A layman's aside.
Can the mechanisms that can result from the research that Professor Kissi has embarked on be incorporated into conflict resolution and peacekeeping through agencies such as The African Union and the United Nations? Ideally, to what foreseeable extent could such mechanisms have dampened the political motivations that erupted into e.g. The Sierra Leone Civil War ?
Perhaps, you only have some minor tribal skirmishes in mind, of the kind that erupt from time time, or lessons to be learned from the Rwandan Genocide which could have been averted if the desired preventive mechanisms had been in place…
First, the family as the basic unit of society - according to Gaddafi's Green Book, then that dreaded word, the TRIBE, its shared history via which its identity was gradually formed, and paradoxically, the tribal wisdom which Professor Edward Kissi with his tremendous background and experience, invokes in the service of conflict prevention / containment. Based on religion and other factors, the crux of the matter is that some tribes believe themselves to be greater, not only numerically superior, in terms of numbers, but also more divinely favoured by their God, and "more civilised" than other tribes. Some tribes sometimes grab what they believe to be divinely sanctioned, namely grabbing the ancestral lands of other tribes as the Israelites did in the ancient Middle East, and as happened in North America. The latest (old news) that popped up about this on Youtube, only four days ago : The 1967 Biafran Invasion of Benin
These days, just as in the good old days of "might is right", in addition to the fighting over resources ( as is currently happening in Eastern DR Congo) , grazing land, access to water, greener pastures etc ( "First a full stomach and then ethics") is the religion factor : the role of religion in conflict in Africa. Dear Professor Kissi, I'm not a pessimist, but do you seriously believe that indigenous African " community anti-atrocity proverbs, maxims, axioms" are likely to succeed where the maxims that are to be found in the various Bibles and in the Quran of the combatants have not been sufficiently compelling to get the contending warriors to lay their weapons down?
Wars are more likely to diminish and even dis-appear once the various tribes morph into NATIONS in which " all men are created equal " - nations in which we - not only the poets are all "mouthpieces of the Almighty", governed by the Rule of Law.
In my opinion, that's what we've got to work for even as we teach / inculcate respect for the ancestors, the National Anthem and The Flag.
As many of you know, I have been involved in research and teaching on the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights, Genocide-prevention, Atrocity-prevention, and the prevention of identity-based violence for many years. Some may even be aware of my article in African Security Review in which I argue for a concept of "moral pan-Africanism" as a framework for sustainable regional peace and security in Africa.
In recent years, I have worked with many international organizations, museums, and academic institutions to find practical community-based solutions to genocide and identity-based violence. Sadly, these atrocities continue in all human societies with maddening regularity. Some would argue that their recurrence, despite the large body of scholarship and teaching on their causes, prevention, and impact, expose the limitations of genocide-prevention research and activism, or the incorrigible nature of humans as perpetrators.
As someone who grew up in a village in Ghana organized on community cultural and moral logics embedded in proverbs, folklores, and axioms, I am aware of values-laden proverbs that served my community well. Some of these community proverbs highlighted the "intersectionality" of human life, the moral necessity to defend the dignity of every human being, and the harm to self and society inherent in hate-speech. On intersectionality of human destinies, my Kwawu people say that "obi afumkwan nkye na asi obi de mu". This could be translated into English as: it does not take long for one person's path to his farm to intersect with another's. This community view that our lives are interconnected and what has been done to others can also be done to us made people in my local community admonish anyone who incited violence against others. On harm to oneself and community when people maltreat their fellow human beings, the Kwawu have a warning: wo twa wo tekrema we a na wonwee nam biara. Crudely translated: when you cut your tongue and eat it, you have not eaten any meat. Or, elegantly, if you roast your tongue for dinner you have not eaten any meaningful meal. You have harmed yourself and your community instead.
Certainly, these community maxims never banished conflict in Kwawu society but they warned against it. They provided theoretical frameworks for the prevention of atrocities.
I have been thinking of compiling and comparing such community-driven responses to atrocities, genocide and identity-based violence in Africa. Therefore, I am looking for many African community proverbs, maxims, stories, etc, that "discouraged" violence against groups based on their identity (ethnicity, beliefs, appearance, etc), or advocated inter-group harmony as the foundation of community security. Or proverbs and maxims that "encouraged" such violence and how that is explained.
My aim here is to look deeper into African societies and discover valuable traditions, values, mores, etc, that have been overlooked by genocide and identity-based violence researchers. I want to examine the commonalities in these community values and think about how communities can be viable partners in genocide-prevention and the prevention of identity-based violence in Africa. I want to use these as conceptual bedrocks for teaching a course on "applied genocide-prevention" in a certificate program for genocide-prevention practitioners.
I need your help! You can share your community anti-atrocity proverbs, maxims, axioms (and their English translations) in this forum or you can share them privately with me at ekis...@gmail.com, or eki...@usf.edu. You will be credited for your contribution.
Edward Kissi
Edward Kissi, Ph.D
Professor
School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies
University of South Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue
Tampa, Florida 33620
Integrating sub-Saharan Africa into a historical and cultural study of the Holocaust
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