Manifest / What makes for a conflict

 What makes for a conflict:

p. 291 (big book)

 

Over or manifest conflict can be characterized in the following 4 ways (by Mack and Snyder)

1. Two or more parties are involved
   1. Not necessarily between militaries - can be between military and guerilla / paramilitary groups
2. The parties have opposing goals
   1. recipe of conflict originates from similar goals – Pakistan and India both want territory of Kashmir. 2 groups nuclear holding states with differing governments can exist peacefully if they don't have differing goals - both want the same thing

      1. Cold war: Different goal rooted in ideology

3. There is a situation where there are limited resources or limited positions available
   1. Geopoliticians argue that all conflict is based on resource scarcity. There are counter-claims, since sometimes  those have more than enough, and are fueled by imperialism and greed

      1. Limited position like UN council or Russia-Ukraine joining NATO

4. There is behavior designed to hurt or injure the other (in a broad sense – not necessarily physically)
   1. Tutsi derogatory, being called vermin and cockroaches.
   2. Must be aware of certain dehumanizing terms that are used against a group of people. Those that have power less likely to follow laws of armed conflict, follow human rights, to feel remorse if they see them as less than human. Can be through propaganda, only putting certain group in power.
      1. Indigenous youth in Canada, black men in US
   3. often many years / decades of dehumanizing language that make it justifiable in the minds of attackers, to conduct that behavior
      1. Hitler inspired behavior, regular citizens to enlist in the system of oppression and discrimination
      2. Of course people had known, too much to not have known. Diverts the blame to horrible people, since the people there had still followed them.
      3. A leader can magnify and enflame problems in a country
      4. Media (TV, Movies, News channels) can further enforce the hateful system and ideas in the populace 

Without all 4, the conflict remains latent

John Galtung argues for 3 components

• Attitudes
• Behavior
• Contradiction

Although parties have different ideologies, these are usually latent and only exist in the structures in place. As conflict evolves to be more aggressive and confrontational, the conflict is no longer latent but has become manifest. Conflict can also widen to involve more parties - this can make it increasingly difficult to identify core core causes and harder to resolve.

When something becomes manifest, it can be seen clearly (in other words, it is no longer hidden or concealed).

 

Conflict	Causes
War in Ukraine	J - War for territorial gain
Gaza Israel	E - War of self-defense, J - War for territorial gain
Sudan Civil War	B - War to change a political system
Mexico's Drug War (2006-present)	C - War to preserve or gain power
US-Iran (Israel, Lebanon)	K - War for economic gain, F - War to prevent attack, C - War to preserve or gain power
Myanmar Civil war or India/Pakistan conflict	J - War for territorial gain

 

10 stages of genocide can be roadmap to seeing what is going on before the worst atrocity is committed  

why worse atrocity: not only eliminates group of people, but does so generationally. Eliminates lineages, not only devastating now but over a hundred years

Residential schools took already vulnerable group, from previous assimilation

different from war, this is aiming to remove generations. They aim to go after children and the young ones

 

Don't fall into easy and uncritical view of blaming one bad individual, rather than whole countries. Rather see how society's are propagandized, that those that expel ideas are megaphones for the ideas that are already held by a group of people.