VIOLENCE

Jivan Florin

VIOLENCE

Violence is the aggressive behaviour showcased by an individual. The dictionary

defines it as, "the intentional use of power or physical force, threatened or actual,
against oneself, another person or against a group or community that either results
in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation." This is a comprehensive definition of violence and very
well describes all the related aspects of violence.

Violence is an expression of aggression. There can be various reasons that cause this
kind of behaviour. Various unfavourable social situations or circumstances in life
affect an individual. The reaction to those situations is variable. Those who are short
tempered or unable to cope with the changing environment find it hard to behave
rationally. This frustration comes out in the form of anger and violent behaviour.
Though, environmental factors are responsible but only to an extent. Psychologists
believe that violent traits are inherent in nature. Hence genetic make-up does play a
role.

Violence is of several kinds. One can exhibit violence in physical, Psychological, or

sexual form or simply by neglecting someone to the point of deprivation. The extent
of violence ranges from self, to family and friends, to community and the largest
expression is the entire war situation between and/ or within the nations. Violence
has affected civilizations. It is evident from the historical facts that wars that are the
epitome of violence have ruined millions of lives. Those who resort to violence justify
their action by citing various reasons but in the end it is only the personal perception
that leads to such kind of behaviour.

Interpersonal Conflict and

Violence

In a very real sense, interpersonal conflict is the stuff of

life.
Interpersonal conflict truly is everywhere. We have road
rage on suburban highways, battles of the bands, disputes
between neighbors over property lines, arguments
between workers and bosses. The list goes on and on.
Some interpersonal conflict is a micro-level version of the
international and national disputes which are the focus of
this knowledge base. In other words, flight, fight, and unite
are the options we have in facing any intractable conflict.
Interpersonal and international conflict are not the same,
of course. However, in some ways it is easier to prevent
international conflict from turning violent because
collective decisions have to be made, often by hundreds of
people.
Not surprisingly, individuals can have their greatest
impact in the ways that interpersonal conflicts unfold.
Unlike national or international conflicts which are decided
at sites distant from London, England, New London, Conn.,
or New London, South Africa, these erupt and are best
solved as close to "home" as possible.
Some interpersonal conflict is a micro-level version of the
international and national disputes which are the focus of
this knowledge base. In other words, flight, fight, and unite
are the options we have in facing any intractable conflict.
Interpersonal and international conflict are not the same,
of course. However, in some ways it is easier to prevent
international conflict from turning violent because
collective decisions have to be made, often by hundreds of
people.

War

There have been between 20 and 40 wars going on around the

world. Since 1945, almost all of them have occurred in the Third
World and almost all of them have been extremely bloody in large
part because they are fought over race, religion, ethnicity, or
language, which can bring out the worst in people and have led to
some of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen.

Until recently, most political scientists defined war as an armed

confrontation between two internationally recognized states that
resulted in a certain number of deaths on the battlefield, typically
1,000 per year. Since the end of World War II, however, almost all
wars have been civil wars fought largely within a single country
and pitting the state against its domestic enemies. And with the
launch of the war against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks, we
are engaged in a fight that is not confined to a single region and
includes a party that has no desire to gain control of any particular
state. In short, we have had to expand what we mean by war to
include all systematic political violence in which at least one of the
parties is a sovereign state.

By that definition, there have about 14,500 wars which claimed

the lives of at least 3.5 billion people throughout recorded history.
Depending on where one sets the threshold for the number of
deaths, there have been between 224 and 560 wars since 1816.

Wars have also gotten a lot bloodier. Three hundred years ago,
most wars were fought by poorly armed and poorly trained
soldiers. Relatively few people died, especially in the civilian
population. The industrial revolution, however, "modernized"
warfare with the creation and spread of such lethal weapons as
the machine gun, airplanes and missiles laden with bombs, and, of
course, weapons of mass destruction. Well over100 million people
died in the20th century's wars. Some of them were so-called
"quiet crises" because they did not get much coverage in the
western media, including the 1990s civil war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) which took 2.5 million lives.

Terrorism

Terrorism has taken on new importance for most people since the attacks
on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in the suburbs of
Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2001. In three daring attacks using
airliners (as well as a fourth that failed when passengers forced the plane
to crash land), terrorists took ten times more lives than they had in any
previous incident in the U.S. and did so in a manner so audacious that it
shocked virtually everyone around the world.

