Challenges Of Nation Building Research Articles

Nigeria and the Challenges of Nation Building

Nigeria and the Challenges of Nation Building

Bonhoeffer and costly reconciliation in South Africa – through the lens of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Dietrich Bonhoeffer never visited South Africa, and he probably did not know a great deal about the country. But the relevance of the German theologian for South Africa was never in doubt. In the struggle against apartheid his message and his theology served to guide theologians, church leaders as well as lay Christians alike. His life and his death served to inspire many during their darkest hours. Theologians, with John de Gruchy in the lead, studied his works extensively. Heroes from the struggle against apartheid, Beyers Naudé, Desmond Tutu and Steve Biko, among others, were hailed as latter-day Bonhoeffers. Nelson Mandela’s famous ‘Speech from the dock’ before his conviction and imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial was compared to Bonhoeffer’s essay on The structure of responsible life (1995). At ecumenical gatherings, his name and his teachings were often invoked, whenever protest was lodged against the injustices of apartheid. But it was especially in the aftermath of apartheid, when the very serious challenges of reconciliation and nation building, of healing and forgiveness, as well as of amnesty for perpetrators weighed against the demands of justice to the victims were at stake, that many turned to Bonhoeffer for guidance. The author who served with Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the TRC, discusses the prerequisites for reconciliation in South Africa against the backdrop of the TRC experience, emphasising the real need for South Africans, following in the footsteps of Bonhoeffer, to look for ‘costly reconciliation’.

The Origins of American Religious Nationalism by Sam Haselby

Reviewed by: The Origins of American Religious Nationalism by Sam Haselby Ava Chamberlain (bio) The Origins of American Religious Nationalism Sam Haselby New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 336 pp. The Origins of American Religious Nationalism is a frustrating book. Its central argument is important and provocative, but its development is disorganized, obscured by frequent digressions, and compromised by methodological problems. Haselby maintains that in the decades following the Revolution a distinctively American mode of nationalism developed. The defining features of this new American nationalism were populism, antielitism, racism, and religion, represented in their fullness by the presidency of Andrew Jackson. He argues persuasively that Protestant activism played a central role in creating this national identity. In his analysis, religion in the early Republic was not only shaped by political forces, it actively contributed to the formation of the nation. Given that this argument complicates a common paradigm, which views religion more as an effect than a cause, the book makes an important contribution. It is unfortunate, therefore, that its execution is flawed. Haselby begins by considering a commonly identified source of American nationalism, the foundational documents that informed the Revolution and determined the structure of the federal government. One of the book’s “revisionist claims” is that neither the Revolution nor the Constitution determined America’s national identity. “[T]he War of Independence,” Haselby writes, “posed rather than answered the question of American nationality” (1). Thomas Jefferson and James Madison offered one answer to this question in the framework of the federal government, which was weak [End Page 206] by design and secular by definition. They envisioned the gradual emergence of a secular American nation, in which religious belief is “private” and “remote from political power” (30). Although disestablishment succeeded, secular nationalism failed. Religion did not decline; it flourished as never before. Haselby locates the solution to the problem of American identity in the spiritual hothouse of the early Republic. Out of it emerged a distinctive religious nationalism that continues to influence party politics and outcomes of elections today. Haselby’s argument centers on the competition between two rival conceptions of evangelical Protestantism that developed in this period, which he labels “frontier revivalism and national evangelism” (2). The book’s central contribution lies in delineating the competing social and national visions of these two movements. The locus of their conflict was the American frontier, rapidly expanding with a diverse population of settlers and immigrants. This territory, Haselby argues, presented to the new Republic “two formidable nation-building challenges,” establishing sovereignty over the frontier and addressing Native Americans’ land claims (4). Both required a unifying idea of the nation, which the weak and secular federal government was ill equipped to provide. In the absence of a strong federal state, national evangelism and frontier revivalism developed as two competing approaches to the challenge of westward expansion. Haselby locates the seeds of national evangelism in the Connecticut Wits, the eighteenth-century literary movement founded by a group of Yale-educated writers having deep and aristocratic Puritan pedigrees. Admitting the Wits “were not great writers,” he concentrates on the nationalist message of their verse (64). His analysis focuses primarily on John Trumbull’s M’Fingal (1782) and Timothy Dwight’s Greenfield Hill (1794). Aiming to nationalize the regional culture of New England, these epic poems envisioned a Protestant America populated by hard-working, small property owners, who were educated and engaged in civic affairs (103). This image of America was undermined by Thomas Jefferson’s election, which promoted secularism and a rival national model based on Virginia planter society, and was discredited by the Hartford Convention. Despite these setbacks, its core nationalist vision reemerged in the missions movement organized and led by northern Protestants. Northern Protestants imagined America as a “sacred political community” unified by shared religious beliefs, social structures, and cultural [End Page 207] values (14). The principal challenge to the formation of this union was the western frontier, which from the perspective of these sober, middle-class Yankees was rapidly filling with people of questionable character, low morality, and heretical faith. To address this challenge northern Protestants became nation builders. Haselby labels this movement “national evangelism” because it viewed “missionary work...

