International Conflicts: Contemporary World Issues

Francisco Luchessa

Contemporary World Issues

Prof. Mrs. Diann Aikey

7/20/2015

Project: Semester Project Part I – The Roots of Conflict  50 points

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Irish National Liberation Army Mural referring to the hunger strike.

Think about some of the conflicts that we hear about in the news every day. Have you ever thought about how they started? We have already learned about the roots of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Their conflict has religious roots. When studying the former division between East and West Germany, we examined the conflicting philosophy behind communism and capitalism. Decisions about resource allocation can also divide people.

In the previous unit you overviewed many conflicts.  In this assignment you will research two of the following three conflicts, and then compare and contrast the root causes of each conflict. Present your findings in the form of a multimedia presentation, research paper, video, or podcast.  Then design a chart to illustrate the similarities and differences in the root causes of the two conflicts.

Choose two of the following conflicts to research and compare:

• Northern Ireland
• The Balkans
• Nigeria

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Nigeria Conflict

Nigeria has been wracked by periodic episodes of violence for decades. The country's 150 million people are divided about equally between Christians and Muslims and further splintered into about 250 tribes. Jos, some 300 miles north of Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, sits smack-dab in the center of Nigeria's tumultuous "middle belt," a so-called cultural fault line that divides the country's Muslim north from the Christian south. The "middle belt" is a melting pot where the major ethnic groups of Nigeria — Hausa-Fulani Muslims and Yoruba and Igbo Christians — usually coexist peacefully but sometimes collide.

Roots

Many Nigerians argue that the real reason for the violence isn't ethnic or religious differences but the scramble for land, scarce resources and political clout. Poverty, joblessness and corrupt politics drive extremists from both sides to commit horrendous atrocities. Although the nation rakes in billions of dollars in oil revenue annually, the majority of Nigerians scrape by on less than a dollar a day. In Plateau State, where Jos is located, Muslim cattle herders from the north and Christian farmers from the south vie for control of the fertile plains. That poor distribution of wealth has also sparked conflict in Nigeria's oil-rich southern Delta region, where militants lobbying for a greater share of oil revenue regularly blow up pipelines and kidnap foreign oil workers