Sola Osofisan
11-13-2007, 02:32 AM
By Yemi Adebisi
Experts have defined conflict resolution as "the process of attempting to resolve a dispute or a conflict." Successful conflict resolution occurs by listening to and providing opportunities to meet each side's needs and adequately address their interests so that each party is satisfied with the outcome.
Nigerian authors have therefore, considered the possibility of using literature as a weapon to resolve conflict in our society.
This apparently was the reason behind the choice of theme at this year’s conference of Association of Nigerian authors (ANA) at Owerri, Imo State.
The theme is entitled, "Literature And Conflict Resolution".
Opinion polls confirmed that while 'conflict resolution' engages conflict once it has already started, 'conflict prevention' aims at ending conflicts before they start or before they lead to verbal, physical, or legal fighting or violence. It has over time been proved that conflict itself has both positive and negative outcomes, while practitioners in the field of conflict resolution aim at finding ways of promoting positive outcomes and minimising negative outcomes.
It was really disheartening to imagine the myriads of lives innocently sacrificed in third world countries because of common national or international misunderstanding between people of the same ethnicity and cultural background. The untold retrogression the Nigeria nation has experienced as a result of communal clashes calls for caution.
According to Okediran, ANA president-elect, who beat Usman Sheu, chairman, Abuja chapter of ANA, after a secret ballot, the choice of this year’s theme has been dictated by the spate of global conflicts witnessed in recent times. Condemning the insurgences in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Darfur and Israel, and the recent uprising by the people of Myanmar (formerly Burma), Okediran reiterated that a lot of inter-ethnic frictions have also been recorded in the last few years in various countries. Equally disturbing, according to him, was the unresolved conflict in the Niger Delta region, a situation that seems to be getting worse everyday.
To be candid, Nigerian writers believed that the roots of the current wave of global and national conflicts, terrorism and extremism are deep and have reached down through decades of alienation, victim-hood and political oppression in the various regions. The ANA leader referred to the September 11 attacks, which proved that one cannot defeat a fanatical ideology just by imprisoning or killing its leaders. "You have to first defeat the idea, ditto for the problem in the Niger Delta region," Okediran said.
Among other varieties, the conference considered subtopics as "Literature and Cross Cultural Dialogue", "Literature and the Advancement of World Peace", "Children’s Literature and the Challenges of National Integration", "Literature and Globalisation", and "Literature, Writers and the ICT Revolution". Experts from different professional backgrounds handled these topics.
Guest speaker at the conference was South Africa-based Professor Kole Omotosho, who warned that if any meaningful progress would be made in Nigeria, the moral content of literature must be applied for resolution.
In his presentation, he referred to the Nigerian civil war when leaders sounded deceptive and jiltery about their principles and beliefs. He said, "At the end of the Nigerian civil war, Yakubu Gowon declared there was no victor no vanquished. He said virtually that there had been no conflict, there had been nobody killed, nobody had died of hunger, people had not lost their beloved ones and nobody had been short-changed in the 30 or so months of exchange of gunfire between Nigerian and Biafran soldiers.
What Yakubu Gowon and the leadership of the Biafran army that surrendered to Col. Olusegun Obasanjo in the battle field said was that there had been no war, civil or otherwise. In fact, what the no victor no vanquished conclusion to the war said was that it was all right for one group of Nigerians to hold political power over other Nigerians forever, and that in the pursuit of this, it was good for the people to be killed and maimed and deprived of their livelihood and property."
He, however, on a sad note, inquired for the dividends of this conflict on the citizenry. "But are Nigeria and Biafra reconciled? Do we have peace and harmony in the country?"
Omotosho arguably claimed that there was no relationship between the concept of literature and conflict resolution, because literature does not have moral content.
He believes that until the gap between the man and his literature is filled, there would be no cause to envisage resolution of conflict in the world. On a global view, he considered the state of conflict in South Africa where he lectures. "…Afrikaaner National Party came to power democratically, voted in narrowly by a white-only electorate. When that government was replaced through negotiation in 1994, the government of national unity created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), with the expressed pious hope and belief that telling the truth would lead to reconciliation between the victimised blacks and the victimising whites." Omotosho noted that the commission declared that one of the decisions to resolve conflict was to equate the crimes of the apartheid government with the `crimes' of the liberation movements that fought to dislodge apartheid. In this situation, according to the don, both sides were urged to confess their sins by telling the whole truth, ask for amnesty and there would then be an end to the conflict and everybody would be reconciled. Any little lingering matters left would be attended to by the magic of transitional justice. Wondering aloud, the professor declared amazingly that the situation in South Africa is not better after all. "What is the situation in South Africa today? In the first place, most of those who served under apartheid refused to tell the whole truth, and so they were not granted amnesty; those who fought on the side of the liberation movements against apartheid refused to equate their actions in the pursuit of dislodging the apartheid system with the crimes of the system. So, they did not seek amnesty in the first place. Something of a stalemate exists today in South Africa, a stalemate in which violence, murder and the most horrendous crimes committed are still hidden. Definitely, there has been no reconciliation," Omotosho declared.