Albania between Western Balkans Regionalization and European Integration

Different local observers like Koneska (2007), Bechev (2011) and others have argued that there is a missing regional identity in the Southeastern Europe region, where both leaders and masses are reluctant to identify with the (Western) Balkan label, which is often connected to corruption, state capture, organized crime and other remedies that are deemed simultaneous obstacles to the path of democratization, rule of law and the EU integration. Albania, because of its idiosyncratic characteristics, it escaped unscathed the (former) Yugoslav wars and has not faced identity and nation-building challenges like its Western Balkan neighbors. These characteristics include inter alia the ethnic homogeneity and mass migration after the isolation of Communism. However, Albania has been part of the same web, with the same transition difficulties as its immediate Balkan neighbors. Because of these reasons, as well as geographical, historical and cultural, the regional identity that would have fostered a more sustainable regional cooperation between Albania and some of its neighbors has ranged from problematic to non-existent, with only recent glimpses of hope for future relations that would seek to create a notion of regional community. These include both top-dawn efforts, ranging from the series of meetings between Albania`s premier Rama and his Serbian counterpart Vucic, trying to normalize the relations between the two countries, to projects such as the Balkan Union or “Balkan Schengen”, although they still are at the level of initiative and remain to be materialized. Other projects include bottom-up drives, such as the “Balkan Benelux” or trade networks such as CEFTA, with limited results. The EU’s conditionality approach has been instrumental in the process, complimenting the U.S., NATO and other international actors` role in the process of ameliorating the neighbor relations in the region and moving fast ahead with regional cooperation, hopping that it would foster a regional identity in the near future. The present paper concentrates on how regional cooperation has affected Albania and its relations with the Western Balkan neighbors and what is to be expected in the near future. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n6p281

The legacy of French colonial policy on the nation building process in Chad, 1900 – 1975

Since independence, many African states have experienced large-scale instability as a result of numerous African leaders’ inability to forge national cohesion out of a multiplicity of ethnic groups within individual states. A fundamental issue has been the way and manner in which many of the states were administered during the colonial era. It is against this background that this article examines France’s colonial policy in Chad and its impact on nation building process before the outbreak of the country’s civil war in the period shortly after independence. The essay argues that France’s policies of “useful” and “useless Chad” was greatly responsible for the challenges of nation building in post-colonial Chad. The policies classified Chad into two neat compartments for the administrative convenience of the French. The south, which was called “useful Chad”, was suitable for agriculture. The colonisers therefore concentrated all forms of French civilization, development and education in the south, while the parched north branded “useless Chad”, hardly witnessed any form of development. In addition, the policy of ethnic chauvinism orchestrated by those who came to power after independence was substantially responsible for why division along ethnic lines has persisted. It maintains that political elites in Chad must rule in the interest of all and promote good governance as the best way to overcome the problem of nation building in the country.

