EDUCATION, HISTORY AND TERRORISM IN AFRICA

"Let lying dogs lie"

The introduction of History and other history-related literature into pre-tertiary education in Ghana deserves some caution. Good plans sometimes must be keenly guided in order not to end up bad. There are so many benefits we could derive from knowing our past. However, nothing good is devoid of evil - if not handled with care.

Uprisings and attacks on governments in the Middle East were partly contributed to "gain knowledge". As the knowledge of the people grew and were fed from within and without, radical members of those societies rose and formed forceful groups that led those Arab springs.  What you should know is that actions are usually based on revelation - and not just any but a clear one. 

In 2016, the GTI, published by the (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2017), identified one West African country, Nigeria, as a member of the top twenty countries in the world that suffered severely from terrorism in the world.  Cameroon, Chad and Niger were also part of the list of countries hit by terrorists’ attacks. In a paper for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), (Cachalia, Salifu, & Ndung’u, 2016) indicated the believe that youth radicalisation towards violent extremism is a global phenomenon that threatens peace, security and stability. The youth are now more engaged in terrific attacks the world over. For this reason, the Ghanaian youthdom must be well guided and guarded. 

In the introduction to the book; The Root Causes of Terrorism: Why Parts of Africa Might Never Be at Peace, (Feldman, 2010) posited that there is the likelihood that some parts of the world, Africa in particular, never enjoy peace because of the very factors he considers as under-liners of terrorism. Such intractable elements if not identified and dealt with actually imply that those areas will perpetually endure pain. Feldman argued that some part of the Africa will be experiencing continuous strife, diseases, competition for  diminishing resources and a host of other maladies; and these coupled with the hope for a better future will fuel and initiate extremisms. There are so many leads to civil wars and terror attacks. Also there are many explanations of why terrorists attacks occur and some attribute it to poor economic conditions, which is consistent with the popular theory of deprivation and poverty; low education attainment, and historical events such as slavery and ethnic conflicts have also been used to explain terrorism; however, there are studies that suggest otherwise, (Elu & Price, 2015) noted.

History and Ethnic Marginalization

The fact is that terrorism is a form of conflict, and so the extent to which particular historical events drive current conflicts could render history as a cause of terrorism in Africa (Elu & Price, 2015). Historical contingencies and the perceptions and intentions of small, radicalized political conspiracies are most important in explaining terrorism (Asan, 2010).

Fenske and Kala (cited in (Elu & Price, 2015)) found that in African regions that were most affected by the slave trade, conflict doubled in the years after the suppression of the slave trade in 1807. This suggests that historical events can induce conflict manifested as terrorism that persists into the future. The statement here implies that Asan’s position is true to a large extent.

The study on the African countries considered to represent a group of countries in which the typical terrorist event took place in Africa by (Elu & Price, 2015) linking terrorism to slave trade revealed that the cause of terrorism appears to be existential, as the trend is dominated by the terrorist activities of radical Islamic groups in Nigeria and Somalia. What must be taken from this is that past exposure to the slave trade may indeed have some explanatory power for terrorism in Africa. ibid

In bidding other terrorism experts to rethink of the acts of terrorism, (Kundnani, 2015) indicated that the process engaging hands in terrorism is more complex and depends not only on ideology but also on psychological factors, such as the experience of a recent traumatic event.  For him, basing radicalization on the simplicity that some form of religious ideology is a key element in turning a person into a terrorist should not be wholly accepted. The value of this argument is that basing counter-terrorism efforts on flimsy and normative or intuitive ideas will only push policy makers into looking in the wrong direction. However, the fact established by Elu and Price that terrorism is existential is validated.

In line with Professor Kundnani’s position, other terrorism analysts such as Whatley and Gillezeau (cited in (Elu & Price, 2015)) suggest that terrorism could be catalysed by ethnic fragmentation, which has been found to be a source of conflict caused by the Atlantic Slave Trade. The understanding of the fact that if ethnic fragmentation is a source of mistrust across ethnicity, religion, and language, terrorism as a form of conflict resolution is likely to emerge in regions exposed to the slave trade deepens.  Nunn and Wantchekon (cited in (Elu & Price, 2015)) found that the intensity of the slave trade in the African past explains spatial and individual variation in the level of mistrust among Africans today.

