Ethnic Diversity in Eastern Africa: Opportunities and Challenges

Critical Reflections on the Challenges and Prospects of Ethnic Diversity Management in Democratization

Critical Reflections on the Challenges and Prospects of Ethnic Diversity Management in Democratization Eric Aseka Introduction An increasing number of countries are beginning to appreciate and value the richness and strength imparted by cultural and ethnic diversity. Nevertheless, idiosyncratic histories ofAfrican countries have shaped contemporary politics and inter-ethnic relations in these countries in a negative sense. For effective development policies to be formulated that meet accepted principles of diversity management, an understanding of the social and political contexts of inter-ethnic relations is crucial. The agenda of societal transformation should encapsulate an analysis of the role played by public policies in mitigating ethnic tensions and the promotion of the spirit of accommodation and pluralism in nation-states. The need to perceive the nature of the intersection of consciousness and historical experience as the basis of identity construction cannot be gainsaid. We need to appreciate the fact that identity is a product of complex processes of historical interaction between people, institutions and their social practices in expressing selfhood (Aseka, 2007). These processes require defined midwifery roles of transformational leaders and not political charlatans whose social actions have no basis in good principles of socio-political management. To build a well-ordered society, principles must come before politics. As Strappado Wrack says, political charlatanism has no incentive to tell the truth and its discourses are all deceptions to get such leaders elected and to sustain their political survival. This, therefore, makes cheating the mark and fundamental function of political charlatans (Wrack, 2003). It is this kind of leadership that has a knack of promoting the demagoguery of manipulation and instrumentalization of ethnicity. It may be noted that there has been a recent upsurge in ethnic conflict in a number of African countries where such unmediated charlatanism thrives. The paradox of ethnic identification is that ethnicity typically becomes most destructive when its subjects feel threatened in conditions of manipulation and politicization of ethnic identities. Therefore, in order to reduce ethnic tensions it is necessary ethnic diversity management in democratization 121 122 ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN EASTERN AFRICA to protect people’s rights to form ethnic loyalties, and not to repress ethnic identification (see Chege, this volume). In a number of respects, this does not mean, however, that policies entrenching ethnicity in formal social and political structures should necessarily be put in place. Ethnicity naturally evolves, and in the process of good diversity management previously important ethnic markers become insignificant, and new bases for identification are created (UNRISD/UNDP, 1994). Re-thinking, conceptualization and theory-building on alternative statehood ought to be done in order to understand the specific situations of particular polities and/or historical periods in relation to configurations of coterminality or discoterminality of cultural and political communities. As such, an understanding of the nature of ethnicity when negatively manipulated as well as of the origins and evolution of ethnic conflict is essential for an understanding of ways to address and prevent such conflicts in a proper framework of ethnic diversity management. Ethnicity, of course, is only one of the many ways in which people identify themselves among other specificities of family, community, nation, class, occupation, gender, age and other group characteristics. These social specificities form different layers of identity thereby generating their own peculiar mindsets, attitudes, social cleavages and antagonisms. In a quest to construct a better foundational basis of alternative statehood which can effectively address idiosyncrasies of such mindsets, attitudes, social cleavages and antagonisms, it makes sense to state that there is need to equip governments, development agencies, grassroots organizations and scholars with better tools for diversity management. These entities need to develop a better understanding of how development policies and processes of economic, social and environmental change affect different social groups within their respective jurisdictions. I do not agree with scholars who argue that ethnic diversity is an important impediment to economic and political development. Ethnic diversity becomes an impediment to socio-economic development only if it is mishandled. Ethnic diversity cannot be harnessed if it is not viewed positively as a useful element of a country’s social capital (see Kamonye, this volume). We must begin to trace the cultural origins of social capital within ethnic cultural permutations of beliefs, values and social practices and begin to evaluate the political consequences of various forms of social capital emanating from these sources. Social capital is, at its core, a set of institutionalized expectations, purviews, tendencies and practices whose origins are largely religious, ideological and [3.143.17.127] Project...