Violence is the most important factor in politics; particularly in bringing about change, and is necessary when non-violence is no longer an option and the good or idea, which is being debated over, or some object held in the balance of the stated idea is worth dying over. Our history is dotted with violence. Our forefathers used violence to secure land, spread ideas, and gain power. At times, violence as a threat is enough to create turmoil amongst nations, to insight a spark of revolution, and to maintain peace and diplomacy. With that in mind, the actions of non-violent demonstrators can also lead to revolution; as was the case in the peaceful tactics practiced by Reverend Martin Luther King jr. during the civil rights movement and of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his demonstrations, which lead to India’s independence. Still violence is a much more common practice than non-violence, and has played a significantly larger part in our history when compared to the role of non-violence in our history.
Violence has served two main purposes in human history. Those uses would be acquiring goods and ideas, and keeping said goods and ideas. These are two of the main reasons why violence is so often resorted to, both in the past, and in modern society. Historically violence has been used both by individuals and groups of people. The Hatfield McCoy Feud is a prime example of how a small group of people (the McCoys) who after failing to get what they viewed they deserved from another part (the Hatfields) used violence to try and solve their problem.
Violence being used to protect an idea is most obvious in disputes between religions and economic systems. Religion is possibly the best example of how the dispute over an idea can turn violent, case and point holy wars and inquisitions. During a “holy war” (sometimes referred to as a “Crusade” or a “Jihad”) followers of one sect or religion wage war with the followers of another sect or religion, the irony is that many of these religions that fight amongst each other are religions that preach peace and love for one’s fellow man. We’ve seen this in the past with the “Holy Crusades” of the Middle Ages, during which hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims senselessly slaughtered one another over the holy city of Jerusalem. In an Inquisition however it is merely when a dominant religion or sect oppresses another religion or sect such as in the Spanish inquisition when Catholics senselessly tortured and murdered thousands of Jews.
Perhaps the most common type of violence that occurs due to religion is a crusade. The Catholic encyclopedia defines crusades as “expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny,” however a non-biased definition of a crusade would simply be a holy war in sighted by one religious group against another religious in order to claim or reclaim something. The first Christian crusade was launched in Ten Ninety-Five A.D. by the Catholic Church under the administration of Pope Urban the second. The motivation for this crusade is widely believed to be reclaiming of the “holy land” of Jerusalem as well as freeing the eastern Christians from Islamic rule, however there is also evidence that suggests that the Muslim control of Jerusalem had a negative impact on European trade with Asian countries, and what was bad for Europe’s economy was bad for the Catholic Church’s economy. Between Ten Ninety-Five A.D. and Twelve Seventy-Two A.D. there were nine crusades.
In Islamic culture there exists a term known as a “Jihad.” The term Jihad translates roughly into “struggle” or “strive” however many Muslims, Jews, and Christians in our modern society view it as another term for “Holy War.” This definition is due to the long history of violent actions committed by radical Muslims as a type of “Jihad.” These actions include suicide bombings that have occurred in most areas of the world, but are primarily concentrated in Israel, particularly in and around the immediate area of the holy city of Jerusalem. The reason for these disturbing acts of violence is the fast that Jerusalem holds several holy places that are amongst the most sacred in the Muslim culture, such as The Dome of The Rock, as well as places that are sacred in both Christianity and Judaism.
Holy Wars that occur within religious groups can be equally devastating. Examples of this can be seen all throughout Christianity and Islam. Christianity in particular has had a very famous dispute amongst its sects. This conflict was known as The Thirty years’ War. The Thirty Years’ War was a religious dispute that occurred between the Protestant and Catholic churches as a result of their conflicting views. It lasted from Sixteen Eighteen A.D. and Sixteen Forty-Eight A.D. and as a result of this war the German states lost over thirty percent of their overall population. With that being said these lives were lost over petty differences, such as the need for a pope, and the need for communion.
This also leads me into two other types of violence that is committed in the name of a deity, religious persecution and ethnic cleansing. In both religious persecution and ethnic cleansing people are murdered because of their affiliation with a particular believe system or ethnicity. There is an abundance of examples of religious persecution, one of them being the persecution of the early Christians by the Greco-Roman Pagans (the Olympians). During this period (particularly during the reign of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus) Christians were beaten, thrown to wild animals (Lions in particular), and executed in such grotesque manners such as crucifixion and public drowning. Ironically though, the Christians would end up persecuting millions of pagans (mainly the Odinites and the Celts) for not worshipping the Christian god. Eventually, when Christianity split, Christians of differing sects turned on each other. The first major split in Christianity paved the way for hundreds of millions of assaults and deaths that go on to this day.
