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Conflict in Africa. Concepts and Realities.

The underlying theme of this study is the contrast between an irenicorientated Western world and a conflict-governed Africa. "Peace within the morally and politically unified society [of the West] has . . . been traditionally experienced not only as a supreme value but also as a distinct, definable and attainable social condition" (p. 4). Contrariwise, "Peace [in Africa] . . . is by no means the dominant value . . . and conflict, far from carrying essentially negative connotations, is widely accepted as a positive, socially structuring force" (pp. 18 and 221). The ascription of positive values to conflict originates, in Professor Bozeman's view, from the fact that "[t]he modern culturally syncretic African state . . . does not provide reliable norms and institutions for the governance of political behavior. This vacuum invites capricious conduct on the part of the ambitious and the powerful . . . [and] conduces to the proliferation of all manner of tensions and conflicts (pp. 28-29). "[P]ower is the major reference in this culture's inner normative order" (p. 149). In a society which is profoundly illiterate and kinship-orientated (pp. 69, 123) and which rejects the identity of the individual (p. 240), "power is always and everywhere, in the final analysis, associated with magic," itself presumed to be aggressive and malevolent (p. 149). It is power that feeds on sorcery, mythical visions, the occult, and supernatural (p. 236), invisible mediators (p. 259), consultation of ancestors (pp. 181, 260), ritual violence (Chapter 13), fear and verbal aggression (p. 166). "In a system of mystical participation in which power is pitted against counterpower, opposition and antagonism become the ruling dynamic. All relationships . . . are thus by definition conflict relations" (p. 149). The consequences, in terms of international relationships, are rejection of human rights and self-determination except in white-ruled Africa (pp. 35 and 240), of judicial settlement and arbitration (pp. 17, 243 and Chapter 16), and of contractual obligations (p. 241 and Chapter 20). In the field of commercial relations, trade is viewed as "a species of war" (p. 318). The authors purpose in contrasting the West and Africa is to establish comparisons of all culturally discrete vocabularies of conflict so as to open up new avenues for mutual adjustments (p. 19). One is compelled, however, to question whether, on such negative findings, a case has been made for requiring the literate West to adjust to conflict "control" based on illiteracy, sorcery, and ancestor consultation.