Just like modern Kenya, independent (ie, pre-colonial) communities had to deal with social conflict. This of cause has to do with the fact that conflict - just like eating, part and parcel of human existence and found to exist in all human communities.

Then, as of now, conflict could be experienced at different levels: Personal (at the psychological level); and socially, it was experienced at the inter-personal, intra-institutional (for example, within the family), inter-generational, inter and intra-gender, inter-states, between the rulers and the ruled, and the rich and the poor. In all of these conflict scenarios, pre-colonial communities had different mechanisms which went into managing and solving conflict. Behind the various mechanisms of conflict management and resolutions, there existed unifying underlying principles. These were:

This principle stressed the central value that, despite cultural and ethnic differences, human beings are basically the same. This principle gave birth to the so-called African communal way of life. The crucible norm of communal living was the acceptance that access to basic needs was a basic human right to every member of a given community. This value formed an important grounding in conflict resolutions whenever conflict over resources such as land or livestock.

This principle not only emphasized the ethic of sharing, but more importantly, it is the one which sustained a sense for collective security through a social set-up which supported an egalitarian social living. It was a norm which transformed individual obligations into social welfare security schemes (today's pension schemes and the so-called safety-nets which are now being "discovered" by the World Bank and IMF). Hence, a sense of justice and fairness was embedded in it since mutual trust become an overriding value. It is this type of trust which has made Africans easily gullible to foreigners' machinations.

Social conflicts were avoided or resolved based on this principle. Respect for the elders, parents and ancestors was a major value which our communities inculcated in their members. This respect was codified in taboos and the concept of social distance. What one could do, whom to talk to and how to relate to one another according to one's sex, age and status. The principle was also environmentally friendly because the first to be respected was the "Mother Earth" and her wondrous endowments such as mountains, caves, river springs, forests and big trees, huge rocks, rivers and lakes, animals, etc.

Whenever conflict arose, the three principles were mobilized through the use of many and different mechanisms in search for solutions and resolutions. Some of such mechanisms were the use of:

Under the kinship ideology, real and putative kin relations had to be established to form the framework within which conflict could be viewed and solutions sought. The idea was, kin or relatives never really fight because, "blood is thicker than water". Affinal kinship relationship was recognized to exist between whole communities. An example is the athoni (in-law) relations between the Kamba and the Kikuyu. These relations forbid the two communities from fighting one another irrespective of how provocative the circumstances might be. Thus, it is almost next to impossible to have an "ethnic cleansing" conflict between these them. It is a relationship which politicians from the two communities have exploited to get support across the ethnic divide.

This was a mechanism which was used as a "passport" across different communities. Trade was the primary force behind blood brotherhood relations among people from different communities. Most of Kenya's pre-colonial inter-communities trade was carried out under such circumstances. Once an individual had a blood brother in one community, then through the extension of the kinship ideology, such relations created peaceful co-existence among communities. And in case of conflict, such relations were mobilized in search for solutions.

3. Utani or Joking Relations

In this mechanism, a number of communities made permanent peace treaties among themselves. They were bound to offer support and protection to their respective members who happen to be within their respective territory. Such relations existed between contiguous communities, such as the Wakamba and Wataita of Kenya. But in some cases, even between some which were very far apart, such as the Wazaramo and Wanyamwezi of Tanzania.

Women played a pivotal role and in some communities like the Kalenjin, a crucial one in conflict resolutions. In most African communities women were regarded as the epitome of the three principles. This made them better emissaries of peace as they were regarded to be the most none partisan when it came to wars and extreme distressing situations. That is why, in a war situation, women and children were never killed. They were simply captured and were later fully assimilated into the community which had captured them. This is the total opposite of what is happening to African women and children to day in Kenya, and in Africa as a whole.

Like their women counterparts, men elders also were mechanisms of conflict resolutions. But theirs was due to respect accorded to them because of their personal wisdom and temporal powers.

Whereas women elders' respect accorded them was due to their spiritual powers.

