George Ngwane

Building Social Cohesion through Culture in Conflict Context

(A reflection on our/my experiences in the conflict-prone Bakassi peninsula in Cameroon)

By George Ngwane

Being a discussion presented at an Exploratory Roundtable organised by the International Institute for Asian studies, Leiden,the Stitching Savan/Beeld voor Beeld, Amsterdam and the Tropenmuseum with the collaboration of the Prince Claus Fund and UNESCO Nederland. 13^th -14^th June 2013, Amsterdam, Netherlands

General Root Causes of conflict

Conflict can be interpersonal arising from individual character and manifested through intolerance, ego, inability to forgive, forget, and reconcile and the lack of fellow-feeling.  Interpersonal enmity generally feeds on the binary vision of me vs. him/her or self vs. the other.

The Centrality of Friendship in Conflict Transformation

By Geroge Ngwane

Being a paper presented at the Debate “My Friend, My Enemy, My Society” organised by the Prince Claus Fund and de Balie on the role of friendship in a repressive or conflictual context. 9^th-13^th June 2013, Amsterdam, Netherlands.


When I was invited to this debate on the broad topic “My Friend, My Enemy, My Society”, I shared the thoughts with one of my academic friends, Dibussi Tande, and his immediate reaction was "why are you always invited to discuss esoteric topics?" I consoled him by saying that most esoteric topics are provide the discussant with various contours to navigate while holding firm to the topic’s compass. Moreover I am always invited more as a practical civil society actor than an abstract erudite philosopher.