Of Gods and Men - The Scope of Culture Clash

Should I stay or should I go? Trappist monks in Algeria make a stand against encroaching fundamentalists in this 2010 Grand Prize Winner at Cannes. Of Gods and Men is a take on the polarizing effect of extreme fundamentalism at both ends of the spectrum.

Libya: Negotiating Fault Lines by Creating a Culture of Change

The culture clash between extreme groups like those using the terms "jihad" and "crusade" to define an agenda of violence picked up steam this month as uprisings across the Middle East and Africa continued to dominate media coverage. It appears that when any one cultural group underestimates its influence on a populace - it resorts to violence to further an extremist agenda. Libya is the latest example of this: a push by a floundering antagonist to resist the groundswell of change rising from the least represented members of a society.

Clearly, when a wave for change is fueled by the underclass, the differences between cultures and classes gets lost in the undertow, as middle class workers and empathetic members of the elite follow the tidal surge, shoving the political extremists to the outer banks where they flounder in a lack of credibility. The violence subsides as the populace becomes united in one culture - that of change.

Once the tyrannical regime is flushed out, the task for the authors of change in Libya is to form the tactical and strategic initiatives to encourage Libyans to be agents of their own destiny and not rely on foreign political interests to shape the foundations of a new government. It is vital that Libyans achieve an inalienable right to a direct relation with their country's own resources - mainly oil. Otherwise the people of Libya will once again face the risk of falling prey to the old tactics of intervening actors from the exterior, bent on exploiting a country's resources by polarizing a populace against itself. These tactics have worked quite well throughout history, especially when a country finds itself in economic duress as Libya does now.

The biggest challenge to a new Libya, then, may be negotiating the "fault lines" between the extremists that continue to use antagonistic terms as a blanket formula to resist mediation and compromise. It is only through mediation and compromise, keeping the turf between antagonists free of landmines and barbed wire, that a democracy can exist. If that is what the Libyan populace truly seeks, it will need to build a strong framework for a constitution of laws that allow rule by tyranny to be transformed to rule by democracy.

Keeping Cultural Conflict to Scale: How to Use Racial, Ethnic and Tribal Terms

The biggest setback to political, social and economic gains in ongoing tribal conflicts like that of the Northern Sudan is the lack of common goals for opposing sides to share, according to a recent article in the Sudan Tribune. Illiteracy and lack of common language increases the failure of laying any groundwork on which to build a durable conflict resolution that resists eruptions of violence. But in order to reach a resolution, it is important to be able to accurately articulate the structure of the conflict's origins.

Keeping Conflict to Scale
Conflict is inevitable and is almost impossible to prevent, but it can be managed. In order to pick apart the cause of conflict, it is first important to describe the framework within which tensions arise. The terms used in describing this framework can be misleading and tend to change the scale of the conflict. To define a conflict to scale, it is important to understand the difference between three terms which commonly appear as interchangeable adjectives:

1. racial
2. tribal
3. ethnic

Racial Tensions Carry a Specific Weight
Using any of these terms when describing conflicts tends to detour around the actual political or economic forces at play. And swapping one term indiscriminately for the other is equally dangerous, as each term carries a different specific weight within the framework of a crisis or conflict. For instance, the word "racial" has a genetic or biological weight, and is the most specific of the three terms. A racial conflict is limited to one issue: the discriminating factor of race.

Tribal Interests Add More Weight to the Issue
The word "tribal" is less specific, and carries more geographic and territorial weight than the word racial. Tribal refers to a social division within a larger group that includes families of common geographic origin or lineage but does not exclude individuals that have been adopted or enslaved into the group. The group shares common characteristics amongst its members that distinguish it from a larger social group within the society at whole. Tribal interests are not limited to one specific geographic area, especially in the case of nomadic tribes, but tribal culture remains constant.

Ethnic Conflicts Involve a Broader Scale
Using "ethnic" to describe a conflict employs the broadest term of the three and views the conflict on a larger scale. Ethnic conflicts involve classifying large groups of people by a common background, including common origins of language and culture, religious, tribal or national interests. Ethnic conflicts appear to be more severe than those involving racial or tribal tensions. Former colonies, like those of the African and American continents in the 18th and 19th centuries, have long histories of conflict incited by colonial powers that chose to pit ethnic groups against each other in order to diffuse a united effort to overthrow the imperial power. The footprints of those old conflicts remain today.

Conflict Resolution Depends on Clarity of Terms
Conflict resolution methods have been successful in resolving issues that involve racial, tribal, or ethnic tensions, but only when the terms are clearly defined and one term is not "swapped" for another indiscriminately. The use of each term changes the dimension in which the conflict is viewed and helps to clarify the role of outside political and economic forces involved. Once the terms are clear, it is easier to shape shared goals and manage the conflict in ways that avoid the outbreak of violence.

US Military Continues to View Cultural Training As Effective Tool

Modern soldiers are equipped with many options for resolving conflict on and off the battlefield. The role of one of those options, cultural training, is being discussed this week by representatives from the academic arena, defense contractors, government agencies, and representatives from all branches of the US military in Sierra Vista, Arizona, at the Training and Doctrine Command Culture Center (TRADOC TCC)'s fifth annual Culture Summit.

A soldier's duty includes the responsibility of understanding the culture and language of an area of operations, no matter how basic that level of understanding may be. The TCC provides resources for making sure a soldiers initial entry into foreign lands is augmented by language skills and cultural awareness.

Lt. Gen P.K.(Ken) Keen, military deputy commander of the Southern Command, outlined the value of cultural training, cultural competency and culture tactics as important components of success in military operations in foreign countries.Keen is charged with operations and security for the Latin American and Caribbean region and has experience serving in Panama, Honduras, Brazil, Columbia, and was recently assigned to the Joint Task Force dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti last year.