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However, rather than being external representatives, the Forum members see themselves as a part of the marginalized, and this highlights Spivak’s sensitivity to the layers and variations within the oppressed, which underlies her understanding of the Subaltern as not just any oppressed or minority groups but as those without access or voice. Other scholars have also explored similar dynamics of representation but paying attention to self-alienation. Rey Chow (2014), for example, argues that Othering is not only external, certain aspects of cultures may other and alienate their own members. Factors such as class, gender, disability and sexuality, when considered as aspects of identity, reveal that there is more to alterity than a simple analysis of colonialism may suggest. (Chow, 2014). In her analysis of postcolonial literature such as Ba Jin’s Jia, Chow argues that the narrator is a translator since in telling a story, one is presenting it anew; and when modernization informs the translator’s motive, certain cultural practices such as mourning in Jia, could be represented as “premodern, clannish barbarity” instead of what it really is (2014:63). Thus, in othering their own culture, the translator becomes a traitor.
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distinction between intergroup behaviour and intergroup attitudes in ethnic conflicts (2012). For attitudes, emotions, such as fear, are important as they activate psychological processes that lead to intergroup polarization. For behaviour however, it is material and structural opportunities which either limit or enable the expression of such emotions that are important as they lead to intergroup violence (McDoom, 2012). McDoom (2012) concludes that four types of in-group attitudes indicate group polarization: boundary activation, whereby ethnic conflicts are rationalized and background differences exhumed, threat level becomes directly proportional to the salience of group identity. Out-group negativity involves the aligning and framing of threat to reflect previously held negative beliefs about the out-group. This rises with threat levels. Out- group homogenization, whereby in-group members blur the individuality of out-group members and represent them all as the same, all as threat. In-group solidarity, feelings of solidarity within the in-group naturally occurs during threats, but there is a demand and pressure for solidarity, and members’ loyalty is measured by the way they respond to the threat, the need to separate
“friends from foe” rises (McDoom, 2012: 28-30). Thus, as Rearta Bilali (2014) argues, each conflicting group blames the out-group, presents itself as victim and cast out-group narratives as illegitimate. McDoom’s (2012) and Bilali’s (2014) works help interrogate the processes and dynamics at work as the Online Forum investigated represent themselves as victims and produce the Hausa-Fulani as oppressor, aggressor and threat.
While McDoom (2012) focuses on ethnic identity, Robert Kunovich and Randy Hodson (1996) investigated whether ethnic intolerance had any causal relationship to religiosity using cases from Croatia. They found that both ethnic intolerance and religiosity are products of polarization between groups which result in competition for scarce resource and conflict (Kunovich and Hodson, 1996). In their view, therefore, religion only serves as a carrier of group identity and does not necessarily cause conflicts (Kunovich and Hodson, 1999:643). This is similar to Matthew Kukah’s (1993) conclusion against the popular politicization of religious identity thesis in Nigeria’s conflicts. Kukah (1993) argues that religion is a platform or site for political pursuits rather than merely a tool that is manipulated. Jonathan Fox and Yasemin Akbaba (2015) disagree with this position, as their study suggests that Kukah’s (1993) position softens a causal relationship between religion and discrimination or conflicts. Fox and Akbaba’s (2015) focus was on discrimination of minorities by religious majorities. They found that while forms of discrimination are relative and unique to specific religions, religious identity, nonetheless,
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significantly causes religious discrimination (Fox and Akbaba, 2015). They cite the complex theology of Islam as an example, which has a hierarchy of religions, in which different religious groups are likely to receive different treatments in Muslim majority societies depending on the level to which such societies are influenced by the relevant Islamic doctrine (Fox and Akbaba, 2015). Other authors, especially in the context of Nigeria argue that religious and ethnic identities are utilized for mobilization, uniting people and organizing them in conflicts that are caused by other social, economic and political factors (Usman, 2013; Ukiwo, 2003; Peel, 1996).
Frances Stewart (2009) holds that conflicts in which such mobilization occur are usually caused by horizontal inequalities. However, she argues that religion should not be treated as only a subset to ethnicity (Stewart, 2009). In contexts where both identities overlap, demographics and the identity that persons in power are seen to use for such things as job allocations, determine which identity is used for mobilization (Stewart, 2009). Amartya Sen, in Identity and Violence:
The Illusion of Destiny (2006), holds that many (violent) conflicts are caused by the illusion of having an inevitable unique identity. The world is often conceptualized as a “federation of religions or civilizations” (Sen, 2006: xii) based on the assumption that people can be placed under an exact, “singular or overarching” category or “system of partitioning”, thereby ignoring and undermining the several other ways people view themselves (Sen, 2006: xii). Sen (2006) cites the use of religion, such as Islam, as an all-encompassing category for all Muslim life and values, for instance, prevents some analysts from understanding Muslims in any other way. This undermines diversity and the extent of difference in societies, which opposes any categorizations along impenetrable identity boundaries. While Sen’s critique is insightful and exposes a significant flaw in the conceptualization of identities in contemporary global context, the author takes for granted an understanding of human beings as essentially rational, and all actions as being the result of rational choices.
Studies such as Hancock’s (2014) have shown the importance of myths and (historical) narratives in identity construction and representation in conflict situations. Landon E. Hancock (2014), for instance, demonstrates that historical narratives and the lens of old conflicts persist and are consistently used to interpret new conflicts in Northern Ireland. These narratives about the Self and Other are used to produce identities that are informed by fears of extinction – a fear of domination, or perception and anxiety that the survival of one’s group is under physical, cultural, or symbolic threat (Hancock, 2014). Such fears operate like “self-fulfilling prophesy”
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strengthened and spread through the negative interpretations of events and provocations, leading to further escalations and full-blown conflicts (Hancock, 2014: 433). Such fears, even if they abate after the resolution of conflicts, manifest in other ways. Yechiel Klar and Hadas Baram (2016) agree with Hancock, and add that in-groups often use such narratives to represent the Self as the wronged/victim. While they protect such in-group narratives, they find ways to block and not engage counternarratives. Nida Bikmen (2013) takes Hancock and Klar and Baram a step further. He notes that generally, the attitudes and behaviours of groups towards each other are also dependent on socialization of group members into internal beliefs about out-groups (Bikmen, 2013). Bikmen (2013) observed, for instance, that when Dutch participants were presented with a narrative of national history which emphasized that the Dutch are traditionally open to religions other than their own, participants were more supportive and open to immigration of Muslims to the Netherlands. But when the narrative emphasized the nation’s Christian history, participants were more opposed to Muslim immigration (Bikmen, 2013:24).
These studies, though European, illustrate what is observed also in intergroup conflicts in Africa and in my study of Online Forum – the fears of extinction, the use of historical narratives to interpret contemporary conflicts and provocations, and ideas about the Self and Other that such narratives reinforce.