ABSTRACT
With the growing proliferation of ethnic sensibility and resentment, one seriously questions what ethnic difference would entail for the politics of the state and relations of enmity in Africa. As it is home to anthropologically diverse ethno-linguistic groups, Africa demonstrates a peculiar proclivity to ethnic-based contentions. In most parts of Africa, there are already signs of increasing unmanageability of ethnic diversity, manifesting in ethnic cleansing and states of war, turning African societies as societies of ethnic hostility. Such situation demonstrates the practical exigency to engage with and to develop a rejoinder to “The Society of Ethnic Enmity,” which poses a challenge to multiethnic togetherness. Africans should give attention to the cultural processes at the inter-subjective level of society, as the cultural intersects with and supplements the structural. Recognizing ethnic others is at the core of cultural and religious traditions across Africa; nonetheless, they are not adequately harnessed by political agents.