Irrespective of whether the deliberations were being held in private or in the open, conflict tension was minimized by the protagonist not addressing each other directly. They stated their cases through a third party who acted as the "voice", spokesperson, advocate and agent provocateur all rolled in one. In this way, parties could openly accuse one another without being rude. It is an approach which is still being used in marriage negotiations.

In most conflicts, resolutions were reached based on consensus, rather than on winner-takes-all approach. This is a mechanism which attempts to save face of those in conflict by finding that both of them were not entirely free of blame. The emphasis here was put on what united them than on their differences. It was an approach which appealed to the individual's sense of decency, self introspection and therefore the need for reforming oneself so that harmony, peace and security could prevail.

The rika social organization structure existed all over Kenya and Africa. Among the Fulani it is known as samaria and moran among the Maasai. These were the social organizations which Baden Powell and his wife used as models for their Boy Scouts and Girl Guides movements. Belonging to an age-group, meant adhering to specific set of rules, duties and rights. It demanded discipline and created a lasting sense of comradeship among people who belonged to the same rika. Thus, conflict between rika age-group mates and even age-mates, was considered taboo. Age-mate parents were expected to be peace-makers whenever conflict existed between their offsprings or relatives.

These indigenous mechanisms for social conflict resolutions are not exhaustive. However, what should be borne in mind is that, they did work because also in place, were elaborate restitution mechanisms. That is why, in most of our pre-colonial societies, neither a standing army nor a police force did exist. These are mechanisms which still hold sway in our rural areas.

Unfortunately, their influence is waning by the day because of the existing social forces which are an antithesis to the three principles mentioned above.

There is therefore an urgent need to research into these mechanisms in order to device ways which could make them relevant and of use in the Kenya and Africa of today.

These mechanisms can still be used in solving conflict in the country (and in Africa at large), because of the following

reasons:

1. Our population is still relatively homogeneous. People are still living in rural areas and are still on their ancestral lands. But even if they are settled in other areas, the practice is a zonal settlement pattern whereby people sharing the same cultural background living contiguously. For example, the Kambas in Mariakani and Shimba Hills in the Coast Province.

Also, these homogenous cultural/ethnic zones can still be found to exist in urban areas. For example, the "Kisumu ndogos" found in almost all urban areas "settled" by Luos.

2. The fact that the urban-rural divide is rarely recognized as people are still tied to their ancestral homes through ownership of property in the form of land, livestock and culture.

3. Inter-ethnic marriages are on the increase. This phenomenon helps to breakdown existing ignorance across our different cultures, but simultaneously, helps to discover the existence of common features among them.

4. The fact that, in most cases of conflict resolution, what is at stake is not an individual's wealth or property, but rather, honour and respect. Kenyan communities have coexisted for centuries together by bestowing a collective sense of honour and respect to one another as a way of maintaining peace.

This indigenous approach to peace and conflict resolution is already being put into practice. The work of Hizkias Assefa and his monograph on Peace and Reconciliation as a Paradigm. Also, another attempt is contained in a booklet which has been sponsored by Coordination in Development, Inc.(CODEL) of New York.

CONSTRAINTS TO THE UTILIZATION OF INDIGENOUS PEACE MECHANISMS There are two general constraints which discourage the popular use of indigenous peace mechanisms and institutions. These are: (1) The general lack of awareness regarding their existence, and therefore, how they could be put into use. (2) An ideological orientation which reinforces this general state of unawareness.

In regarding conflict in Africa as an act of instinctive and irrational phenomenon - rather than being one aspect of "normal" human social behaviour, the tendency has been to look for resolution from outside whenever generalized conflict takes place. It is a perspective which takes off from the premise that while causes of conflict are indigenous to Africa (inter-ethnic rivalry for example), solutions must be imposed from outside. The assumption being that, such solutions are rational and therefore, more objective.

It is an approach which has failed to notice conflict resolution mechanisms inherent in African communities. The fact that while two sides might be in conflict, mechanisms for solutions to such a conflict are also inherently existing between them. Thus, the role of individuals, elders, women, age-groups and socio-cultural institutions and beliefs, are resources with indigenous grounding which can be utilized for conflict resolution.