He, however, doubted if conflict resolution was ever achievable with the advent of persistent injustice in the world. He referred to the Arab-Israeli/Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, where in the process of correcting ancient wrongs, another wrong is perpetrated, thus creating two wrongs or two rights, and a situation in which both sides are both right and both wrong at the same time. He described the situation thus: "Adie ba lokun, ara o rokun, ara o radie!" Meaning, "both the bird and the rope on which it rests are not at ease. He said Israel has won virtually all the military encounters between her and the Arabs, and between her and Palestine since 1948, but yet Israel does not enjoy the peace a military victory should procure for the victor. He declared that despite the tough moment Palestinians faced, "they are fighting not to survive after winning, but to die and hope to win." He told the audience that in this case, for the first time, one enemy confronts another that does not wish to win and live, but is prepared to die and win, adding that, "This is the logic of suicide bombing that must make us pause and wonder if conflict resolution and transitional justice have any possibility."
Omotosho therefore, inferred that conflict resolution and transitional justice were impossible in real everyday life situations because "there is a great piece of life's jigsaw that is missing. There is something absent, an ingredient without which the equation will not balance."
He added that, "if a win-win situation of transitional justice is impossible in real life, it has no place in the world of Literature." This, according to him, can be illustrated with the help of four texts, works of art straddling times and cultures from before the birth of Christ until 2007, and from the Greeks, the English, the Africans and the North Americans.
He justified his argument with the adaptation of Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame originally written by Sophocles in 429 BC, the story of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Ola Rotimi in this book stated that the point of the play was not that nothing could be found to prevent the young man from killing his father and marrying his mother. "Resolving the conflict of the play and creating a win-win situation was not the issue. The heart of the matter was accepting the consequences of such a man killing his father and marrying his mother. Acceptance, not avoidance of the consequences of our actions, is what literature is all about. And the consequences are usually awesome!" Omotosho said.
He concluded that, "Literature, to be ultimately relevant to the human condition, must have a moral content that makes conflict resolution and transitional justice such a failure where lasting peace is virtually impossible."
http://www.independentngonline.com/?c=120&a=5208
Experts have defined conflict resolution as "the process of attempting to resolve a dispute or a conflict." Successful conflict resolution occurs by listening to and providing opportunities to meet each side's needs and adequately address their interests so that each party is satisfied with the outcome.
Nigerian authors have therefore, considered the possibility of using literature as a weapon to resolve conflict in our society.
This apparently was the reason behind the choice of theme at this year’s conference of Association of Nigerian authors (ANA) at Owerri, Imo State.
The theme is entitled, "Literature And Conflict Resolution".
Opinion polls confirmed that while 'conflict resolution' engages conflict once it has already started, 'conflict prevention' aims at ending conflicts before they start or before they lead to verbal, physical, or legal fighting or violence. It has over time been proved that conflict itself has both positive and negative outcomes, while practitioners in the field of conflict resolution aim at finding ways of promoting positive outcomes and minimising negative outcomes.
It was really disheartening to imagine the myriads of lives innocently sacrificed in third world countries because of common national or international misunderstanding between people of the same ethnicity and cultural background. The untold retrogression the Nigeria nation has experienced as a result of communal clashes calls for caution.
According to Okediran, ANA president-elect, who beat Usman Sheu, chairman, Abuja chapter of ANA, after a secret ballot, the choice of this year’s theme has been dictated by the spate of global conflicts witnessed in recent times. Condemning the insurgences in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Darfur and Israel, and the recent uprising by the people of Myanmar (formerly Burma), Okediran reiterated that a lot of inter-ethnic frictions have also been recorded in the last few years in various countries. Equally disturbing, according to him, was the unresolved conflict in the Niger Delta region, a situation that seems to be getting worse everyday.
To be candid, Nigerian writers believed that the roots of the current wave of global and national conflicts, terrorism and extremism are deep and have reached down through decades of alienation, victim-hood and political oppression in the various regions. The ANA leader referred to the September 11 attacks, which proved that one cannot defeat a fanatical ideology just by imprisoning or killing its leaders. "You have to first defeat the idea, ditto for the problem in the Niger Delta region," Okediran said.
Among other varieties, the conference considered subtopics as "Literature and Cross Cultural Dialogue", "Literature and the Advancement of World Peace", "Children’s Literature and the Challenges of National Integration", "Literature and Globalisation", and "Literature, Writers and the ICT Revolution". Experts from different professional backgrounds handled these topics.
