic structures and context in which trauma occurred as well as its effects on the personal, social and political realms. In doing so, we develop a novel conception of trauma that acknowledges individual, social and political dimensions. We apply this conceptual framing to empirical narratives of trauma in Egypt’s pre- and post-revolutionary phases, thus both developing a non-Western application of Habermas’ framework and revealing ethnographic accounts of the revolution by activists in Cairo

Reconstruction from Breakdown in Northeastern India: Building State Capability

conflict, reconstruction, state-building, capability, legitimacy, rule of law, governance, institutions, development,

Elective Identities, (Culture, Identization and Integration)

Most of contemporary individual and social identities (constructedwith societal, cultural and technological resources) are radicallyautonomous, nomadic and virtual - i.e. they are de-traditionalized,open to negotiation and not based on a single interpretation of atradition. Identizations can be recycled - elements of formeridentities are being re-used in constructing later ones or identitiesemerging in one context can be implanted in another or hybridised - anation state as a model for socio-political identity is a case inpoint (and so is its recent crisis). Values, political, cultural andsocial identities - elective identities of "nomads of the present",often emerging out of new social movements or informal networks - playan important role in determining choices of information codes, imagesand identities. Theories of clashes of civilizations and offundamentalists versus modernists should be seen against thebackground of increasingly complex and successful attempts at globalgovernance and increasing criticism of the ideologies of status quo.They may testify to the success of globalization instead ofdemonstrating its failure. The rise of religious fundamentalism andthe emergence of network types of organization contribute to furtheracceleration of identization processes. "Girotondi della liberta" inBerlusconi's Italy and radical re-evaluation of cosmopolitanism as afamily of images of representation are cases of emergent identizationswith unclear but potentially critical political implications.clash of civilizations;globalism;processual;recycled and virtual identities;fundamentalism

The Enduring Challenge: Self Determination and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century

Explores the ways in which ethnic conflicts have had a major impact on international security and U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, and looks at the role of international organizations and NGOs in addressing self-determination challenges

Nigeria: A Prime Example of the Resource Curse? Revisiting the Oil-Violence Link in the Niger Delta

This paper studies the oil-violence link in the Niger Delta, systematically taking into consideration domestic and international contextual factors. The case study, which focuses on explaining the increase in violence since the second half of the 1990s, confirms the differentiated interplay of resource-specific and non-resource-specific causal factors. With regard to the key contextual conditions responsible for violence, the results underline the basic relevance of cultural cleavages and political-institutional and socioeconomic weakness that existed even before the beginning of the “oil era.” Oil has indirectly boosted the risk of violent conflicts through a further distortion of the national economy. Moreover, the transition to democratic rule in 1999 decisively increased the opportunities for violent struggle, in a twofold manner: firstly, through the easing of political repression and, secondly, through the spread of armed youth groups, which have been fostered by corrupt politicians. These incidents imply that violence in the Niger Delta is increasingly driven by the autonomous dynamics of an economy of violence: the involvement of security forces, politicians and (international) businessmen in illegal oil theft helps to explain the perpetuation of the violent conflicts at a low level of intensity.Nigeria, natural resources, oil, political economy, violence, context sensitivity

Cultures, Clashes and Peace

Ethnic and religious fractionalization have important effects on economic growth and development, but their role in internal violent conflicts has been found to be negligible and statistically insignificant. These findings have been invoked in refutation of the Huntington hypothesis, according to which differences of ethnic, religious and cultural identities are the ultimate determinants of conflict. However, fractionalization in all its demographic forms is endogenous in the long run. In this paper, we empirically investigate the impact of violent conflicts on ethno-religious fractionalization. The data involve 953 conflicts that took place in 52 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East between 1400 CE and 1900 CE. Besides a variety of violent confrontations ranging from riots, revolts and power wars between secular sovereigns, the data cover religiously motivated confrontations. We document that countries in which Muslim on Christian wars unfolded more frequently are significantly more religiously homogenous today. In contrast, those places where Protestant versus Catholic confrontations occurred or Jewish pogroms took place are more fractionalized, both ethnically and religiously. And the longer were the duration of all such conflicts and violence, the less fractionalized countries are today. These results reveal that the demographic structure of countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa still bear the traces of a multitude of ecclesiastical and cultural clashes that occurred throughout the course of history. They also suggest that endogeneity could render the relationship between fractionalization and the propensity of internal conflict statistically insignificant. Finally, instrumenting for conflicts with some geographic attributes and accounting for the endogeneity of fractionalization with respect to ecclesiastical conflicts shows that religous fractionalization likely has negative effects on economic growth.conflict, religion, institutions, economic development