Understanding Cultural and Inter-Cultural Conflicts Is Key to Resolving Them
31st January 2022
Cultural and Inter-Cultural Conflicts are two different kinds of conflicts at different levels. A cultural conflict is a conflict within a people group that shares the same culture. It is also known as an intra-cultural conflict. On the other hand, the conflict between two or many people groups with different cultures is called an inter-cultural conflict. In this article, we look at both conflicts to learn more about them.
What Is a Cultural Conflict?
This is the conflict that occurs within a group of people with the same cultural heritage and who share the same ancestry line. This is also known as an intra-cultural conflict because the conflict is always from within a tribe or people group who speak in the same language and live in the same ancestry land. It is another name for the tribal conflict.
Cultural conflict may have many different causes from time to time and from place to place, but the most common cause of any human conflict at any level is human nature. Our human nature leads us to conflict and unrest. The more we have many aggressive people and trouble makers, the more we have conflicts.
Conflicts may start from within a person before they become inter-personal. Personal conflict can then spread to any societal levels such as family, clan, tribe, and even national or international conflicts. But at this level, the conflict is within a tribe that has the same culture.
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Cultures can be religious or secular. Cultures can be indigenous or imported. With today’s world of technology, the West is no longer bound to a geographical area, but part of the global village. This means western ideologies and cultures can spread as far as the east, and eastern philosophies and cultures can spread to the west.
Even though Africa is now a mixture of everything, there are still African ideologies and worldviews, but they are mixed with western and eastern ideologies and worldviews as well. In the same way, in the West, African and eastern ideologies are part of everyday life. This makes the world a global village.
What Is an Inter-Cultural Conflict?
An inter-cultural conflict is that kind of conflict that occurs between two people groups of different cultures and beliefs. This is another name for inter-communal violence or inter-tribal conflicts. These tribes in conflict may live in the same region or country, or they may live in two different but neighboring countries.
If the tribes in conflict live in two neighboring countries, their conflict may create an international conflict or unrest between the two neighboring countries or nations. Because humans are wicked and sinful in nature, which is why we need a savior, they always want to live in disharmony and conflict at every societal level. History continues to repeat itself time and time again.
What Causes a Cultural Conflict?
Now, the cause of this kind of human conflict is basically our human nature. But we sugar-coat this fault with things like religion, natural resources, and political powers. All the greed, ambitions, and desires are from our human nature. This means our human problems are rooted deep inside each one of us.
Some religions recognized the need of human beings, and this is their weakness to do that which they deemed right. Instead of doing what is right, we humans err and do that which is wrong, sinful, and evil in nature. I do know that we make mistakes simply because we are human in nature.
God knows our natures, and He seems to be kind and forgiving up to a certain level or grace period. When we continue to sin, He strikes with some kind of plague or disaster, such as a natural one or something human-made. But are cultural conflicts a part of God’s judgment on the sinners? I just don’t know the answer, but it seems God.
What Causes an Inter-Cultural Conflict?
There are many different causes of any kind or level of human conflict in any given society. For example, a personal conflict is likely to spread to any level of conflict. It can spread to family, clan, tribe, and nation. It can even be an international issue. This means one person can initiate an inter-cultural or an inter-tribal conflict.
I still believe strongly that our human ego and sinfulness are always the root cause of any human conflict at any level, including but not limited to the inter-cultural conflict. This is mainly because our view of other tribes and their cultures is not correct. This is why I suggest we look at people as God looks at them, whether they are an individual or a group of people.
Our view of ourselves is not always correct, and so does our view of other humans. But when we see ourselves and others in God’s way, we have a bigger picture of who they are and how important it is for them to live in peace and harmony with each human being. This view of God is free of religious distortions of who God really is. God is beyond religion.
We may think that the causes of intercultural conflicts are natural resources, political positions, evil ambitions, and desires. But the fact is that we have all these evil features because we are but human in nature. As humans, we are not created the same, and we shouldn’t, should we? A majority of us humans love violence and killing, while a handful of us love peace and harmony.
How Do People Handle Both Cultural and Inter-Cultural Conflicts?
Now, there are several ways to handle or resolve disharmony and conflict between people groups of different cultures, traditions, and worldviews. Just as conflict is always a result of an individual’s mistakes and lifestyle, peaceful co-existence can also be a result of an individual’s peaceful acts and words.
