i

NAME: IMBO ALEXANDER OMONDI

UNU- ISP MASTERS STUDENT, ID No. 511004

MASTER OF SCIENCE [M.SC.] IN SUSTAINABILITY, DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE

COURSE: INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY [IPS]

FINAL ESSAY [AUTUMN 2011 SEMESTER]

THE CAUSES OF CONFLICT ARE MORE MATERIAL THAN IDEOLOGICAL 17TH OCTOBER 2011.

THE CAUSES OF CONFLICT ARE MORE MATERIAL THAN IDEOLOGICAL Many writers have argued that conflict and war are part and parcel of mans society, that it is an inherent characteristic of man or at least certain individuals who crave power and control. According to the first image of international relations the locus of the important causes of war is found in the nature and behavior of man. Wars result from mans selfishness, misdirected aggressive impulses, from stupidity. Other causes are secondary and have to be interpreted in the light of these factors.1 I agree that propensity to use violence is part of human nature, only that it is not an end in itself but a means to acquire power and control. Power and control means more access to material wealth. Human beings are therefore inherently more selfish than violent. They only partake in violence so as to achieve their selfish ends.

While it may be difficult to attribute most conflicts to one single cause it has become evidently clear that it is necessitated by mans quest to survive. To survive, human beings need to have access to the material resources that will enable the fulfillment of their needs and wants; and when these resources are scarce they may have little option but to fight for their share. The issue is that even though human beings may not be inherently evil, they are definitely inherently greedy and selfish. Most of the time they want too much for themselves with little regard to the needs of others and so conflict may arise even when the resources are not scarce per se. While many other factors like pursuit of political or religious agenda may escalate into conflict, the underlying causes of conflicts are more material than anything else. The escalating factors are but mere triggers, at the end of the day we fight over resources.

Kenneth Waltz, Man, the state and war,1959, New York: Columbia university press,pg.16

Violence may be triggered by competing ethnic, religious and political ideology and other perceived incompatibilities but the underlying factor is that the proponents of these different ideologies are in reality competing over power; ideology is but a vehicle and never an end in itself. Peaceful competition may be turned into violence, through incitement for instance. Preventive measures employed at an early stage need to address the causes that lie at the root of the conflict. An escalation of violence is often preceded by a perceived incompatibility of interests between groups, unbalanced inter-group power relationships, as well as triggers that serve to mobilize or rally a group around its grievances. Similarly, de-escalation alone is often not sufficient for a conflict to end. For peace to become sustainable, peace building and postconflict reconstruction activities are often essential in order to address the underlying causes of a conflict long after the violence has ended and to prevent a conflict from re-erupting2. The underlying cause is more often the sharing or distribution of material benefits accruing from resources than political or other ideological differences. Communism and capitalism, the ideologies upon which national governments are based and which have been perceived as the drivers of the infamous Cold Wars of the 1970s and 80s, are themselves defined by the concept of distribution of wealth and natural resources.

Human beings by their nature desire to live secure and comfortable lives, their existence is therefore driven by the quest to accumulate material wealth for this end, and when this is threatened by competition they may react violently. But humans are not necessarily evil, they are just greedy because given a choice they would rather live peaceful lives and to accumulate and hoard all the wealth and power there is to themselves. Because man is naturally a social being, he
2

John Hopkins University, Conflict Management Toolkit/approaches/Introduction http://www.saisjhu.edu/cmtoolkit/approaches/introduction/causes-of-conflict.htm [accessed 2nd October 2011]

