APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 35 Oil, Politics, and Conflict in the Niger Delta 35 The nonkilling theory presents a four-part approach to political analysis, which includes the need to understand the ‘causes of killing; causes of nonkilling; the causes of transition between killing and nonkilling; and the characteristics of completely killing-free societies’.13 Causation is a key concept in explaining killing, nonkilling, and the transition from killing to nonkilling societies. It is in this regard that the nonkilling theory provides opportunities for understanding the situation in the Niger Delta and exploring the possibility of getting to a nonkilling society there. The concept of nonkilling may have been presented as a novelty in academic research, but as part of moving towards a nonkilling and free global society, Paige encourages sceptical scholars to pose questions in their research using the hypotheses derived from his theory. A review of theoretical literature shows clearly that scholars have tended to conceptualise ‘nonkilling’ in the guise of ‘nonviolence’, and the two are sometimes used synonymously because of the intersection of the two concepts. This was especially so after some of India’s successful experiences with nonviolent struggle, led by Mohandas Gandhi and his followers, against oppression and injustice. As Joám Evans Pim notes,‘the underlying ideas behind nonkilling are not new’.14 For example, in many respects, some religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, are rooted in nonkilling; their long histories suggest that nonkilling is as old as they are. Pim argues that nonkilling and nonviolence arose mutually in historical moments as strategies for social change. Regardless, western scholars prefer nonviolence to nonkilling, perhaps because ‘it is better suited to the western intellectual taste to abstract concepts’. Howard Thurman is quoted by Pim as arguing that nonkilling and nonviolence mean the same thing.15 Since publication of Nonkilling Global Political Science, some scholars have perceived nonviolence as a key concept of nonkilling.16 Others have responded affirmatively to Paige’s questioning of whether a global nonkilling society is possible. For instance, Leslie Sponsel writes from the background of anthropology, laying out extensive scientific data on existing societies that have lived peacefully, without killing, throughout history.17 Towards a Nonkilling Filipino Society (2004) is perhaps the first effort by a group of scholars to focus attention on the nonkilling concept or theory.18 This volume attempts to justify the idea of nonkilling as a possible framework for research, analysis, and action by applying it to a specific society. The relevance of the theory addressed here draws from and hinges on the growing scholarship of nonkilling political analyses. It seeks to assess the extent to which oil and politics contributed to killing between 1990 and 2010 in the Niger Delta, the contexts for nonkilling there, and the potential for a transition from killing to nonkilling going forward. 13. Ibid., 72. 14. Joám Evans Pim, ‘Introduction’ in Joám Evans Pim (ed.), Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm (Honolulu, Center for Global Nonkilling, 2009), 13, www.nonkilling.org/pdf/volume_toward.pdf. 15. Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit (Richmond, Indiana, Friends United Press, 1963), in ibid., 14. 16. See Natalia M. L. M. Morales, ‘A nonkilling society is definitely possible in the Philippines’ in Jose V. Abueva (ed.), Towards a Nonkilling Filipino Society: Developing an Agenda for Research, Policy and Action (Marikina City, Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Foundation and Kalayaan College at Riverbanks, 2004), 79. 17. Leslie E. Sponsel, ‘Reflections on the possibilities of a nonkilling society’, in Pim, Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm, 35–73. 18. See note 16.