For this approach to be effective, one fundamental condition is to re-educate the African elites (leaders) who are the chief agents and instigators of conflict.

The African leaders need to be empowered through a process of weaning them from the following constraints:

1. Dependency on foreign powers.

2. Subordination of national interests to foreign ones.

3. Blind acceptance and reliance on Western epistemologies, philosophies and beliefs.

4. From being defined by others and reflecting such a stereotype.

The Mijikenda people of Kenya Coast, have many elaborate institutions and mechanisms for solving conflict. Arising from the belief that major catastrophes like drought and famine, pestilence and epidemics do not just occur, but are rather caused by the minds of evil geniuses known as atsai (mtsai, singular). It so happens that even those responsible are known to the general public. But due to their status and kinship linkages, it becomes difficult and dangerous to accuse them in public. As a collective sense of frustration builds up, people's sense of helplessness spreads over the community. The heat generated provided a social environment where conflict between co-wives, siblings, extended family members and potential enemies, becomes sharpened and more visible.

Nowadays, such conflict among the Mijikenda community is solved through "mob justice." Anybody suspected of being a mtsai (sorcerer) in these days, a gang of youth mete out instant justice through mob justice lynching. Burning such suspects, or fatally attacking them at night has become the norm.

But the most popular and participatory method of conflict resolution, has been the emergence among the Mijikenda, of a great muganga who is endowed with superior knowledge and powers to zuza (smell) and render the atsai's evil powers ineffective.

Once such a muganga emerges, a cleansing crusade is carried out almost throughout Mijikendaland. The suspects, once exposed, have their paraphernalia demobilized through the sprinkling of decontaminating herbal water known as vuo. A suspect's power are also defused by taking an oath. The oath involves a sprinkling and a sipping of the vuo.

To stop potential atsai or those not yet exposed from practicing, the muganga had also to kota chiraho - cleansing the earth. This was done by burying powerful dawa (medicine) either in homesteads or at roadforks. Immunity against sorcery was offered to the general public either by the sprinkling and sipping of the vuo; wearing a certain charm or a combination of all of these. This immunity was to be effective as long as one did not become a sorcerer. If one broke this condition, then once dead, his/her corpse would bleed; or one would die a horrible death, thus exposing his/her hypocritical double life. Such a discovery greatly ashamed and embarrassed his/her family and close relatives.

The cleansing was carried out through dancing and festivities by the general public. The public's odium towards sorcerers was suddenly replaced by forgiveness and reintegration of the suspect into the community once such a suspect's evil powers had been demobilized by the muganga.

In the recent past, three great Waganga personalities have emerged among the Mijikenda. These have been Wanje (early thirties), his son Kabwere (late forties/early fifties) and Tsuma wa Washe, alias Kajiwe (mid-sixties/early seventies).

Kajiwe's powers were known all over Kenya. The Kenyatta Government even became afraid of his powers. Thus, after detaining him, Kajiwe was made the government's only chief witness on sorcery in courts. After Kenyatta's death, the Moi "Christian" regime used the colonial anti-witchcraft law against Kajiwe to frustrate him irrespective of the fact that his services were becoming increasingly sought for nationally.

He died relatively young, but after he had built a primary school in his village at Kiwanja cha Ndege, Rabai. The school carries his name: Kajiwe Primary School.

Had Kajiwe been alive, there is a likelihood that the prevailing tension over land by the Mijikenda people, would have been expressed more in a "peaceful metaphysical" manner, than the overt political way it is being expressed now. A conflict over land and the squatter problem is brewing at the Coast. It is taking the form of coast versus upcountry Kenyans. It is a conflict whose solution a respected personality such as Kajiwe could have been used by the government to defuse.

But since the westernized state of Kenya sees no useful role to be played by Kenyan indigenous waganga in conflict resolution, the waganga have been left with no other role but to offer reinforcement medicine for war. The same could be said of other personalities like the Laibon of the Maasai, the "Mugambi wa Agambi" ("Judge of the Judges") of the Ameru also known as Raiboni, and other such personalities in other Kenyan and African communities.