But, terrorism is not new. Historians debate when the first instance of
terrorism occurred. However, it was no later than the 1790s, when the
revolutionary government in France used the term to refer to the way they
treated members of the nobility and clergy as well as others who opposed
their regime.

Scholars also disagree about what terrorism actually entails, as the cliche,
"one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" suggests. As the
Council on Foreign Relations' Terrorism Question and Answer project has
put it, most definitions of terrorism include the following:
It involves premeditated violence aimed at civilians and designed to
provoke fear in a much broader target population.
It is political and not criminal in nature.
One of the most widely cited lists of terrorist organizations compiled by
the United States State Department listed 31 such groups in 2001. Some,
such as al Qaeda or the Real IRA (which broke from the main IRA when the
latter supported the talks which led to the Good Friday Accords of 1998)
unquestionably belong on any such list. Others are more problematic,
including the Israeli Kach, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the
GAM movement seeking independence for Aceh from Indonesia.

Finally, deciding who is a terrorist is complicated by the fact that many

states are involved. The United States government, for instance, has long
complained about state-sponsored terrorism, actions by its adversaries,
which, it claims, support the activity of the groups on its annual list of
terrorist organizations. However, there are those who argue that some
American allies, including Israel today, the United Kingdom during the
height of "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, and South Africa during the
apartheid years all engaged in activities that smacked of terrorism.

Suicide Bombers

History has revealed that terrorists are capable of carrying out bold and
destructive acts that at first glance appear to be unexplainable. What kind of
person would sacrifice his or her own life in order to kill innocent people?
What could possibly motivate a young person to become a suicide bomber?

In the wake of many tragic events, it can be difficult to analyze objectively

the causes and processes leading up to them. For many, understanding the
motives behind suicide bombing comes dangerously close to excusing or
approving it. It may seem easier just to assume that the people involved are
"evildoers" or "callous fanatics delighting in the carnage they have created."
[1] Any extreme measures taken against them will be regarded, not simply
as appropriate and justified, but as obligatory. However, terrorism is not a
simple phenomenon with easy explanations. Although many people cite
"evil" as a prime motivator, there seems to be no single, complete theory
about what brings about such behavior. Usually a wide variety of motives
and causal factors are involved.

Unsurprisingly, many people have attempted to understand suicide bombing

in terms of the abnormality of the individuals responsible. However, if only
those with some kind of psychopathology could be terrorists, terrorism would
not be the large problem that it is. Research shows no indication that
terrorists are crazy or psychopathic or that they lack moral feelings.
Most terrorists are not psychologically deviant and do not operate outside
the normal rules of behavior, but are instead ordinary people from
unremarkable backgrounds. In fact, research indicates that terrorists tend to
have considerable insight into their own actions and are aware of how others
view them.
They believe that their violent actions, while somewhat regrettable, are
justified and noble. Moreover, their emotional commitment to their cause
and comrades is indicative of normal human psychology. Often their actions
do not ultimately stem from hatred, but rather from love of their own group
and culture that they believe is threatened and requires protection.

It is important to note at the outset that the use of the term 'suicide' to
characterize these attacks reflects an outsider's view. Those who commit or
advocate such attacks do not regard them as acts of suicide, but rather as
acts of martyrdom. While suicide is associated with hopelessness and
depression, the actions of the bombers are seen as a matter of heroism and
honor.

War Crimes

The concept and issue of war crimes are both relatively new. Of course, inhuman acts have been committed in wars throughout
history. However, it was only with the Holocaust and other genocidal atrocities of World War II that politicians, lawyers, and
average citizens alike began to think of some of the horrors of war as crimes for which perpetrators could be held legally
accountable.

Before then, individual soldiers could be tried for individual crimes such as rape or murder. However, it was only when political
and military leaders began to systematically target large civilian groups because of their nationality, ethnicity, gender, or
religion that we began to see the necessity of holding political leaders accountable for their political decisions in a court of law.

It has long been considered acceptable for the victors to try the leaders of defeated countries for violations of international law
after the completion of a war. However, it has only been in the last century and a half that rules and procedures for doing so
have begun to be codified and regularized. The first major step came with the development of the Geneva Conventions for the
treatment of prisoners of war, civilians, and others during combat. The Conventions were largely written by the International
Committee of the Red Cross and have been ratified by many, though not all, states. They continue to be updated, most recently
to include civil as well as international wars.

