SUSTAINING THE CULTURE OF PARTICIPATION AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE THROUGH THE INCLUSIVIST APPROACH TO DIVERSITY

Abstract

The concept of diversity expresses a situation, in which different components constitute a whole in a uniquely different manner. It could also be described as a condition of affairs in which entities such as peoples, races, or cultures manifest varying degrees of differences and identities. Two broad ways of understanding diversity are easily distinguishable. Diversity could be understood in terms of exclusivity or better still, it could be understood in terms of inclusivity. When understood in exclusivist terms, diversity becomes a problem because vital aspects of reality are decreed out of recognition and attention, only because they fail the test of familiarity. But when understood in inclusivist terms, diversity becomes a blessing as it then allows unfettered access of all persons and groups to discourse, participation, care and attention. Most crisis bedeviling modern societies in the social and political realms has its root in the exclusivist dimension to diversity. Accordingly, the aim of this essay is to interrogate the concept of diversity with the objective of demonstrating that it is only when understood through inclusivist terms that it can become a tool for peace building. The method most suitable for this kind of analysis is phenomenology, which teaches that reality should be allowed to manifest itself as it truly is.