How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/
ABSTRACT *
This article examines the role of language and communication in the emergence, management and resolution of conflict, with particular attention to indigenous languages. The author argues that miscommunication and non communication contribute directly to conflict, that conflicts must be understood within their social context of values, fears, interests, attitudes and relationships, and that language carries both positive and negative powers, since proverbs, songs, stories and myths in one community’s language may portray another community negatively. Because culture and language are inseparable, the paper contends that any effective conflict resolution instrument must take cultural and linguistic factors into account, and that century old indigenous mechanisms grounded in empathy, sharing and cooperation retain their value for promoting peace and social order. The article then situates communication within peacebuilding, tracing its roots in Communication for Development, distinguishing four channels of communication flow in conflict settings, and setting out the concept of positive peace as social justice, political equality and non violent means of managing grievance. The author reviews United Nations definitions of peacebuilding from the 1992 Agenda for Peace onward, notes the difficulties of evaluating long term and intangible peacebuilding outcomes, emphasises that reconciliation must be rooted in local social and cultural contexts, and closes with the International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019 and the theme of International Mother Language Day, a day established at the request of Bangladesh in memory of the language movement.
KEYWORDS *
Language and conflict, indigenous languages, communication, peacebuilding, reconciliation, positive peace, culture, Communication for Development, International Mother Language Day, conflict resolution, intercultural dialogue
INTRODUCTION
Human communication is inseparable from human language. People communicate with each other with language. Miscommunication and non-communication can contribute to conflict. It happens when communication is not enough with information or a misinterpretation of the words intended but a different meaning by which it is the beginning of miscommunication.
Conflict is a situation whereby individuals, groups, or countries are involved in a disagreement over an issue. Usually, the conflict between different ethnic groups often results from different language contact. There are instances when an indigenous language has a proverb, a song, a story, or a myth that paints another community or other communities in a negative light. An indigenous language or autochthonous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous people. An effective conflict resolution tool should take cultural and linguistic factors into consideration. Conflicts may be categorized with respect to whether they occur at the micro-micro, micro-mezzo, mezzo-macro, or micro-macro levels i. e. among individuals, individuals and groups, groups, and communities, and between community groups and government or within private or civil society organizations. Usually, conflicts are the result of problems created by people.
MAIN CORPUS
‘Conflicts must be understood in their social context, involving values and beliefs, fears and suspicions, interests and needs, attitudes and actions, relationships and networks’. The conflict created from misunderstanding. Misunderstanding is usually aggravated by the fact that one person/party underestimates or is ignorant of the range of value systems or misinterpret the norms that exist in different languages, cultures, and social environments.
Again, language also plays a crucial role in causing and resolving conflict. Language is one of the communication means. The best language is the indigenous language. Conflicts are inevitably present in many interpersonal relationships, and their destructive/constructive character depends on the way they are handled.
Language can cause or mitigate conflict because of its ‘positive and negative powers’. When people are sensitive about their language, language tends to be a positive tool in life. People tend to tolerate, listen, understand, and co-operative with those who have similar values and belief systems. Since no society functions without culture, and culture is symbiotic with language. This is the inherent power of language plays a significant role in conflict management and peacebuilding. Because language is part and parcel of culture, and culture in itself is a means by which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge and attitudes towards life. Language must have a place in the management of conflicts and peace-building elsewhere.
The century-old indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms focus on the principles of empathy, sharing, and cooperation in dealing with common problems which underline the essence of humanity. Cultural approaches to resolving and managing disputes play a vital role in promoting peace and social order in communities. Language, cultural values, and attitudes provide the basis for interaction and the norms by which individuals and communities on the planet.
Communication is instrumental in peace-building. Peacebuilding is defined as the process intended to address the root causes of conflict, reconcile differences, normalize relations, and build institutions that can manage conflicts without resorting to violence. Peacebuilding involves putting structures in place for removing the roots of conflict.
The Communication for Peacebuilding work has its roots in the philosophy and practice of Communication for Development. In the arena of conflict transformation and peacebuilding, communications have historically played a role in shaping the views of policy-makers and influencing popular opinion on conflicts. Communication is an irreducible element of peacebuilding. Communication is central to many aspects of work in conflict and post-conflict settings.
There are four ways to conceptualize how communication has been applied to peace-building in case of conflict in a society, group, or community. First, one might look at the channels of communication flows between the following entities- (a) between individuals in conflict; (b) within a group where conflict exists; (c) within groups or communities in conflict; (d) between communities and organizations such as multilateral, government, and NGO’s where cooperation and coordination are issues.
Peace has a certain quality. It has to go beyond the absence of violence and include also the development of social justice and political equality. This includes harmonious relationships between the different individuals and groups in society and the availability of mechanisms through which grievances and discord can be managed in non-violent ways. This kind of peace is often called ‘positive’ peace having certain conditions of complete peace linked with the notion of justice assessed by the moral quality of the outcome of justice. Peacebuilding can be pre-conflict or post-conflict. The former tries to prevent a conflict from breaking out and the latter one is the resolution of conflict.