identifies himself with a group within which he shares common characteristics, values and interests. These groupings or societies may be based on ideological, ethnic or geographical alignments within which common values are shared and through which common agenda may be pursued. But the ultimate aim of any of such agenda is to position the individuals within the group to have access to material resources and thus live comfortable lives. Because the leadership within these groupings may find it difficult to mobilize support for acquisition of power and with it wealth, it becomes necessary to employ ideology. And due to mans selfish nature, the competition over material resources continues within the group after the perceived external enemy has been vanquished, thus internal wrangling, political realignments and violent conflicts. This explains why historically nations have been united behind their leaders in times of war with other nations yet they degenerate into civil war soon after their victory in the international arena. Examples of these are the African countries like Zaire, Nigeria, Uganda, Mozambique and Angola to name but a few in which all tribes were united under a group of visionary leaders during the struggle against colonialism only for political violence, ethnic strife, civil wars and uncalled for coup-de-tat to erupt a few years after independence. This also happened in India soon after it gained independence from British rule where the country was torn down religious lines. On the same note, national leaders all over the world have managed to muster feelings of nationalism amongst their citizens by waging war against neighbouring countries through citing of imaginary grievances in a bid to distract their citizens from internal dissent or civil unrest. A good example is North Korea, where its ailing leader, Kim Jong-Il has been accused of arousing the wrath of neighboring states like South Korea and Japan and other world powers like the United States by test firing weapons of mass destruction, in preparation for imaginary wars. His true intention is to unite his countrymen behind him as he attempts to keep

power within his family by passing on the leadership of the nation to his son amid discontent by the ruling party and military top brass. A similar strategy by former Egyptian president Abdel Nasser, in 1967, backfired on him when he mobilized Egyptian forces to purportedly attack Israel in his bid to strengthen his grip on power by being seen to uphold anti-Jewish sentiments which were very popular in the Arab world at the time.

It is interesting to note that now that there is a strong international community policing transboundary acts of nations, civil wars have become far more common than international conflict. This is because the only avenue remaining for exploitation by greedy warlords is within the boundaries of nations. Political science offers an account of conflict in terms of motive thus rebellion occurs when grievances are sufficiently acute and people want to engage in violent protests. In marked contrast a small economic theory, models rebellion as an industry that generates profits from looting and draws a parallel between insurgents and common criminals like bandits or pirates. Such rebellions are motivated by greed. Thus the political science and economic approaches have assumed different motivations for rebellion, which is grievances versus greed and different explanations that is atypical grievances versus atypical opportunities3. The relation between inequality and rebellion is a very close one. The poor regions of a country may rebel to induce redistribution and rich regions may mount secessionist rebellions to preempt redistribution4. In Northern Ireland for example, it has been argued that one of the reasons why the Protestants in the north are against the re-unification of Ireland, apart from the fear of discrimination by the mostly Catholic Ireland, is their disdain of the poorer economic state of the rest of Ireland, compared to their relatively prosperous northern region. In the Republic of
3

Paul Collier, 2011 Conflict, Political Accountability and Aid, London: Routledge,pg.4

Paul Collier, 2011 Conflict, Political Accountability and Aid, London: Routledge, pg11

Somalia, decades of mediation and peace negotiations have borne no fruit because of sabotage by warlords, wealthy individuals and other interested entities who have taken advantage of the general lawlessness and lack of a central government to conduct profitable but dubious businesses. It is also believed that the world powers like the United States are reluctant to intervene militarily simply because the country is not endowed with natural resources.

Studies of many violent conflicts that have plagued mankind since the beginning of time be it between small groups, communities, intra state or interstate mostly reveal struggle over resources as the underlying cause. Even the Crusade wars fought between Christians and Muslims from the 12th Century onwards were more about conquest of new land and the resources that came with it, Christianity and Islam were but rallying points. Religion in this instance was used to mobilize man-power to fight wars for wealth and glory.

