APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 93 Darfur, Grand Conflict: Inter-Communal Rift and Grass-root Initiatives 93 ciety has been brought into the picture to open a channel for bottom-up communication, the opening has been subordinated to national machinations. RECONCILIATION: RELEVANT CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES The term grassroots refers to the ordinary members of society at the local level (that is, excluding elites at the center of politics).14 The term top down refers to a situation in which decisions are made by a few in authority, rather than the collective of people affected by the decisions.15 The term bottom up identifies a process in which the grassroots make decisions on matters affecting their lives or communicate their needs to those in power to influence their decisions. In Darfur, pastoralists refers to tribes whose members might occasionally practice some farming but primarily depend on raising sheep, goats, cattle, and camels in herds that require moving regularly in search of pasture and water. The term peasant farmers refers to village dwellers of African descent involved in farming who have access to land, use family labor to produce food for domestic consumption, and grow some cash crops for sale to earn money. As a word, reconciliation means reestablishing cordial relations or getting two things to correspond. In socio-economic and political discourse, reconciliation is a complex, multifaceted concept open to different connotations depending on context. In the case of Darfur, reconciliation could refer to the process of reconnecting previously involved parties who no longer have cordial relations. Thus reconciliation, in a socio-political context could be defined as ‘restoring friendship and harmony between the rival sides after conflict resolution, or transforming relations of hostility and resentment to friendly and harmonious ones’.16 A transformed relationship, in this sense, could be understood as the product of a transition from social or inter-communal relations fractured by conflict to renewed and restored relations. For reconciliation to materialize in this situation, five requisite principles must be satisfied: restored mutual trust; relationships based on the present rather than the past; cooperative community engagement; changes in behavior and attitudes; and structural transformation.17 Reconciliation can occur at the community, national, and personal levels. At the community level, reconciliation is normally between different groups—that is, collectives of people who identify with each other based on a common racial, religious, ethnic, or other distinguishing characteristic—living in a particular area.18 National-level reconciliation refers to a macro approach that places more emphasis on elite groups (for example, political parties and movements) and the politics of governing than on individuals and communities. 14. Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia, www.thefreedictionary.com/grassroots. 15. Adapted from Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british /top-down. 16. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, ‘Introduction: Why reconciliation?’ in Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (ed.), From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004), 4, as quoted in Franklin Oduro, ‘A review of the literature on reconciliation: What do we understand by “reconciliation”? Emerging definitions of reconciliation in the context of transitional justice’, final draft, 2007, 29, www.idrc.ca/ uploads/user-S/11776890581A_Review_of_the_Lit._on_Reconciliation(final_draft).doc. 17. Ibid., 29. 18. Ibid., 28.