The other major turning point came at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of leading German and Japanese officials after World War
II. The Nuremberg Trials were particularly important because they made steps toward defining what is meant by crimes against
peace ("planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties") and
against humanity ("murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian
population before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds").Those precedents were later
approved by the General Assembly of United Nations and are now considered to be part of the main body of international law.
After the systematic use of rape by Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia in the first half of the 1990s, it was added to the list of crimes.

There is, unfortunately, a considerable lack of clarity in these and other definitions, which have been offered for war crimes.
First, there has been a very definite reluctance on the part of the international community to prosecute war crimes that either
fall below a certain undefined magnitude or to even consider those that receive little or no coverage in the Western press.
Second, as has been the case throughout history, it has proven all but impossible to hold victors accountable for alleged war
crimes. Thus, there have been credible accusations against the United States for its bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis
in 1999 and for the impact of its sanctions on Iraq since the Gulf War of 1991. Similarly, many critics accuse Israel of violating
international law in its continued occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and its more general treatment of Palestinians.
What's more, the prosecution of war crimes is highly controversial. Tens of millions of civilians lost their lives in fighting
beginning with the Second World War, most of them on "religious, racial, or political grounds." Yet, there were only four war
crimes tribunals convened between 1945 and the end of the century. The first two tried the leaders of Germany and Japan. The
others were created to prosecute alleged perpetrators of genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

War crimes

Genocide

Genocide is generally defined as the intentional extermination

of a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group. Compared with
war crimes and crimes against humanity, genocide is generally
regarded as the most offensive crime. At worst, genocide pits
neighbor against neighbor, or even husband against wife.
Unlike war, where the attack is general and the object is often
the control of a geographical or political region, genocide
attacks an individual's identity, and the object is control -- or
complete elimination -- of a group of people.
The history of genocide in the 20th century includes:
the 1915 genocide of Armenians by Turks;
the attempted extermination of European Jews by Nazis during
World War II;
the widespread genocide in Cambodia during the 1970s;
the "ethnic cleansing "in Kosovo by Serbs during the 1990s;
the killing of Tutsis by Rwandan Hutus in 1994.
Since 1948, the United Nations has defined genocide as "acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.
Actions included in this definition are:
Killing members of a group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group;
Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Notice that in the U.N. definition, murder is not the only way to
destroy a group. For example, the recent Australian practice of
forcibly removing biracial Aborigine children from their parents
could be classified as genocide, since the goal of this practice
was to assimilate the children into mainstream Australian
culture, and thus slowly erode the Aborigine culture and
population.

Refugees

Refugees are people who leave their homes in order to seek safety, or
refuge. In general, people become refugees to flee violence, economic
disparity, repression, natural disasters, and other harsh living and
working conditions. In the context of intractable conflict, refugees are
those who flee from inevitable, often long-term violence and other
difficult living conditions brought on by the conflict. The United Nations
more narrowly defines refugees as "persons who are outside their
country and cannot return owing to a well-founded fear of persecution
because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or
membership in a particular social group."
Though all people who flee conflict can be called refugees, refugee
agencies commonly distinguish between refugees and internally
displaced persons (IDPs) to decide who is covered by international law
and receives assistance and who doesn't. For the most part, little
assistance reaches a person fleeing a conflict until he or she crosses
an international border. The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), established in 1950, distinguishes refugees and
IDPs this way: "When a fleeing civilian crosses an international frontier,
he or she becomes a refugee and as such is eligible to receive
international protection and help. If a person in similar circumstances
is displaced within his or her home country and becomes an internally
displaced person, then assistance and protection is much more
difficult."
On Jan. 1, 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
estimated that there were more than 12 million refugees in the world.
[4] This number of refugees has remained relatively constant at
greater than 10 million since 1981. Some refugees have been living in
camps for most of their lives. For example, Afghans have lived in
camps in Pakistan and Iran since the early 1980s when the Soviet
Union invaded their nation. While some return each year to resettle,
almost equal numbers leave to escape new regional fighting. The
number of Afghan refugees living abroad now stands at over 3.5
million.
Currently, Asia hosts nearly 50 percent of the world's refugee
population, with Africa and Europe both hosting just over 20 percent.
Ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, central Africa (Angola, Sudan,
Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi), and Bosnia-Herzegovina
have either created new refugees or prevented refugees from
returning home in 2001. Each of these countries now has over 400,000
refugees living abroad, with Afghanistan having at least seven times
more than any other.