Guest speaker at the conference was South Africa-based Professor Kole Omotosho, who warned that if any meaningful progress would be made in Nigeria, the moral content of literature must be applied for resolution.
In his presentation, he referred to the Nigerian civil war when leaders sounded deceptive and jiltery about their principles and beliefs. He said, "At the end of the Nigerian civil war, Yakubu Gowon declared there was no victor no vanquished. He said virtually that there had been no conflict, there had been nobody killed, nobody had died of hunger, people had not lost their beloved ones and nobody had been short-changed in the 30 or so months of exchange of gunfire between Nigerian and Biafran soldiers.
What Yakubu Gowon and the leadership of the Biafran army that surrendered to Col. Olusegun Obasanjo in the battle field said was that there had been no war, civil or otherwise. In fact, what the no victor no vanquished conclusion to the war said was that it was all right for one group of Nigerians to hold political power over other Nigerians forever, and that in the pursuit of this, it was good for the people to be killed and maimed and deprived of their livelihood and property."
He, however, on a sad note, inquired for the dividends of this conflict on the citizenry. "But are Nigeria and Biafra reconciled? Do we have peace and harmony in the country?"
Omotosho arguably claimed that there was no relationship between the concept of literature and conflict resolution, because literature does not have moral content.
He believes that until the gap between the man and his literature is filled, there would be no cause to envisage resolution of conflict in the world. On a global view, he considered the state of conflict in South Africa where he lectures. "…Afrikaaner National Party came to power democratically, voted in narrowly by a white-only electorate. When that government was replaced through negotiation in 1994, the government of national unity created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), with the expressed pious hope and belief that telling the truth would lead to reconciliation between the victimised blacks and the victimising whites." Omotosho noted that the commission declared that one of the decisions to resolve conflict was to equate the crimes of the apartheid government with the `crimes' of the liberation movements that fought to dislodge apartheid. In this situation, according to the don, both sides were urged to confess their sins by telling the whole truth, ask for amnesty and there would then be an end to the conflict and everybody would be reconciled. Any little lingering matters left would be attended to by the magic of transitional justice. Wondering aloud, the professor declared amazingly that the situation in South Africa is not better after all. "What is the situation in South Africa today? In the first place, most of those who served under apartheid refused to tell the whole truth, and so they were not granted amnesty; those who fought on the side of the liberation movements against apartheid refused to equate their actions in the pursuit of dislodging the apartheid system with the crimes of the system. So, they did not seek amnesty in the first place. Something of a stalemate exists today in South Africa, a stalemate in which violence, murder and the most horrendous crimes committed are still hidden. Definitely, there has been no reconciliation," Omotosho declared.
He, however, doubted if conflict resolution was ever achievable with the advent of persistent injustice in the world. He referred to the Arab-Israeli/Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, where in the process of correcting ancient wrongs, another wrong is perpetrated, thus creating two wrongs or two rights, and a situation in which both sides are both right and both wrong at the same time. He described the situation thus: "Adie ba lokun, ara o rokun, ara o radie!" Meaning, "both the bird and the rope on which it rests are not at ease. He said Israel has won virtually all the military encounters between her and the Arabs, and between her and Palestine since 1948, but yet Israel does not enjoy the peace a military victory should procure for the victor. He declared that despite the tough moment Palestinians faced, "they are fighting not to survive after winning, but to die and hope to win." He told the audience that in this case, for the first time, one enemy confronts another that does not wish to win and live, but is prepared to die and win, adding that, "This is the logic of suicide bombing that must make us pause and wonder if conflict resolution and transitional justice have any possibility."
Omotosho therefore, inferred that conflict resolution and transitional justice were impossible in real everyday life situations because "there is a great piece of life's jigsaw that is missing. There is something absent, an ingredient without which the equation will not balance."
He added that, "if a win-win situation of transitional justice is impossible in real life, it has no place in the world of Literature." This, according to him, can be illustrated with the help of four texts, works of art straddling times and cultures from before the birth of Christ until 2007, and from the Greeks, the English, the Africans and the North Americans.
He justified his argument with the adaptation of Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame originally written by Sophocles in 429 BC, the story of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Ola Rotimi in this book stated that the point of the play was not that nothing could be found to prevent the young man from killing his father and marrying his mother. "Resolving the conflict of the play and creating a win-win situation was not the issue. The heart of the matter was accepting the consequences of such a man killing his father and marrying his mother. Acceptance, not avoidance of the consequences of our actions, is what literature is all about. And the consequences are usually awesome!" Omotosho said.
He concluded that, "Literature, to be ultimately relevant to the human condition, must have a moral content that makes conflict resolution and transitional justice such a failure where lasting peace is virtually impossible."
http://www.independentngonline.com/?c=120&a=5208