Relative Deprivation, Identity Politics and the Neo-Biafran Movement in Nigeria: Critical Issues of Nation-Building in a Postcolonial African State

This study examines the linkages between relative deprivation and identity politics in a postcolonial state. It further investigates the relationship among these variables and nation-building challenges in the postcolony. It is a case study of the Nigerian state in West Africa, which typically harbours the attributes of postcoloniality and indeed, large measures of relative deprivation in her sociopolitical and economic affairs. The study is also an interrogation of the neo-Biafran agitations in Nigeria. It has been attempted in the study to offer distinctive explanations over the problematique of nation-building in the postcolonial African state of Nigeria, using relative deprivation, identity politics and the neo-Biafran movement as variables. In framing the study’s theoretical trajectories and in historicizing the background of the research, ample resort has been made to a significant range of qualitative secondary sources. A particularly salient position of the study is that it will actually be difficult to locate on the planet, any group of people whose subsequent generations (in perpetuity) would wear defeat on the war front, as part of their essential identity. Hence, relative deprivation was found to be more fundamental than identity politics in the neo-Biafran agitations in Nigeria. However, the compelling issues were found to squarely border on nation-building complications in the postcolony.

Representing Haiti: Postcolonial Discourse and Aimé Césaire's La tragédie du roi Christophe

IN An inteRview with chARLes RoweLL in 1989, Aime Cesaire frames his representation of Haiti's King Henry Christophe in the following terms:The difference between my 'vision' of Christophe and that of my predecessors is that they see only the ridicule, the Bourgeois gentilhomme aspect, the 'Negro vanity' aspect that abounded in the white racist and colonialist literature. But I want people to go beyond this. What I mean is that behind Christophe's ridicule there is something pathetic, and it is this pathos that European historians never perceive. It is the pathetic dimension of a man who comes out of slavery and wants to raise his people, and raises himself to an extraordinary kind of mystique. He uses all the means available to him in his time; but these means were not always the best ones.1Cesaire's representation of the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath, and his attempts to humanise Henry Christophe in La tragedie du roi Christophe (The Tragedy of King Christophe)2 and to debunk the Eurocentric discourse to which he alludes, are all too clear in the above excerpt from the interview. His literary vehicle - the dramatic genre - is deliberate and crucial to our understanding and appreciation of the play. He recasts Christophe as a tragic figure, a persona that redeems him from the ridiculous king of history books, and thus prepares the reader/audience for pathos, fear, admiration, fate, death, and inevitability, which are necessary ingredients of a tragedy.3 playwright expressed his pride, interest, and respect vis-a-vis in another interview with Rene Depestre:After my discovery of the North American Negro and my discovery of Africa, I went on to explore the totality of the black world, and that is how I came upon the history of Haiti. I love Martinique, but it is an alienated land, while represented for me the heroic Antilles, the African Antilles. I began to make connections between the Antilles and Africa, and is the most African of the Antilles. It is at the same time a country with a marvellous history: the first Negro epic of the New World was written by Haitians, people like Toussaint l'Ouverture, Henri Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, etc. is not very well known in Martinique.4To argue that the first Negro epic was written by men like Louverture, Christophe and Dessalines, not only qualifies the play as an epic, but also endows these revolutionaries with heroic qualities. In his Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, Cesaire proclaims as an embodiment of and a precursor to Negritude ideology when he writes, in reference to the Haitian Revolution, Haiti [is] where Negritude stood up for the first time and said it believed in its humanity5 - an indication that Negritude encompasses more than a literary and an aesthetic phenomenon.The Tragedy of King Christophe bears resemblance to metadrama,6 in that it is self-reflexive and its characters are conscious of their theatricality, of being on stage. As Christophe's secretary Vastey aptly points out, The whole world is watching us, citizens, and the nations think black men have no dignity (1.2, 18). thus represents the stage on which the drama of the challenges of decolonisation and nation-building is played out; and Christophe stand in for more than a geographic location and an individual. As Cesaire asserts in reference to another historico-political drama of his, A Season in the Congo, Lumumba is not the man Patrice Lumumba; he is, before everything else, a symbol of a man, a man that identifies with Congolese reality and with Africa of decolonisation, an individual that represents a collectivity.7 Christophe and Haiti, then, become prototypes and symbols of black emancipation, and a blueprint for the task inherent in nation-building in post-emancipation/independence nations in the black Atlantic world. deployment of metadramatic techniques has prompted critics to stipulate that the play characterises as a theatre state. …