Humiliation

A leading researcher on humiliation, Dr. Evelin Lindner, defines humiliation

as "the enforced lowering of a person or group, a process of subjugation that
damages or strips away their pride, honor or dignity." Further, humiliation
means to be placed, against ones will, in a situation where one is made to
feel inferior. "One of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is
that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless." Johan
Galtung, a leading practitioner, agrees with Lindner that the infliction of
humiliation is a profoundly violent psychological act that leaves the victim
with a deep wound to the psyche.

Historically, maintaining hierarchical societies meant that elites scrupulously

guarded their honor against attempts to soil or humiliate it, while some form
of more or less institutionalized humiliation was part of the reality for the
lower echelons of a community. As long as such a reality is accepted as the
norm, and it is believed that this structure helps to achieve and maintain
common societal goals, the system is considered acceptable. Though some
people in lower ranks may wish to be on a higher level, they do not view the
system itself as flawed. By contrast, in societies such as Somalia, with its
non-hierarchical egalitarian clan structures, Lindner's research shows that
attempts to humiliate people are fervently resented, at least by the males of
the major clan families. The more egalitarian a society, be it pre-hierarchical
or post hierarchical, Lindner asserts, the less use there is for institutionalized
humiliation, particularly as a way to maintain order, and the less acceptable
it is.

Lindner's research on humiliation and the effect of humiliation on groups is

related to her segmentation of human history into three phases of
development and her categorization of the ideal types of human societies
that can be found in these stages. Most relevant here is the connection
between humiliation, conflict, and the human rights revolution.[5] When
subordinate groups become aware of human rights values and adopt them
into their value system, they reframe their formerly accepted subordination
as humiliating circumstances that can no longer be deemed to be
acceptable. In other words, when people redefine their situation and
interpret formerly "normal" subjugation as structural violence, they begin to
clash with the system. This clash can translate into violence. This can occur
gradually, or a sudden change in power can lead to immediate devastating
violence.

Humiliation, Trauma, and

Victimhood

What is the difference between humiliation, trauma, and victimhood?

The answer is both simple and complex. One may be traumatized without being humiliated. For
example, one's home may be destroyed by an earthquake, in which the victim may be devastated
and traumatized but not humiliated. This differs from the situation in which soldiers kick someone
out of their home in the middle of the night and bulldoze it or set the home on fire. This latter
case exemplifies the use of humiliation as a weapon by some people upon other people. More
still, one may even be a victim of violence without feeling humiliated. The difference between
feeling humiliated or not in these cases may depend on the subjective framing of the situation by
each person involved when violence is perceived as accidental and non-intentional, similar to
natural disaster, it may not be felt as humiliation. Importantly, the more a victim is aware of
human rights values, the more likely they are to feel humiliated. When one is acted upon in a way
that undermines one's sense of equal dignity, as it is enshrined in human rights, the psychological
damage of humiliation is being inflicted. It is this damage that is particularly hard to recover and
heal from. Lindner believes that humiliation is the necessary concept for defining victimhood as
"victimhood" and as such has to be considered as the key ingredient that makes conflict
comprehensible and thus preventable and manageable. According to Lindner, "victimhood at the
hands of fellow human beings must entail the notion of humiliation, otherwise it would not be
seen as victimhood but as pro-social event or natural disaster."

Solutions: Violence

I think I have an excellent solution to end violence in our communities. First of all, people have to
care! I mean, how is anything going to get done if no one takes the time to help? I hear people
saying that the violence is getting out of hand, but yet they do nothing to help. It makes me sick to
think about it.
Second, parents should talk to their kids about violence; they should set an example for them. If
our generation knows what's right, and does something good to help the situation, then our
children will have a better world to live in.
Finally, we should take this situation with violence seriously. I feel, and this is my opinion, that no
one is taking this problem seriously. I mean, some people actually make violence into a joke.
Doesn't anyone realize that today's children are seeing this and are getting the idea that violence
is good? This is wrong! I personally do not want my children to grow up in a world that is full of
violence, and I'm sure that there are other people who agree that something should be done, but
yet no one does.
All I'm asking is for everyone to take a good look at our world, and see how violence has distorted
our way of life, and maybe then something can be done. ?