In the era of globalization, a new concept of development emerged emphasizing cultural identity and multidimensionality. Generally, conflict resolution is a community process involving the identification of the root cause of the problem and bringing all parties involved to address the underlying issues. The growing interdependency of nations and global issues such as economic and financial crises, ecological and security crises gave rise to a new perspective on development and social change. The theory and practice of communication for development is an evolving field, with different approaches and perspectives unique to the varied development contexts. This participatory model also stressed the importance of the cultural identity of local communities and of democratization and participation at all levels.
Development, peace-building, reconciliation, and conflict resolution are complex terms that have no common definition and are often centered on developing more intangible outcomes such as changes in relationships and attitudes that do not lend themselves readily to quantification. In addition, evaluation is further complicated by the following factors that the outcomes from Peace-Building are essentially long-term, which makes short-term monitoring and evaluation difficult. It is difficult to isolate the impact of specific Peace-Building interventions from the complex political, economic, and social contexts in which they are located.
The UN 1992 report ‘An Agenda for Peace, defined peacebuilding as action to solidify peace and avoid a relapse into conflict. The UN Secretary-General’s Policy Committee has described peacebuilding as follows: “Peacebuilding involves a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace and development. Peacebuilding strategies must be coherent and tailored to the specific needs of the country concerned, based on national ownership, and should comprise a carefully prioritized, sequenced, and therefore a relatively narrow set of activities aimed at achieving the above objectives.” In 2000, another report defined it as “activities undertaken on the far side of the conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war”.
SUMMARY
Conflict use to leave a deep-rooted sense of distrust and fear that must be addressed if there is to be a just and lasting peace. Reconciliation is broadly considered as a process centrally needed in societies emerging from violent conflicts. Reconciliation processes in post-conflict societies are often highly complex. It is believed that no intractable conflict can really end without some kind of reconciliation process if the parties to the conflict are going to interact again in the future. Therefore, a meaningful process of reconciliation must therefore be rooted in local social and cultural contexts.
CONCLUSION
UN is observing ‘The International Year of Indigenous Languages’ in 2019 that aims to raise awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of Indigenous languages across the world. UN has declared 21st February as International Mother Language Day as per the request of Bangladesh to show respect to the historic language movement of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The theme of International Mother Language Day 2019 is “Indigenous languages matter for development, peacebuilding, and reconciliation”. It has been taken with an aim to establish a link between language, development, peace, and reconciliation. It aims to improve quality of life, wider international cooperation, and visibility and strengthened intercultural dialogue to reaffirm the continuity of indigenous languages and cultures.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION *
The article’s central insight has a practical edge that is easily missed: if language carries culture, then a peace process conducted in a language that is not the parties’ own is already conducting itself on unequal terms. The party that must argue in a second language argues at a disadvantage, expresses grief and grievance imprecisely, and may experience the process itself as a continuation of the marginalisation that caused the conflict. Making language a design question rather than a logistical afterthought is therefore a concrete contribution to fairness.
First, treat language choice as part of process design. At the outset, parties should be asked in which language they wish to speak, and that choice should be honoured even where it complicates the arrangements. Where interpretation is needed, interpreters should be trained in mediation confidentiality and in the difference between literal and meaning based rendering, since a mediator who does not understand what is being translated is dependent on the interpreter’s judgment at precisely the most delicate moments. Wherever possible, mediators fluent in the community’s own language should be trained and deployed, which is more sustainable than importing outsiders.
Second, build on existing local mechanisms rather than replacing them. The empathy, sharing and cooperation that the author locates in century old indigenous practices are not folklore but functioning technology. Documenting these mechanisms with the communities that hold them, and connecting them to formal justice systems through recognition and referral arrangements, preserves what works while providing a route to state protection where rights are at stake.
Third, work directly on the negative side of language. Where proverbs, songs and stories carry hostile images of a neighbouring community, joint cultural projects can address them without censorship: shared story collections, bilingual school materials, mixed community festivals and cooperative media production. Naming an inherited insult openly, together, drains far more of its power than prohibiting it.
Fourth, protect endangered languages as a peacebuilding measure. Language loss is experienced as a loss of identity, and identity threats fuel conflict. Mother tongue education in the early school years, official recognition of minority languages in local administration and courts, and support for community media in those languages address a grievance before it becomes a dispute.
Fifth, evaluate with the parties. Since peacebuilding outcomes resist quantification, communities themselves should define what improvement means, in their own words, at the start, and assess it periodically. This is both better measurement and, in itself, an exercise of the participation the article commends.
* Added by the WMO Editorial Team
REFERENCES *
- United Nations (1992). An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace keeping. Report of the Secretary General, A/47/277, New York.
- United Nations (2000). Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (Brahimi Report), A/55/305, New York.
- United Nations Secretary General’s Policy Committee (2007). Conceptual basis for peacebuilding for the UN system, New York.
- UNESCO (2019). International Year of Indigenous Languages, Paris, and International Mother Language Day 2019, theme: Indigenous languages matter for development, peacebuilding and reconciliation.
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