How Does Conflict Cause Conflict

For a country to attain peace and harmony, it is essential to possess mutual respect and understanding between all different groups, regardless of language, race or religion. Without these aspects, it is more susceptible towards creating tension, giving rise to conflicts. Often, it is due to the difference in beliefs that may lead to conflicts arising. Belief can be defined in various ways such as ideology, religion and philosophy. Different beliefs refer to the conflict between values of different religion, ideology, etc. Conflicting beliefs are very likely to result in disagreements, which causes tension and ultimately resulting in conflict. Many countries have been involved in violent conflicts, such as Rwanda and Sri Lanka. If the government

These policies that the government implemented were acts of discrimination against the minority group, giving rise to tensions in the country, resulting in the 27-year long civil conflict in Sri Lanka. Ergo, it is of utmost importance that the government grants everybody equal opportunities and status in society to prevent tensions and conflicts between different groups of people in the country. Regardless of race, religion and ethnicity, government should not be biased towards or against any group and treat everybody

One such example is Singapore. The communal riots of 1964 refer to two separate series of race riots involving clashes between Malays and Chinese that occurred in Singapore when it was part of the Federation of Malaysia. The first series of riots started on 21 July during a Muslim procession held to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. The second series of riots broke out on 2 September after a Malay trishaw rider was killed in Geylang Serai. The conflict rose between the People’s Action Party (PAP) government in Singapore and the Alliance Party government in Malaysia led by the United Malays National Organisation (UNMO). Many articles in the “Utasan Melayu” newspaper which was owned by the UNMO wrote misleading articles, implying that Malays were treated as a second class citizen in Singapore. UNMO created suspicion and hatred amongst the Malays that their religion, language and culture were being threatened. The Malays were unhappy and believed that they should be the superior race due to the backing of Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Chinese in Singapore believed in equality, regardless or language or religion. Hence, this gave rise to increasing tensions between the Chinese and Malays in Singapore, which led to the communal riots in