Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the value of reconciliation and recognition as normative elements necessary for dealing with differences, contravening interests and inter communal crises.

Paper long abstract:

African social reality can be characterized as that of cultural diversity, variegated communities and groups of distinct ideological interests. These communities have experienced, in various degrees, varied social conflicts, community crises and wars that threaten social order and incubated protracted hatred, resentment and distrust among different communities and ethnic groups. Different strategies, such as processes of mediation, negotiation and conflict resolution approaches have not been successful in dealing with such habitual psychological categories; this is precisely because, these methods focus mainly on processes, like ‘splitting the difference and bargaining’. As such, the paper examines the value of reconciliation and its connection with recognition and presents them as normative elements necessary for dealing with inter and intra-communal crises. It articulates the transformative role of reconciliation and recognition in drawing road maps to African future. It argues that a society that is straining due to group centrifugalism needs to promote, through ethics of reconciliation and recognition, formations and processes that trumps up shared instrumental values for social order and sustaining of social life without obliterating differences.