Another aspect which has contributed to non-appreciation of Africa's indigenous conflict resolution has been the unwitting general anthropological approach adopted by those who would like to understand the phenomenon of social conflict in the continent. This has been the unwitting dominant approach in other disciplines and have contributed little understanding to the problems being addressed. The lack of understanding has led to disastrous failures of the solutions suggested. The best example of the failure of this approach is in the field of "development". Almost for over two decades, enormous amount of funds have been mobilized to "develop" Africa, but there is little to show for it a quarter of a century down the road. Africa/Kenya, is getting poorer and poorer irrespective of the remedies being put forward by experts.

One major strength of the anthropological approach, lies in its instinctive reflex desire to categorize and describe social phenomenon. This is subtle done by the "anthropologist" from an assumed superior position based on one's assumed superior culture. From this perspective, normally social reality is viewed but mostly suspended from its historical antecedents as well as from the dynamics of processes of dominant factors of change. Such dominant forces are taken as "givens" and normal which need not be regarded as crucial to the analysis of social reality. Even historians who make a livelihood studying Africa, suffer from this major weakness in their approach to their subject.

The weakness arises from the anthropological yet another major strength, that of studying the "other". It is an ideological perspective which denies the African reality from not being well understood (or from being too well understood) to the point that its construction divests it from being taken as an aspect of a normal, human and universal occurrence. Consequently, a social reality such as "conflict" in Africa, quickly and unwittingly becomes transformed into being an aberration, which is then viewed from the old anthropological desire of wanting to discover a new tribe.

However, it is now an irrefutable fact to observe that the concept of "tribe" was a creation of Europeans. It was created from a cultural perspective of superiority. A type of superiority which saw European social class ridden and conflict prone societies as being regarded as the norm and rational.

When they came to Africa, Europeans found no such easy equivalents. This automatically led to the assumption that African societies were at a lower evolutionary stage and needed to be "developed" in order to catch up with Europe/America. It is a perspective which blinded the foreigners. It made them not see that the public appearance of homogeneousness exhibited by African societies was not due to lack of conflict and pyramidal social structures in them, but rather, was due to a different method of managing social conflict. Thus, having been cheated by the homogenous outward appearances, conflict was then expunged and African life was seen to exist at a lower innocent paradise-like "communal tribal existence" level.

At this juncture, not only was conflict expunged from African communities, but even intellectually, violence was separated from conflict. Thus, violence which natives used to resist European conquest and domination, was easily labelled as being irrational, activistic and a characteristic of a people who were at a lower level in the evolutionary ladder. It was this separation of violence from conflict and the clever distinction of the type of violence and its source, which both legitimized and justified European colonial and neocolonial control over Africa.

To the European/American mind, colonial rule did Africa a favour since it brought different internally homogenous tribes together and stopped tribal warfare among them. It was and is still a wrong premise. However, it is a premise which is still very dominant in the search for peace and reconciliation in the continent.

For a successful search for conflict resolutions in Africa, it has first to begin, by getting involved in a "di-skinning" intellectual process in order to shed off the cultural baggage through which social conflict in Africa is viewed from. This should liberate us and help us to view conflict and violence as a universal social reality but conditioned by specific internal and external peculiarities. It is these peculiarities which distinguishes them culturally. But, it is also from within these cultures that are found different cultural initiatives in managing social conflict.

It should also not be forgotten that, violence is the public admittance of the existence of conflict, and it being one possible solution towards solving it. But as for violence to be the ultimate solution to a given conflict, calls for the existence of great imbalances and inequalities between the conflicting parties.

In Africa/Kenya, while social pyramids, social structures of inequalities and competition for resources existed prior to European colonial and neocolonial rule, the thrust of mainstream culture was to manage conflict to the point that violence did not become the main solution. Conflict was managed through different social institutions and scenarios as those already itemized above. Unifying principle among them, was the minimization of the use of violence in the public domain. While, whenever violence was resorted to, the intention was to have as few casualties as possible. To bolster this orientation, it became a taboo in most African cultures to kill children, and also kill and rape women in times of war/conflict.