This means an individual is very important when it comes to peacemaking and conflict resolution. It is my individual contribution to write about what conflicts are, what causes them, and how to resolve them in different ways. My roles may not yet be visible at this time, but I am very certain that time will come for other people to enjoy them.
As you might have read in other articles about peace and harmony, it is true that one way to make peace is through some peaceful individuals. Also, there are laws to enforce peaceful co-existence between tribes and people groups in a country. These are some of the common ways to bring peace back to a nation through conflict resolution between different peoples with different cultures.
If an individual person has a role to play either in bringing peace or conflict, this means you and I have roles to play. We can either contribute to the creation of the conflict, or we can contribute to making peace and unity among our people. We can do this individually in small ways.
Someone said that a journey of one thousand miles begins with one step, and this is absolutely true when it comes to peacebuilding and reconciliation. You have a role to play in peacebuilding. As I said, I am here to make you aware of the dangers of conflicts, and also the goodness of peace and reconciliation. This is to make you use your mind and make well-informed decisions.
What Is the Importance of Handling Both Cultural and Inter-Cultural Conflicts?
The importance of handling conflicts at any level of any society is to maintain peace and harmony in that part of the world. As you might have read in my book, The Principles of Conflict Management, conflict is always costly. This is why someone said that if you think education is expensive try ignorance.
Most conflicts exist, people, most people are ignorant. Ignorance here has two sides like a coin. The first is being aware and innocent. The second side is doing things wrong when you know you are doing the wrong but you still do it deliberately and ignorantly. The first side of ignorance is better than the second and final side.
Peace is better than conflict, but ignorant people love conflict more than they love peace. This is mere because ignorant people get annoyed and burst into flames because of petty and unimportant issues. I can give you some of these issues that still kill ignorant people.
For example, where people are ignorant, if a man is found to have an affair with a woman who is not his wife, this is a death sentence. But in societies where people know about the law, people don’t take matters into their own hands. I am not talking about rape here. Rather, I am talking about an agreement between and man and a woman.
People still die in our country because of boy-girl relationships. The same boy that beats the other boy to death might have been in love with his sister the other day or year. These are some of the petty issues that kill ignorant humans. I am not saying it is a good thing for a man to sleep with another man’s wife secretly, but it still happens anyway. And because we don’t know how to execute laws, we tend to take matters into our own hands, and this is pure ignorance.
In other parts of the world, including our neighboring countries, people don’t kill themselves over women and girls anymore. This is because there are laws in place governing what people do. If one man is found committing adultery with someone’s wife, the man, and the woman must be responsible for the laws of the land. If the woman decides to go with the new man, the law will determine what should be done.
Killing a man because he forced a woman into a relationship must also be according to the laws of the land. But if both of them mutually agreed, the laws of the land shall determine what should be done to them.
In South Sudan in those days, a man must pay a fine, and the woman must be returned to the real husband. This is why we marry with dowries to seal the deal. A wife belongs to her husband if he paid the dowry according to our customs, and no one else will take her from him.
Yes, it is very important to resolve conflicts within a tribal group with the same beliefs, doctrines, teachings, norms, laws, and traditions. It is also important to find ways to resolve the conflict between two or many tribes who don’t share the same cultures, worldviews, and traditions. This means that there must be peace and harmony between these tribes if there is no conflict.
My Final Words
In conclusion to this article, I have to say that people are not created the same. This means that many humans are cruel and hard to live with. They are troublesome and aggressive in nature. They are conflict lovers instead of being peace lovers. They love quarrels and disputes instead of peace and harmony.
But some of us (you and me) love peace and harmony. We are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth. We are here to neutralize those who love violence and war. We are here to calm them down in our own unique ways. We have peace with God, ourselves, and with others. We have peace with the rest of God’s creation around us, and this is something natural to us.
I didn’t become peaceful after the new birth. I was born peacefully from my mother’s womb. You were born peacefully from your mother’s womb. It is our nature that makes us hate conflict and violence. We didn’t learn from any religious school or secular school. We learn it from the Creator, and this is the true knowledge and wisdom from within.
I hope this article has been helpful to you, personally. Would you like to share your views about this article in the comments section below? I and other readers will love to see your thoughts about this article. I pray that God will richly bless you and your loved ones during and after the global pandemic.
Shalom!
Further Readings
- How To Manage Intercultural Conflicts—Universal Class.
- How to Resolve Cultural Conflict—Pon Harvard.
- What Are the Biggest Causes of Intercultural Conflict? —CG.
