Even though people generally view conflict as a negative thing, it can actually turn out to be a good thing. Conflict is good for stimulating new thoughts, for promoting social change, for defining group relationships, for helping us form our own senses of personal identity, and for many other things we take for granted.
In part, conflict is good because it creates an opportunity to exercise conflict resolution, defined as all formal and informal activities that pertains to a conflict or outsiders undertake in order to limit or reduce the level of violence in conflict, and to achieve some acceptable compromise on the crucial issues in the conflict.
Over the years and across many cultures, women and women-led civil societies have been at the forefront of conflict resolution. “This increasingly positive role of women in arbitrating for peace in their communities led the United Nations Security Council to pass Resolution 1325, on women, peace, and security, in October 2000. Commonly referred to as “1325,” this resolution, among other things, recognizes the remarkable contribution of women to peace and security. “The resolution further stipulates the need for a gender- sensitive approach to conflict prevention and resolution. It also calls for the protection of women in armed conflict. However, long before 1325 was passed, women in rural eastern Nigeria have been at the forefront of maintaining peace and harmony within their communities.
In rural Eastern Nigeria, a cry, “Egbo-o Ho Ho!” sets in motion the process of conflict resolution. Egbo-o-Ho-Ho Ho is an onomatopoeic expression that someone makes when in a fight or in any social conflict considered a great injustice. At the shout, “Egbo-o Ho Ho,” all the women in the community drop whatever it is they are doing and rush to the scene of the incident. All the women are committed to coming out to help any member of the community in distress. Upon arrival, they will inquire from the person who gave the shout what it is all about. “They will then seize some valuable items from the homes of both parties involved in the case and set a date to arbitrate the matter. On the day of the case, the people involved in the conflict appear before the women. “Then, each one states his or her case, and the women will decide who is at fault and whether the shouting of Egbo-o Ho Ho was justifiable in that instance. “They will then place a fine on the offender. Since it is a rural community, the fine is not usually monetary. It could be a goat, or gallons of palm oil, or clothing materials. Where the offender is not able to pay, the women have the liberty to sell the goods belonging to the offender that they had earlier seized. “The funds from the sales will then be used to fund social projects for the community.
I had the privilege, on two occasions, of being in my husband’s village when women had to intervene at the shout of Egbo-o Ho Ho. One such occasion was just after our wedding, when we were back in the village to greet the relations. I heard the cry, and was told I have to go with the women to the place where the call was made. When we arrived there, I saw the woman who made the call. She was disheveled and was obviously in a fight with an older man also present at the scene. “They all soon began to talk excitedly and since I do not speak the Igbo language, I could not understand what it was all about until later. What the women did at this time was just to hear her story, and then fixed a time for the hearing. In this particular case, the father in-law, the older man at the scene accused the woman of trying to kill the child of her husband’s second wife, since she, the woman who mad the call is childless.
Domestic squabbles like this are quite common in polygamous homes, where the husband has two or more wives. My family and I are not resident in ur home country, Nigeria and we only have the opportunity to visit relations once every few years. Yet, we happened upon such cases in about two or four visits. This, it is reasonable to assume that incidents that warrant the cry of “Egbo.o-Ho-Ho” occur fairly regularly in my husband’s village.
Sine conflict is inevitable in social groups, it is important to learn to deal with it effectively. When a group does not have agreed mechanism to deal with conflicts, the tension that builds up, spoken or unspoken, inevitably brings about distancing. “Egbo-o-Ho-Ho” provides this kind of social mechanism for rural communities in which it is practiced.
In urban settings in Nigeria, where the culture is more individualistic rather than communal, this kind of mechanism for dealing with internal conflict is often absent. In such settings social conflicts are usually resolved through government agencies charged with the responsibility.
The importance of such social mechanism as Egbo.o-Ho-Ho for any culture is illustrated by the tragic story of Kitty Genovese. On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was repeatedly raped and eventually murdered outside her home in New York before the fearful gaze of neighbors who looked on from behind their closed windows. This incident helped social psychologists to discover the bystander effect, defined as the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid to someone in need if other bystanders are present. In Kitty Genovese’s case, each neighbor thought the other one was going to help, and in the end, no one did.
Egbo-o Ho Ho, on the other hand, calls every bystander to participate, effectively avoiding the type of tragedy Kitty Genovese experienced. Apart from helping to curb domestic violence and social injustice, Egbo-o-Ho-Ho is a valuable phenomenon in other respects. It elevates the role of women in the community. They are given the respectable roles of adjudicating and peace building in the community, in addition to raising children and being domestic hands. Egbo-o-Ho-Ho also helps to build social responsibility and a sense of belongingness in the community. By rallying together to help each other when in need, all members of the community know they are not on their own. Someone is there looking out for them, and they are also responsible for the well being of others. Furthermore, it helps the women to generate funds for development projects in the community. Urban administrators can learn from rural practices such as the one described above, where the social mechanism for keeping peace lies with the common people in the society. The formal methods of internal conflict resolution employed by the government in urban societies are often made in accessible, financially, for some members of the population to gain access to.
As King Hussein of Jordan often says, “It should never be forgotten that peace resides ultimately not in the hands of governments, but in the hands of the people” Although conflict is often inevitable in any society, it is important to have effective social mechanisms for maintaining internal peace. A cry code, Egbo-o Ho Ho, is helping the women in rural eastern Nigeria to keep peace within their communities as well as generating funds for communal development. Urban administrators could work towards decentralizing the formal and complex methods of crisis resolution by empowering common folks to be each others’ keepers.
Written By: Oyedolapo Anyanwu.
Gordon College.