Deductively and retrospectively, (Feldman, 2010) pointed out that when the Europeans divided up Africa, borders were drawn with little or no attention paid to who was living where. Straight lines were sometimes placed on the map, which followed neither natural physical nor cultural boundaries. Thus, some ethnic groups found themselves in more than one nation, and rather incompatible ethnic groups, long at war with each other, were now part of the same country. Countries like Somalia are affected by this phenomenon.

Ghana is not an exception in terms of ethnic conflicts and hurting history. The Castles and forts mend for slave trade in Ghana still exist. In early part of May, 2019 the news carried it that some eight (8) people were arrested for attempting to separate the Volta region from Ghana and make it one new one. All of such behaviours border on cultural and ethnic or tribal affiliations. It is even believed that unresolved conflict and mounting tensions due to politicization of the ethnic issues contributed to the reoccurrence of bloody civil wars in the country in the past.

The objective of this piece is to keep teachers sensitized on the probable negatives of stressing so hard on historic events. It is not intended to put a limit on your delivery but to alert you so you can fine-tune your History lessons in order to accomplish the aim of the curriculum. 

Bibliography

Asan, A. (2010). “The Root Causes of Terrorism. acessed online from http://cdn02.abakushost.com/pam/downloads/REP-2010-1-TERR_EN%5B2%5D.pdf: PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN: 1st Standing Committee on Political and Security-related Cooperation.

Cachalia, R. C., Salifu, U., & Ndung’u, I. (2016, August). The dynamics of youth radicalisation in Africa: Reviewing the current evidence. Institute for Security Studies (ISS). ISS Paper: https://oldsite.issafrica.org/uploads/paper296-1.pdf.

Elu, J., & Price, G. (2015, July). The Causes and Consequences of Terrorism in Africa . Retrieved April 13, 2019, from Oxford Hand books Online: Scholarly Research Reviews: http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687114.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199687114-e-16

Ewi, A. M. (2012). THE COMPLEX DIMENSION OF TERRORISM IN WEST AFRICA: VULNERABILITIES, TRENDS AND NOTORIOUS TERRORIST NETWORKS. PRESENTATION PREPARED FOR SWAC/OECD. ISS, PRETORIA: accessed online on 2nd May, 2019 from https://www.oecd.org/swac/events/Terrorism%20in%20West%20Africa.pdf.

Feldman, R. L. (2010). The Root Causes of Terrorism: Why Parts of Africa Might Never Be at Peace. Published online by Routledge on https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14751790903416707?journalCode=cdan20.

Institute for Economics and Peace. (2017). Global Terrorism Index 2017: Measuring and understanding the impact of terrorism. University of Maryland: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Accessed from: http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2017.pdf.

Kundnani, A. (2015). A Decade Lost: Rethinking Radicalisation and Extremism. East London Business Centre: Claystone. Accessed on 2nd May, 2019 from http://www.claystone.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Claystone-rethinking-radicalisation.pdf.

Mutanda, D. (2017, June 8). What Makes Terrorism Tick in Africa? Evidence from Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. Retrieved January 21, 2019, from Jadavpur Jounal of International Relations: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0973598417706590

Nkwi, W. G. (2015). TERRORISM IN WEST AFRICAN HISTORY: A 21ST CENTURY APPRAISAL. Austral: Brazilian Journal of Strategy & International Relations, 78-99. accessed online from https://seer.ufrgs.br/austral/article/viewFile/56968/36744.

Nzau, M. (2010). COUNTER-TERRORISM IN THE GREATER HORN OF AFRICA 2004-2010: REVISITING THE SOMALIA QUESTION. Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, Vol.2. No.2, 163-177.