Emergent Issues in African Philosophy

These are major excerpts from an interview that was conducted with Professor Wiredu at Rhodes University during the thirteenth Annual Conference of The International Society for African Philosophy and Studies (April 3, 2007). He speaks on a wide range of issues, such as political and personal identity, racism and tribalism, moral foundations, the golden rule, African communalism, human rights, personhood, consensus, and meta-philosophy, among other critical themes. We are also offered what may be considered Wiredu’s definition of what constitutes “African Philosophy.” For Wiredu, African philosophy ought not necessarily be put in contrast to Western philosophy. African philosophy must be understood within the context of its emergence with its associative socio-cultural and political milieu. Philosophy has no borders, by which he encourages a wide breadth of investigation into different intellectual traditions and an openness to learn from other traditions. He emphasized, however, that there are basic human questions concerning a people that can only be answered by embedded knowledge within their indigenous thought systems. It is reductionist to conceive of African philosophy as merely “ethnophilosophy” because the body of knowledge of what constitutes African philosophy is a critical investigation that negotiates between a series of intellectual traditions evolving from Africa, including those discarded as mere myths and those considered as products of modernity. The authority of African philosophy is the ability to create meaning for a culturally differentiated society, meanings that are not anachronistic but relevant to the sociopolitical and economic condition of the people. African philosophy does indeed have critical resources in dealing with the challenges of democratization, party politics, and nation-building in Africa. With regards to moral judgment, Wiredu’s leitmotif is the golden rule—a procedural standard to judge what action is right or wrong that is an invitation to a subjective empathy. Here Wiredu argues for a subjective reciprocity when it comes to norms and other certain conventions, and he interestingly sides with Menkiti in the famous Gyekye versus Menkiti debate.

PURSUING A SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALISATION: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

After 1994 the South African government had to contend with the consequences of the forces of globalisation in addition to meeting the challenges of nation building. The new democratic government inherited a fragile economy burdened with large debt, slow economic growth, increasing unemployment rates and unacceptable levels of poverty (Padayachee, 2005:22). Constitutional imperatives called for a just and equitable society, a fundamental principle that formed the basis for all future policies and legislation (RSA, 1996).

National identity in fragile states: insights from tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste

The challenges of nation building in Melanesia and Timor-Leste have often been neglected in the regional focus on state-building challenges. High levels of ethno-linguistic diversity, combined with an array of regional, historical and cultural divisions, continue to present obstacles to the creation of a cohesive sense of national political community leading these nations to be labelled ‘fragile’. This paper presents the findings of a comparative study on the attitudes of tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste to national identity and nation building. A strong pan-Melanesian pattern of group identification was identified, common to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The ongoing importance of traditional authority and custom in informing conceptions of political community and identity was evident in all four case study sites, but was in each case matched by indicators of respect for modern state authority. The survey also reveals some significant gender differences in key attitudes towards national identity, including the role of traditional authorities. Most importantly, the study reveals high degrees of national pride, and faith in democratic principles and citizenship; but conversely, low levels of pride in contemporary democratic performance and inter-group tolerance.

