Applying conversational thinking to the problem of xenophobia in multicultural societies

Multicultural societies are faced with the problem of xenophobia – the fear, dislike, and discrimination against strangers. Xenophobia has its root in the ontology of ‘the self’ and ‘the other’, where ‘the self’” is ‘the indigenes’ and ‘the other,’ ‘the strangers’, who must be denied the privileges and rights of the indigenes and the opportunity to contribute towards the development of their societies. In this paper, I employ conversational thinking – a method and philosophy grounded in the sub-Saharan African notion of ‘relationship’ as a viable theoretical option that can help us live beyond the problem of xenophobia. In conversational thinking, there are two ontological and epistemic agents, nwa-nsa and nwa-nju, involved in an arumaristic relationship at an ontological point, nwa-izugbe. I ground my argument in this ‘arumaristic relationship’ which allows for nwa-nsa taken as ‘the self’ (indigenes) and nwa-nju, ‘the other’ (strangers) to come to the realm of nwa-izugbe, and exhibit nmeko (complementarity and solidarity). I contend that the notion ‘nmeko’, emphasized in conversational thinking, is key to putting xenophobia in the past since it stresses ‘arumaristic complementary relationship’ irrespective of socio-cultural and racial differences among people.