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CULTURE AND CONFLICT

Culture is at once a simple and a frustratingly elusive concept. It has been used by anthropologists and by historians to mean the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and practices by which people give meaning to the world around them.

The concept seems incoherent, but it is no less legitimate or important for that. Reality is not a complete, entirely coherent, objectified thing. There is no simple dichotomy between an observer and the 'real' world. At every stage of the process by which we come to know the world, we are engaged with it. What we call the facts are always intrinsically bound up by the way in which we give meaning to them. Human perception involves coding even more than crude sensing. The mesh of language, or of mathematics or of a school of thought, or of any other sort of human abstracting gives to our mental constructs not the structure of the original fact but of the symbol system into which it is encoded. Culture can be understood as the system by which a group of individuals give meaning to the world, and particularly the social world, and by which they locate themselves within that world.

It ought to be remembered that this whole process takes place within the minds of individuals which always operate under other influences than the cultural. An individual's character or the influence of his friends or family, his health or economic circumstances will also have an effect on how a person behaves, as will any number of other things. Ultimately a person's actions will always be the result of his own choices. Which means that culture shouldn't be seen as a determining influence, only as one of a number which will be acting on an individual at any one time. But that does not mean that we it is not an important influence. In intransigent ethnic conflict more than probably any other social phenomenon, culture plays a role of vital importance.

There is a great deal of cultural overlap between unionist and nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. Both are subject to many of the same influences and they share common origins in the broad Christian-Humanist tradition. They listen to the same music and watch the same films, they share many common values. But profound differences exist on questions of identity and political community (the way in which a group of people locate themselves within humanity), political organization and action, sources of legitimate authority and the expression of culture, profound differences exist. Both groups answer such questions according to their own beliefs and attitudes, conditioned by their own memories and experiences. Both groups seek to understand the other according to their own cultural perceptions. The settlements of the conflict which they suggest are based upon their own cultural assumptions and involve convincing, or forcing, the other group to accept those assumptions.

Culture provides the context for political belief and action. Through an understanding of culture it is possible to get an insight into why a group believes what it does and why it acts in the way in which it does in pursuit of its beliefs. In practical terms, you won't be able to understand why Orangemen march and why Catholic residents oppose them, or why the Serbs think Kosovo is theirs or why the both parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict refuse to compromise on Jerusalem

unless you first understand the cultures which produced those attitudes and expressions.

Culture is produced in a contingent historical process. It is constructed over centuries under a number of different influences acting on a particular group of people in a particular set of circumstances. Had any of the elements which effected its development been different, something different would have been produced. . The role of culture in conflict is important precisely because every group has its own. Some assumptions will be shared accross a number of cultures but others will be unique. And in return for expecting others to make the effort to understand our cultural outlook, we need to make the effort to understand others on their own terms.

To say that all cultural assumptions are produced in a contingent way is not to call the legitimacy of those assumptions into question. The construction of culture is absolutely necessary, it is part of what it means to be human. But acknowledging that all cultures result from an entirely subjective process does mean that we must accept that others should not be forced to adopt our assumptions.

The implications of this for the understanding of conflict are obvious, as are the implications for conflict resolution work. It becomes necessary for those studying conflict to undertake the difficult balancing act of keeping a sense of overview with the need to get close enough to the participants to understand their motivation. A true understanding of a particular conflict will require a proper understanding of the cultures involved.

It also means that the parties to any conflict need to understand not just that the other party's subjective experience of the conflict will have been different but that they will have understood events to mean different things. When this happens, we need to resist the assumption the other is just making it up to conceal some underhanded scheme. People need to understand that things can genuinely be understood in more than one way

But for all that, we also need to accept and face the danger of being trapped in a cultural cul-de-sac. We ignore the impact of myth and culture at our peril. For instance, most people in any conflict would not identify themselves with the extremists, but they exist within the same cultural parameters. This does not mean that most people like violence but that the same cultural assumptions inform both. The extremists exist on the back of the general cultural assumptions about the fundamental imperative of all political action. Wars are not fought over nothing and it is very often the case that the underlying conflict of interest involves those fundamental imperatives. The legacy of Just War Theory is that most cultures in the western world accept that violence can be justified, even if most of us don't like to admit it. The National Interest is the usual justification (although bizarrely we are seeing more and more wars fought in the name of Human Rights). It is not difficult to see how this combined with fundamental political imperatives which are in conflict can result in violence.

We can say that all cultures, as subjectively constructs, are equally legitimate. But we cannot say that all political aspirations are equally legitimate. To build peace, we need to impose a moral judgment on to this postmodern canvas, an acceptance that peace is an imperative rather than just something that is preferable to war. When we are involved in conflict we need to look ourselves in the eye and ask ourselves whether we are expressing our culture politically in a way which preserves, exacerbates or causes conflict. And if we find that we are, we need to be prepared to change.