Nation-building Initiatives of the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration in the Fourth Republic, 1999-2007

For much of its existence, Nigeria was governed by the military. From 1960 to 2007, a total of forty-seven years, the military ruled for twenty-nine years. The remaining eighteen years was taken up by civilian rule. The search for a functional and cohesive Nigeria was a constant leitmotiv that ran throughout the period. This search is what has been termed nation-building. The federal government of Nigeria was confronted with important nation-building challenges between 1999 and 2007. Some of these nation-building challenges are those of democracy, corruption, federalism and aggressive ethno-regionalism. By 1999, when Nigeria’s Fourth Republic was inaugurated, most of these nation-building challenges were yet to be resolved. When Chief Olusegun Obasanjo became the first civilian president in the Fourth Republic in 1999, he was confronted with the task of creating a functional and cohesive Nigerian polity. Thus, the central questions that this paper addresses are: 1. What are the mechanisms the Olusegun Obasanjo administration used to tackle Nigeria's nation-building challenges between 1999 and 2007? 2. What are the specific programmes the administration used in the nationbuilding process? 3. What are the nation-building challenges that confronted Nigeria between 1999 and 2007? Keywords: Nigeria, Nation-building, fourth republic, Obasanjo, challenges.

Nation-Building Initiatives of the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration in the Fourth Republic, 1999-2007

For much of its existence, Nigeria was governed by the military. From 1960 to 2007, a total of forty-seven years, the military ruled for twenty-nine years. The remaining eighteen years was taken up by civilian rule. The search for a functional, viable and cohesive Nigeria was a constant leitmotiv that ran throughout the period. This search is what has been termed nation-building. The different military and civilian administrations that ruled Nigeria between 1960 and 2007 were confronted with important challenges that impacted negatively on the country’s nation-building process. Some of these nation-building challenges are those of democracy, autarky, corruption, federalism and aggressive ethno-regionalism. By 1999, when the Nigeria Fourth Republic was inaugurated, most of these nation-building challenges were yet to be resolved. When Chief Olusegun Obasanjo became the first civilian president in the Fourth Republic in 1999, he was confronted with the Herculean task of creating a functional, viable and cohesive Nigerian polity. Obasanjo's administration successfully conducted federal elections in 2003, the second federal elections in the Fourth Republic, in which he was re-elected. The successful conduct ensured the sustenance of democratic rule in Nigeria. This means that during the Fourth Republic, Obasanjo governed Nigeria from 1999-2007. Thus, the central question which this paper seeks to address is what are the mechanisms the Obasanjo’s administration used to tackle Nigeria's nation-building challenges? This paper is divided into four parts. The first part is the introduction, which provides a historical overview of Nigeria's socio-political scene. The second part provides a brief historical overview of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration between 1999 and 2007. The third part is the conceptual clarification of nation-building. The fourth part, which is the main body of the paper, analyzes the various mechanisms used by the Obasanjo’s administration in Nigeria’s nation-building process between 1999 and 2007. The final part of the paper is the conclusion.

Exploring the Diversity of Religion

This article considers the importance of “religion” and “identity” in the process of fieldwork in the North Cachar Hills, Assam, India. The political sensitivities in the region provided a difficult context in which to do fieldwork. This is chiefly because of the various armed insurrections, which have arisen as a consequence of the complicated remnants of British colonialism (1834–1947), and the subsequent post-independence challenge of nation building in India. This article raises important methodological questions concerning fieldwork and the relational grounding of the fieldworker relative to the inside/outside positions. It reflects on these issues by discussing the Heraka, a Zeme Naga religious movement. Their ambiguity and “in-between” character accommodates both the “neo-Hindu” version of a nation or Hindutva (Hinduness) and the larger Naga (primarily Christian) assertion of their own cultural and religious autonomy. The Heraka provides an alternative route into ideas of nationhood, religious belonging and cultural identity.