The European revolutions which ended the monarchies and aristocracies of Europe were but a culmination of class wars between the haves and the have nots. In Russia for example it has been documented that the catalyst for the revolution that destroyed the dynasty was not a plot of some revolutionaries or a conspiracy of the Duma; it came directly from the people, specifically from the women of Petrograd in 1917. Exhausted by the long hours spent on the lines hoping to purchase bread, they listened intently to reports of food supplies rotting in far off railway stations because there were no trains to bring them to the capital. These reports were compounded by suspicions that the shortages were created by government officials who were selling the food on the black market5. The women eventually took to the streets to demonstrate for bread and were joined by workers from nearby factories, who were largely demonstrating for peace. Within days Petrograd was paralyzed by huge crowds rioting, looting and calling for an end to the ongoing
5

James Duffy and Vincent Ricci, 1995. Czars, New York: Facts on File Inc., pg.345

war more food supplies and an end of the autocracy. Troops sent to the city refused to fire at the people and instead joined them as the hitherto leaderless mobs seized control of the capital. The rioting spread all over Russia and within months the emperor gave up his throne and Imperialist Russia became Soviet Russia. The story of the French revolution is more or less the same. Many years later, a similar pattern of occurrences that have come to be known as the Arab Spring have been witnessed in the Arab countries of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and continue to spread throughout the Middle East. Violent revolts by the people, who had endured years of social injustices and political marginalization, were triggered by soaring food prices and high levels of unemployment. Shared feelings of economic inequalities mobilized the masses without any clear leadership into bringing down dictatorships which had been largely unshaken by decades of political activism.

During the colonization of Africa, more violence was experienced in areas endowed with more wealth. In Kenya for example, the British settlers displaced entire populations from the, agricultural rich hilly areas of central Kenya, it is in these areas, which came to be known as the White highlands that the bloody Mau Mau rebellion wars were fought, the rest of the country witnessed little or no armed conflict at all. Of the Europeans who colonized Africa from the end of the 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold II left the most horrid legacy of all. It is believed that within forty years, some ten million people were victims of torture, murder and starvation. Legalized robbery enforced by violence, as Leopold's reign came to be described, has remained more or less the template by which Congo's rulers have governed ever since. Meanwhile Congo's soldiers have never moved away from the role allocated to them by Leopold - as a force to

coerce, torment and rape an unarmed civilian population6. This did not come as a coincidence considering the fact the DRC is arguably the most endowed region in Africa, in terms of abundance and diversity of natural resources. The region is rich in biodiversity and mineral resource including copper, cobalt, petroleum, uranium and gold to name but a few. It is argued that this vast natural wealth has rendered the DRC ungovernable. The same curse has befallen the Niger Delta region in Nigeria where militias have wreaked havoc since the discovery of petroleum and in the contested Abyei region in Sudan where the most violent clashes in recent times between the North and South Sudanese forces have taken place.

Several factors came into play and which triggered the onset of World War I. The rivalries which culminated into the war were driven by imperialism. The great European powers of the time needed more sources of raw materials and new markets fuelled by the industrial revolution and this made the new territories of Africa and parts of Asia points of contention, leading to increased confrontations, arousing nationalist tendencies and necessitating the need for mutual defense alliances and heavy military investment. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria only triggered the war of which the foundation had already been laid, that is the scramble for Africa and other territories in Asia and Eastern Europe. Although it may be said that the bloodiest war in the history of mankind, the Second World War, was caused by the actions and ideological inclinations of one mad man, Adolf Hitler, a closer scrutiny reveals economic implications in the cause. The Treaty of Versailles that marked the end of the First World War exerted harsh financial reparations on Germany, it lost its overseas colonies and part of its land to its neighbours, and it is these perceived economic deprivations that Hitler with firm support of the majority of Germans may have sought to compensate for.
6

Mark Dummet, 2004, King Leopolds Legacy of DR Congo Violence, http://news.bbc.co.uk/africa [accessed 4th October 2011

It is also notable that a large percentage of people who take part in riots, looting, political violence or armed rebellion are poor and unemployed youth. This is largely because they stand to gain more than lose in the form of property and opportunities in situations of chaos. The recent rioting and lootings in London is a clear illustration of this. In the city of Nairobi in Kenya after the disputed 2007 presidential elections, riots and violent clashes were only experienced in the poorer neighborhoods and particularly in the slums.