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		Culture is at once a simple and a frustratingly elusive concept. It has been used by anthropologists and by historians to mean the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and practices by which people give meaning to the world around them.
		The concept seems incoherent, but it is no less legitimate or important for that. Reality is not a complete, entirely coherent, objectified thing. There is no simple dichotomy between an observer and the 'real' world. At every stage of the process by which we come to know the world, we are engaged with it. What we call the facts are always intrinsically bound up by the way in which we give meaning to them. Human perception involves coding even more than crude sensing. The mesh of language, or of mathematics or of a school of thought, or of any other sort of human abstracting gives to our mental constructs not the structure of the original fact but of the symbol system into which it is encoded. Culture can be understood as the system by which a group of individuals give meaning to the world, and particularly the social world, and by which they locate themselves within that world.
		It ought to be remembered that this whole process takes place within the minds of individuals which always operate under other influences than the cultural. An individual's character or the influence of his friends or family, his health or economic circumstances will also have an effect on how a person behaves, as will any number of other things. Ultimately a person's actions will always be the result of his own choices. Which means that culture shouldn't be seen as a determining influence, only as one of a number which will be acting on an individual at any one time. But that does not mean that we it is not an important influence. In intransigent ethnic conflict more than probably any other social phenomenon, culture plays a role of vital importance.
		There is a great deal of cultural overlap between unionist and nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. Both are subject to many of the same influences and they share common origins in the broad Christian-Humanist tradition. They listen to the same music and watch the same films, they share many common values. But profound differences exist on questions of identity and political community (the way in which a group of people locate themselves within humanity), political organization and action, sources of legitimate authority and the expression of culture, profound differences exist. Both groups answer such questions according to their own beliefs and attitudes, conditioned by their own memories and experiences. Both groups seek to understand the other according to their own cultural perceptions. The settlements of the conflict which they suggest are based upon their own cultural assumptions and involve convincing, or forcing, the other group to accept those assumptions.
		Culture provides the context for political belief and action. Through an understanding of culture it is possible to get an insight into why a group believes what it does and why it acts in the way in which it does in pursuit of its beliefs. In practical terms, you won't be able to understand why Orangemen march and why Catholic residents oppose them, or why the Serbs think Kosovo is theirs or why the both parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict refuse to compromise on Jerusalem
		unless you first understand the cultures which produced those attitudes and expressions.
		Culture is produced in a contingent historical process. It is constructed over centuries under a number of different influences acting on a particular group of people in a particular set of circumstances. Had any of the elements which effected its development been different, something different would have been produced. . The role of culture in conflict is important precisely because every group has its own. Some assumptions will be shared accross a number of cultures but others will be unique. And in return for expecting others to make the effort to understand our cultural outlook, we need to make the effort to understand others on their own terms.
		To say that all cultural assumptions are produced in a contingent way is not to call the legitimacy of those assumptions into question. The construction of culture is absolutely necessary, it is part of what it means to be human. But acknowledging that all cultures result from an entirely subjective process does mean that we must accept that others should not be forced to adopt our assumptions.
		The implications of this for the understanding of conflict are obvious, as are the implications for conflict resolution work. It becomes necessary for those studying conflict to undertake the difficult balancing act of keeping a sense of overview with the need to get close enough to the participants to understand their motivation. A true understanding of a particular conflict will require a proper understanding of the cultures involved.
		It also means that the parties to any conflict need to understand not just that the other party's subjective experience of the conflict will have been different but that they will have understood events to mean different things. When this happens, we need to resist the assumption the other is just making it up to conceal some underhanded scheme. People need to understand that things can genuinely be understood in more than one way
		But for all that, we also need to accept and face the danger of being trapped in a cultural cul-de-sac. We ignore the impact of myth and culture at our peril. For instance, most people in any conflict would not identify themselves with the extremists, but they exist within the same cultural parameters. This does not mean that most people like violence but that the same cultural assumptions inform both. The extremists exist on the back of the general cultural assumptions about the fundamental imperative of all political action. Wars are not fought over nothing and it is very often the case that the underlying conflict of interest involves those fundamental imperatives. The legacy of Just War Theory is that most cultures in the western world accept that violence can be justified, even if most of us don't like to admit it. The National Interest is the usual justification (although bizarrely we are seeing more and more wars fought in the name of Human Rights). It is not difficult to see how this combined with fundamental political imperatives which are in conflict can result in violence.
		We can say that all cultures, as subjectively constructs, are equally legitimate. But we cannot say that all political aspirations are equally legitimate. To build peace, we need to impose a moral judgment on to this postmodern canvas, an acceptance that peace is an imperative rather than just something that is preferable to war. When we are involved in conflict we need to look ourselves in the eye and ask ourselves whether we are expressing our culture politically in a way which preserves, exacerbates or causes conflict. And if we find that we are, we need to be prepared to change.