Abstract
Multicultural societies have become sites of violent conflicts following predictions at the end of the Cold War that culture would be a causative of future conflict. However, conflicts have not necessarily been caused by the presence of the different cultures that inhabit these communities, but cultural differences in these societies is observed to become embedded in conflict dynamics inducing escalation, aiding the easy mobilisation and motivation of conflict parties to utilise violence, eventually inducing intractability. Cultural differences impact conflict prevention and peacebuilding in multicultural settings by constituting a barrier and a times instigating failures of these processes. At the same time, it is a culture resource that can be harnessed for conflict prevention and peacebuilding if it is well understood, but its impacts seems less well understood. Successful conflict prevention and peacebuilding in multicultural societies is tied to in-depth understanding of cultural differences.
TopIntroduction
A society is described as multicultural when it is composed of people from different cultures, colours, nationalities and languages living together in one community. It is characterised by the existence of cultural diversities, identities and differences in propinquity, frequently interacting within and across cultures on an everyday basis. Culture on the other hand may be described as socially inherited, shared and learned ways of living possessed by persons by virtue of their membership of social groups (Avruch, 1998) and confers on individuals and collectives, a social identity (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008). Multicultural societies are supposedly viewed as realms of cultural freedoms, expressed in values, norms, religion, beliefs, language, dress, food and customs without fear of persecution, discrimination, exclusion, conflict and violence. And there is evidence in history that multicultural societies embodied tolerance, unity, trade and wealth (Vadim, 2010). It is also where many believe a homogenisation of what people do, think and value around the world (Kaarbo & Lee Ray, 2011) is occurring, underpinned by tolerance of diverse cultures. Nevertheless, this is not the reality for many multicultural societies in the 21st century. These societies since the end of the Cold War have become riddled with exclusion, marginalisation and discrimination, owing to differences mediated by culture, and oftentimes leading to deadly violent conflicts with severe wide spread destruction of human lives and properties.
Multicultural societies began evolving early in prehistoric times as ethnic groups migrated to regions and integrated into existing societies (Waters, 2014; Yarsatir & Arberry, 1983). History provides ample evidence of multicultural societies; the Persian Achaemenid, Seleucids, Parthians, Dura Europos and Sassanian empires were all multicultural societies (Yarsartir, 1983; Reid, 1987; Brant, 2005). The most visible multicultural societies were the empires that emerged covering huge tracts of lands inhabited by people of different cultures. In the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from Egypt to Asia, at times pushing into the northern shores of the Black Sea and southeast Europe to the Danube (Yarsartir, 1983).
Contemporary multicultural societies seem to have witnessed an exponential rise with the industrial revolution in mid-sixteenth century Great Britain which drew different people from diverse rural communities to various metropolises where the revolution was unfolding. However, the exponential rise of multicultural societies in the last century is a consequence of globalisation. Globalisation is an evolutionary phenomenon that makes the world appears smaller because of increase in intensity of interactions and integration aided by ease of migration transportation, communication, trade and over great distances and in little time. In the last decade, the world has been experiencing an unprecedented level of migration mostly from developing countries in the global south to the advanced and more developed countries of the global north as a consequence of not only globalisation, but violent conflicts and poor socioeconomic development conditions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Violence: Is anything which prevents the full realisation of innate somatic and mental human potentials.
Peace-Building: A socio-economic, political-cultural, process consciously adopted by a society, characterized by the decision to move towards equality, justice and human rights for all inhabitants of a geographical area while breaking up the cycles of violent conflict indefinitely and even in the eventuality of a conflict situation the probability of using violence does not enter into any party’s strategy.
Multicultural Societies: Multicultural societies are composed of different cultures and social identities in one community with in-exhaustive interactions within and across cultures.
Culture: The total way of life of members of a society, which includes values, norms, habits, ideas experience etc., that are learned, shared and transmitted from through generations.
Destructive Conflict: Is a conflict situation in which at least one of the parties in the conflict experiences dissatisfaction and could resort to violence.
Conflict Prevention: The avoidance of an outbreak, recurrence, escalation and continuation of violent conflicts through the creation of opportunities for participation and inclusion of people in decision-making processes by government and society that empowers them to choose peace.
Violent Conflict: A conflict situation that involves the use of violence by the conflicting parties.
Constructive Conflict: Is one which results in mutually satisfactory experiences of the processes, relationships and outcomes associated with the conflict for all parties involved.
Cultural Differences: A state of non-likeness, non-sameness, dissimilarity or in philosophical terms, non-identity and relates to dissimilar worldviews or versions of reality held by different cultures.