Identity in Algerian politics: the legacy of colonial rule

Introduction. French Colonial Rule and Its Enduring Legacies. Algerian Nationalism and the War of Liberation. Independence and the Challenges of Nation Building. Economic Crisis and the Descent into Violence. National Identity and the Ongoing Struggle.

Sri Lanka: The Challenge of Postwar Peace Building, State Building, and Nation Building

Sri Lanka's ethnic war that lasted over 25 years produced a militarized country, political fragmentation, deep ethnic division, poor governance, and a weak economy. Reconciliation, peace building, and transformation of the politics and economy are essential for Sri Lanka to recover. However, prospects are not as good as they could be. Its major Western trading partners and donors are unhappy with the country's human rights record. The government is further strengthening the military. The current leadership is using the undemocratic institutions and practices of governance that the war created. Two-thirds of the people who have known little other than war, poor governance, and patronage politics may take a long time to realize their responsibility to pressure the rulers to mend their ways.

Afro-libertarianism and The Social Contract Framework in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Post-2007 Elections Kenya

This paper examines the shortcomings and possibilities of the social contract approach in relation to the Kenyan post 2007 elections political crisis. The author applies philosophical analysis to a practical situation, using Kenya as a case study in the context of the challenges of post-colonial nation-building. The author reflects on the “Afro-libertarian” politico-economic framework, in which communitarian and communal traditions with egoistic and profit-making individualist libertarian market rationality are tangled in a fragile, patrimonial state, with strong sub-national loyalties preventing the building of a united nation and a strong state. The thesis of the paper is that if sustainable peace, social reconstruction and national unity are to be achieved, there is need to have an adequate understanding of the moral dimensions of the concept of “social justice”. The focus has to be on the building of an impartial state, with a clear national agenda and strong ethnically and politically neutral institutions and processes.

Towards a More Professional Approach to Nation-building

This article describes the slow and uneven movement towards a more professional approach to nation-building. The post-cold war era is replete with instances where the United States found itself burdened by the challenges of nation-building in the wake of a successful military operation. American performance in the conduct of such missions improved slowly through the 1990s, but this trend was not sustained into the decade beginning in 2000. The article outlines what a more professional approach to peacebuilding would require, highlighting a hierarchy of tasks that flow in the following order: security, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization and development.

Central Asia since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Economic Reforms and eir Impact on State-Society Relations

AbstractIn late 1991, with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, the five Central Asian republics became independent countries. The completely unexpected challenges of nation-building were superimposed on the transition from a centrally planned economy. Within the common bounds of resource-based economies and autocratic regimes, the five countries gradually became more differentiated as their governments introduced diverse national strategies for transition to a market-based economy. This article describes the different economic polices adopted by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan and analyzes the outcomes.

Social ethnics and nation-building

This paper establishes the link between social ethics and nation building. It defines the concepts of social ethics and the end product of nation-building: development as well as appraised the evolution of nation – states by comparing England, United States of America and Nigeria. The paper also examines the challenge of nation building in the absence of entrenched ethical codes using the Niger-Delta question and the review of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly as case studies. Suggestions are also made to help Nigeria evolve as an ethically sound polity. Sophia: An African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 8(1) 2005:93-97 Keywords: Keywords:

Divided Nations: The Paradox of National Protection

Internal displacement, which in many cases leads to refuge across international borders, has emerged as one of the major crises confronting the world today. The assumption, clearly erroneous, is that unlike refugees, who have lost the protection of their own governments by crossing international borders, the internally displaced remain under the protection of their national governments. In most cases, these same governments are actually the cause of their displacement, and worse—they neglect and even persecute them. This article aims to develop a new international response to the global crisis of internal displacement in acutely divided nations. It suggests the problem is more than a humanitarian and human rights issue; the underlying causes have much to do with gross inequities in the shaping and sharing of values and the gross discrimination and marginalization of certain groups. Citizenship becomes largely of paper value. The crisis is ultimately a challenge of nation building.