المستخلص: |
If poverty, illness and hunger are Africa’s lasting plagues, civil conflicts have entered this list and rendered it into a vicious cycle since the end of the Cold War. In this regard, the present paper aims at exploring the indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms (ICRMs) in Africa in terms of their traditions and general characteristics. By adopting a Social Descriptive method, the present paper has noted the presence of a variety of the traditional mechanisms almost in every African ethnic group. In addition to that, some commonalities are found among these mechanisms accross Africa. Also, as some Muslim communities are involved, such as: Hausa, Mande, Fulbe, Swahili etc, some deep Islamic influences are found in the (ICRMs). However, the major challenges to the effective use of the (ICRMs) in solving the contemporary conflicts, are among others: the cultural alienation of the African elites and societies. The present paper is expected to bring this issue to the attention of the researchers to explore these traditional mechanisms and search for possible ways to implement them in solving the contemporary conflicts.
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