• Fights over limited resources, such as food and money • Disagreement related to social relationship, such as marriage or membership of a religious group. For example, long -standing disagreements between husband and wife could result in conflict characterized by physical or emotional abuse. • Differences in culture and belief system, such as one ethnic group discriminating against, or even killing, members of another ethnic group because they think that the group is inferior.
Levels of conflict in society
Individual -individual conflict is conflict between or more people; ↓ Family -Family conflict involves various family members or relatives ↓ Community – it involves different groups within a community ↓ National – it involves an entire nation e.g. civil war ↓ International – it involves different nations
Causes of conflict
Wars resulting from desire for power
Certain groups or individuals have such a strong need to dominate and control other that they will use violence means to achieve their aims. This leads to violent clashes between different groups and even wars between countries.
Individual differences
• In society, people are not alike in their nature, attitudes, ideals, interest and aspirations. Due to these differences, some people cannot accommodate others thus causing conflicts between them
Economic inequality
• World resources are not evenly distributed. This has led to different nations and groups developing at different rates. • Disadvantaged groups or nations may try to gain control over natural resources by violent means, while developed nations would also be prepared to use force to protect their interest.
Social inequality
Social inequality can be reflected in various types of behaviour that could all lead to conflict, such as discrimination, racism, ethnicism, xenophobia, genocide:
Discrimination occurs when one group denies another group their right to equal treatment. Even though all people deserve to be treated equally and fairly, certain groups want to maintain their position of dominance within society.
Racism is the belief that natural difference, such as people’s ethnic origin or skin colour determine their worth and abilities as human beings.
Ethnicism when certain ethnic groups regard themselves as more special than others. It could result in favouring certain ethnic groups for government posts and inequalities in the distribution of a country’s budget among ethnic groups.
Xenophobia refers to attacks against foreigners in a country. This tends to happen when refugees flee wars or poverty in neighbouring countries. The local population may feel that the foreigners are taking away their jobs and opportunities.
Genocide occurs when ethnicism is taken to such an extreme that one group believes they must kill all members of another group.
Effects of conflict
Disunity: parties involved in a conflict may decide not to talk to each other. This usually happens at family level, and it leads to breakdown of families.
Violence: The key result of conflict is the violation of the fundamental human right. Nevertheless, when conflict goes unresolved, intense situations may arise between the parties involved. This may lead to violence
Death and destruction of infrastructures: wars between nations and civil wars can kill large numbers of a country’s population. Destruction of infrastructure such as buildings, power stations, roads etc can happen during conflicts.
Refugees: Civil wars in many parts of the world have turned many millions of people into refugees who remain totally dependent on the generosity of other countries and international relief organizations.
Environmental degradation: wars not only destroy manmade infrastructure, but also causes environmental degradation. This means the environment and wildlife are destroyed to such an extent that it takes decades to recover.
Some countries use very powerful weapons during wars.
Conflict resolution methods
Conflict resolution methods refer to techniques that we can learn to use to deal effectively with conflict situation.
Ways in which we can respond to conflict situation:
Denial
Happens when someone gets angry when they disagree with someone. They may deny that they are feeling angry and refuse to discuss the matter further.
This is not an effective method of conflict resolution as the other person will then not really understand why the first person is upset.
Confrontation
Happens when one person attacks the other person physically or verbally when they find themselves in a conflict situation.
Usually people who respond in this way don’t understand how to discuss problems in a calm way.
Mediation
Involves people talking calmly to each other, without blaming or insulting each other, when they have a problem.
Their aim is to negotiate with each other to come up with a solution that will work for both of them. This is called a win-win result.
Arbitration
This means the appointment of an independent person to act as a judge in a dispute to decide on the terms of a settlement.
Both parties in a conflict have to agree about who the arbitrator should be, and the decision of the arbitrator will be binding on them all.
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is important, especially in workplace situations.
It is necessary to have mechanisms in place for management and workers to collectively discuss and resolve issues that may arise in the organisation.
Peace education needs to be provided to learners in schools.
When children learn the values of peace they will embrace these values thus avoiding conflicts.
Peace education allows us to think of ways to resolve conflicts arising from differences such as ethnicity, gender, culture, and religion in peaceful ways.
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