By Morgen Makombo Sikwila
Traditional African societies are known to hold sacred peace-making processes locked in their own ways, formed from centuries of customs and traditions.
African societies have institutional mechanisms as well as cultural sources to uphold the values of peace, tolerance, solidarity and respect for, and of, one another. These structures are responsible for “peace education, confidence-building, peacemaking, peacebuilding, conflict monitoring, conflict prevention, conflict management, and conflict resolution. These mechanisms are effective in handling and managing conflicts among the people, largely because they reflect the sociopolitical orientation of the African people, addressing all the social, political and economic conflicts among a people who live communal way of lives. Thus, it is customary as well as common currency to happen upon people sitting down informally to discuss and agree on important issues.
The traditional African system of conflict resolution is open and inclusive, where all people would participate in the decision-making processes. While the Western practices have, or representative democracy, Africans practise participatory democracy, where decisions are taken by consensus at village meetings.
Peace can be defined either negatively or positively. Negative peace is the absence of violence. Positive peace is the presence of reconciliation and co-existence on the basis of human rights and justice. Social solidarity is vital to the achievement of positive peace. It means that members of a society share a common concern for the welfare and well-being of each other.
In Africa, many indigenous peace-building traditions emphasise the importance of social solidarity. One such tradition is a world-view called ‘ubuntu’, which is followed by communities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The idea behind Ubuntu is that all humans are interdependent. We are human because we belong, participate and share in our society. In ubuntu societies, maintaining positive social relations in a collective task in which everyone is involved.
Key lessons are drawn for promoting peace and social solidarity which can be drawn from the ubuntu tradition. Group relationships and rights are important as individuals ones emphasis is on restoring relationships and reconciling groups. Methods used in the African traditional system of conflict resolution include mediation, reconciliation, arbitration, adjudication and negotiation. African traditional system of conflict resolution also include employing extra judicial devices and usage of legal proverbs to persuade or convince the disputants about the consequences or otherwise of their behaviour. Additionally, emphasis is to say, African traditional system of conflict resolution, use local actors and traditional community-based judicial and legal decision-making mechanisms to manage and recovery conflicts within or between communities. Local negotiations can lead to ad hoc practical agreements which keep broader inter-community relations positive, creating environments where people can live together.
Conflict resolution amongst African communities since time immemorial has been effected and continues to take the form of negotiation, mediation, reconciliation or arbitration by elders. This makes traditional system of conflict resolution system very effective. Communally, disputing parties may sit together informally and resolve disputes and conflicts to maintain social harmony and restore social bonds. Thus, all the methods of dispute resolution have the aim of restoring social order. Conflict resolution is wholesome and tries to resolve all underlying causes of conflict by ensuring that the parties to the conflict participate and reach a settlement.
In some cases, fines and compensation are used but only as a means to acknowledge the wrongs done and restore parties. The fines and compensation are not retributive in nature but compensatory. The concept of social harmony and peace is not only among the living but also between the living and the dead. For some wrongs such as murder, rituals and cleansing has to be carried out to allow the spirit of the dead to rest in peace and not to disturb the living.
Some disputes resolution mechanisms involve reference to ancestors and spirits due to the importance of lineage and ancestry among Africans. Reference to spirits, trials by ordeals, rituals and cleansing in dispute resolution are a preserve of traditional leaders, diviners and seers, who compliments elders in the dispute resolution process.
Public participation is important in the peace-building process because it promotes social solidarity. It is important to support both victims and perpetrators as they go through the difficult process of making peace. Acknowledging guilt and remorse, and granting forgiveness, are valuable ways of achieving reconciliation. It is important to refer constantly to the essential unity and interdependence of humanity. It is important to live out the principles which this unity suggests, that is, empathy for others, sharing common resources and working cooperatively to resolve common problems.
Suffice to say that, without undervaluing African its effectiveness, African traditional system of conflict resolution is undergoing challenges that have threatened its existence. Some of the challenges facing the African traditional system of conflict resolution include: negative attitudes by modernised Africans; lack of documentation; bribery; modernity and corruption; modernity and westernization; lack of accountability and some work against human rights and democracy. African traditional system of conflict resolution lacks proper legal framework and biased against women or children. At all not gender sensitive!
In practice, promoting social solidarity means confronting corruption and promoting power-sharing, inclusive governance and the equitable distribution of resources. To enable indigenous approaches to play a significant role in the reconstruction of Africa, education and training programmes based on African cultural values should be established for governments and civil societies actors.
However, it is important not to romanticise indigenous approaches. Such approaches must be combined with modern values such as gender equality so that all members of society are included in peace-building.
Indigenous conflict resolution can be improved in some way. This can be achieved through, conducting interviews and research to document indigenous peace-building traditions; preparing teaching and training materials and developing curricula to transmit indigenous approaches to all levels of society.
There’s need of establishing partnerships between inter-governmental organisations, educational institutions, professional teachers’ associations and Non-Governmental Organisations to disseminate and share the training material and curricula on indigenous methods of peace building. It is prudent to acknowledge the positive roles that indigenous approaches can play in governments policies on peace-building.
In using indigenous methods in peace building and conflict management, warring factions recognise the reached resolution as a win-win outcome. Even across gender, men and women find their needs met satisfactorily. At times, it might be misleading to simply consider African societal structures with patriarchalism and oppression of women. Western societies consider gender equality more than African societies.
Societal norms and beliefs determine the appropriateness of the context in which peace building and conflict transformation approaches. An important ingredient of African traditional approaches is the focus on the psycho-social healing and the spiritual dimension after violent conflicts. This aspect is underestimated by Western actors who believe in the context of Western enlightenment. Conflict transformation and peace building therefore, is not only centred on negotiations, political agreements reached and reconstruction of infrastructure. It is also concerned about cleansing, reunion and psycho-social and spiritual healing. Traditional mechanisms and approaches of peace building and conflict transformation necessarily do not put an end to conflict and violence on long term basis. This means achieving long-term peace in African context is not certain. At times, traditional mechanisms and approaches may disagree and challenge general standards of human rights and liberal democracy.
Conflicts are part of human existence and much as they can be resolved they are also unavoidable in all human societies due to differences in interests, goals, values and aims among people. Most conflicts arise in the basic units of society such as within families, clans, villages, locations, communities or other small units. Indeed, conflicts are a common phenomenon of the world. Suffice to say, countries within the world are experiencing conflict in one way or the other. The avalanche of violent crime in the African continent has made the region very volatile and depicts an environment where violent conflicts have been institutionalised. African traditional system of conflict resolution will forever remain relevant beside some noted challenges. Social order always needs to be restored for development to take place.
Morgen Makombo Sikwila
MSc Peace and Governance
BSc Counselling
Diploma in Environmental Health
Certificate in Marketing Management
email address: morgensikwilam@gmail.com
Phone Number: 0772823282
