ABSTRACT
As shown in Chapter 1, the Darfur crisis is a conflict among ethnic, tribal, and cultural/regional groups. Probing into its sources, the crisis raises many questions about the causes, conditions, and consequences of violent conflicts in general. For example: why do some communities address their grievances with others through violent means? Why do some groups—ethnic, religious, nationalistic—respond to outside threats, whether real or imaginary, with an intensity that seems disproportionate to the circumstance (often setting in motion a tumult that spirals out of control and engulfs large segments of the civilian population in its wake)? Why do so many of these conflicts seem immune to resolution after peacebuilding efforts from within and outside of the conflict regions? Conversely, why do other communities address their grievances with their neighbors through peaceful means, forestalling the potentially damaging impact of a skirmish, threat, or act of injustice, and in so doing, avoiding the downward spiral of enmity that so often engulfs large segments of the population of both groups?
