A Cultural Explanation of Collapse into Civil War: Escalation of Tension in Nigeria

Abstract

Culture has a central role in explaining Nigeria’s collapse into civil war, and Mary Douglas’ cultural theory can facilitate cultural analysis. Culture theory posits a limited number of viable ways of life, consisting of patterns of social relations undergirded by value systems. It explains preferences and can show why events or ideas may be acceptable to one way of life and unacceptable to another. In Nigeria, fundamental, salient cultural differences existed between the dominant groups, reinforced by pervasive social cleavages, in terms of ethnicity, region, religion, class, and levels of access to power and wealth. Intense competition for resources led to continual cultural interpretation of ethnic antagonisms based on different values, ways of life and institutions. While these struggles involved many issues, they were defined in terms of cultural principles, and made cultural differences more important. Culturally focused rhetoric was developed by political leaders and was interpreted within highly charged and competitive cultural contexts, contributing to a cycle of attack, defense and counterattack, escalating inter-ethnic tension and sense of threat. The long history of articulating and defending fundamental and incompatible cultural values produced rhetoric and behaviors which were irrational and fundamentally self-destructive for Nigeria, though rational with respect to the cultural logic of the groups, independent of ideology and pursuit of personal power. Members of different groups reasonably came to fear cultural destruction, and as violence and rhetorical intensity escalated, distrust of other groups and fear of domination and cultural obliteration became a slippery slope of hostility, increasing the momentum for civil war.