Modern Africa, is a creation of the colonial experience. And it had to be admitted that, the colonial experience was a project steeped in violence. It was violence whose cultural moorings were based in European class-ridden and conflict prone societies. Thus, it was a culture which believes that brutal force is the ultimate way of maintaining peace and stability in societies.

Four developments arose from this cultural orientation. First, the professionalization of warfare. Second, the technologization of weapons of war. Third, the monopolization of the use of violence by a social organ known as the state. And finally, the institutionalization of the concept that legitimacy arises out of the successful employment of physical force but not from the bosom of natural justice.

These four interrelated facets are the ones which went into the building of nation-states in Europe. Within the European context, they became developmental. Thus, countries like Italy and Germany were created from Garibaldi's "red shirts" and Bismarck's "iron fist" in order to protect their territories from being dominated by the French and the English.

However, these nation-state building forces were culturally out of context when they were imposed in African societies through colonial conquest. Thus, they have proven to be more destructive and anti-development in Africa, than their achievements in Europe North America, Australia and New Zealand.

In Africa, nation-state building has zeroed on law and order, but not in creating an enabling environment where people would be free to "develop". Being an entity resting on an alien culture, the state has evolved to be equated with the nation. Hence, state security has come to be wrongly equated with a nation's security.

This misnomer, has become more and more the bane of conflict in most of African countries at the national level because of the inordinate powers of coercion enjoyed by the state over the nation. It is such unequal relation that, the state has the powers to easily destroy the nation - ala Somalia. But it will need a civil war or civil disobedience for a nation to destroy or contain the destructive powers of the state.

For Africa/Kenya, this situation is made worse by the fact that, the state has yet to liberate itself from post-colonial foreign links, interests, demands and control. The state in Africa, is more of an appendage of stronger foreign states, than being a viable entity in control of its destiny in a given nation. Thus, the state in Africa, is out to meet and please foreign demands and interests first, than to meet the demands and interests of its nationals. This contradictoriness does create a sense of not belonging by those exercising state power on the one hand, and a deep seated resentment, by those who feel marginalized on the other.

Thus, whatever form conflict takes, the ultimate goal is to capture the source of force and legitimacy in a country - the state. It is this social organ which has inordinately grown in importance and credibility in Africa/Kenya, which should be critically analyzed in order to come up with a framework for peace reconciliation in Africa. While a categorization of topologies of conflict in Africa does serve a useful purpose, its usefulness becomes suspect when the state with its foreign cultural, economic and political linkages is not given the central focus it so rightly deserves.

The ever escalation of conflict in Africa/Kenya, should never be viewed as being typical African. Rather, it should be viewed as a manifestations of the following:

* The rejection and failure of the European nation-state model in Africa.

* The deepening of foreign control and interference by foreign powers in African affairs.

* The intensification of capitalist exploitation of Africa with its attendant results of making African nations unable to develop their own viable national markets and economies.

* The cultural alienation of African state functionaries.

Finally, for a successful reconciliation, there is the necessity which calls for a "re-winding" or "re-wiring" of the African elites into a mode of self-esteem and confidence. This is crucial since individuals do make a difference in what happens in the political and economic life of countries. Secondly, foreign powers and interests should own up their contribution to the creation of conflict in Africa; their reasons for doing so, and the impact it has left behind. Finally, a dispassionate analysis of the base of the modern African nation-states should be carried out within the dominant international environment dominated by the capitalist system.

For a successful conflict resolution, resources should be targeted at mobilizing home-grown solutions to home-felt conflict. A more focused appreciation on the existence of indigenous conflict resolution resources and mechanisms in African countries, could help in saving lives and reduce social strife. But this has to be given the necessary support in the form of resource allocation, training of personnel and the capacity to utilize as well as institutionalizing the search and use of the indigenous mechanisms of conflict resolution.