It has been predicted by environmental scientists that climate change will aggravate conflict due to a struggle over diminishing natural resources, and indeed climate change has been cited as one of the emerging threats to human security. Climate induced changes like reduced rainfall, increasing temperatures, and rising sea levels as projected will lead to loss of viable land, inadequate food production, insufficient fresh water, and loss of pastures, forests and habitats. This inadequacy of resources is expected to trigger conflicts between communities. In the Darfur region in the western part of Sudan, climate change induced drought led to violent conflicts between nomadic herders and settled pastoralists over pasture and water. The national leaders seized this opportunity and fanned a brutal ethnic and religious war between the Arab Muslim tribes and the black Christian tribes in Darfur with both the northern and southern protagonists in the decades long Sudan civil war [before separation] taking different sides.

On the contrary, the causes of terrorism are more ideological than material and this is evident from the high incidences of suicide attacks; the suicidal tendencies are caused by strong religious beliefs, it is hard to believe that somebody who is driven by monetary gain would be willing to die for such. Views have time and again been expressed that terrorism, like any other form of crime is driven by desire for monetary gain. James Wolfensohn, for example, a former president

of the World Bank was quoted as saying that the war on terrorism can never be won without a solution to the problem of poverty. Economic deprivation and inadequate education have been cited as the main causes of terrorism, however, Alan Kruger, an influential economist disagrees. He argues that such explanations have been embraced entirely on stereotype and not scientific evidence, that terrorists care more about influencing political outcomes and that research evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as an important cause of support for or participation in terrorism. As a group, terrorists have been found to be better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group in the societies from which they originate, the best educated people in the society are often more radicalized. Terrorism occurs within a social context in that individuals are encouraged to participate in the acts by those they associate with. He however admits that there are occasional exceptions to this pattern and also that terrorists may be motivated by inadequate or unequal economic opportunities in their own countries; members of elites may become terrorists because they are outraged by the economic conditions of their fellow countrymen. The aim of terrorism is rather to further political goal7. The late Osama bin Laden and other top commanders of AlQaeda terrorist group are a typical example of such highly educated individuals from very wealthy backgrounds who choose to let go the good life that all men seemingly yearn for so as to fight for a course they genuinely believe to be just. And although the course is definitely political, it becomes necessary for terrorist leaders to employ religious ideology so as to garner enough support for their activities. In conclusion, violent conflict, is the culmination of human beings struggle over material resources, even the more noble causes like genuine grievances and political ideology are based
7

Alan Kruger, 2007, What makes a terrorist, Princeton: Princeton university press, pgs. 2-6

on the notions of resource use and benefit sharing. Ideology seldom leads to violence because human beings are naturally not passionate enough about such inclinations so as to fight for them. We fight for what we are passionate about, and that is wealth and power. But if humans were reasonable enough there would be no need to fight because as captured in Indias Mahatma Gandhis famous quote, there is enough on earth for all our needs but there is not enough for all our greed.

REFERENCES

1. Alan Kruger, 2007, What makes a terrorist, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2. James Duffy and Vincent Ricci, 1995, Czars, Russias Rulers for one thousand years, New York: Facts on File Inc. 3. John Hopkins University, Conflict Management Toolkit/approaches/Introduction http://www.sais-jhu.edu/cmtoolkit/approaches/introduction/causes-of-conflict.htm [accessed 2nd October 2011] 4. Kenneth Waltz, 1959, Man, The State and War, New York: Columbia University Press 5. Mark Dummet, 2004, King Leopolds Legacy of DR Congo Violence, http://news.bbc.co.uk/africa [accessed 4th October 2011] 6. Martin Kelly, Causes of World War One, http://americanhistory.about.com/causes-ofworld-war-1.htm [accessed 4th October 2011] 7. Paul Collier, 2011, Conflict, Political Accountability and Aid, London: Routledge