Ethnic Cleansing is an equally serious issue. While this has less to do with the role of religion in violence it does have a lot to do with the murder and degradation of a smaller group of people by a larger group. Often times ethnic cleansing is based on genealogy or traits common to a culture, however there are times when an ethnic cleansing is based on these factors and a set of beliefs associated with a certain religion of sect of a religion. We say this happen when the Sunni Muslims decided to “cleanse” Iraq of the Shi’a Muslims in the early nineteen nineties.
Recently (roughly within the last hundred years) violence, or at least the threat of violence, has occurred due to differing views on how countries should manage their economic systems. The question of “Capitalism or Communism” has been a major issue since The Russian Revolution of Nineteen Seventeen. During this conflict the idea of communism and autocratic socialism went toe-to-toe in a bloody revolution that lead to the Czar (the Russian equivalent to an emperor), and his family being violently and mercilessly murdered. Communism was quickly established by the leaders of the Bolsheviks (the political party which favored Communism), and following the second world war the worlds capitalist powers, headed by the United States of America (U.S.A.), and the worlds communist powers, headed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R. or “Russia”) went into what is referred to as a “Cold War.”
This is an important concept to understand in order for one to comprehend the importance of violence in history, because as a pose to these “Superpowers” directly assaulting one another they merely attempted to deter one another. This adds a new dimension to the argument over whether or not violence is really needed for the protection of an idea or not, because the fear of violence is enough to protect an idea until that idea loses favor amongst those who once agreed with it. That is precisely what happened during The Cold War. For the most part there was no direct fighting between the United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, however when communism fell out of favor with the majority of Russia’s population the communist system was replaced with a capitalist one. With that being said there were still conflicts between communist nations and capitalist nations. The Korean War and The Vietnam War stand as testament to these facts, however deterrence is a factor which must be examined in order to better understand the nature of violence politics.
The Korean War was a conflict that was sparked by The Cold War in which the political and economic ideals of one nation conflicted with the political and economic ideals of a group of other nations. As a result of these differing views between The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the capitalist powers of the world (Primarily France, Britain, and The United States of America) The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics began offering support to any nation that operated as a communist state. I think it’s needless to say that this did not sit well amongst the capitalist powers. They soon began to offer up similar promises of assistance; naturally this caused many newly formed nations civil unrest, which in many cases turned into civil war. The Korean War was one of these wars that broke out. The Korean War Started on July twenty-fifth nineteen fifty, and it occurred because of a dispute over how the country should be run. The northern portion of Korea (led by Kim Il-Sung) wanted to become a communist power, and receive aid from the other communist nations that neighbored them (China and The Soviet Union), meanwhile the southern portion withed to become a capitalist state. Because of the nature of this dispute, both communist power (Russia and China) and capitalist powers (The U.K. and U.S.A. primarily) came to arm and support the side that supported their respective views.
After three year of bloodshed the respective sides came to a ceasefire agreement (July twenty-seventh nineteen fifty-three) that ended the war in Korea. With that being said conflict still occurs within the “Demilitarized Zone” (also known as the DMZ) of Korean (which exists along the border between North Korea and South Korea). South Korea, and specifically The “Demilitarized Zone” still have troops for The United States supporting them, despite the fact that the war has been over since nineteen fifty-three. This war is important though, not because of the effect it had on a small East Asian nation, but its role in national politics.
The Korean War is often referred to as the first “limited war.” A “limited war” is a war in which two or more powerful nations fight within the territory of another nation, which forces the inhabitants of that nation to suffer the majority of the damages and mortality caused by a conflict occurring between the larger nations involved in said conflict. A much more controversial and publicized example of a “limited war” is The Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War was a conflict that took place in the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam from nineteen fifty-nine until April thirtieth nineteen seventy-five. It was fought due to the political differences between the North Vietnamese (headed by their communist leader Ho Chi Minh) and the South Vietnamese (Capitalist). The Vietnam War, like The Korean War, was fought not only amongst the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese, but also between The Communist and Capitalist Powers. This war did differ though in that the press that it received by a Post-McCarthy era American media was less than flattering.
The press showed the horrors of this war. All of the atrocities; the manslaughter, the rape, the fragrant disregard for human life became apparent to the American public, and as a result an anti-war movement swept across The United States. With that said this was not the first anti-war movement in the history of The United States, however it was, by far, the largest. The anti-war movement continued throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies, until the American troops were withdrawn in nineteen seventy-five. Following the withdrawal of the militaries of foreign capitalist nations supporting The South Vietnamese, The North Vietnamese took over all of Vietnam, making it a communist power.
“Keeping the peace” would be another example of keeping goods and ideas safe. “Keeping the peace” refers to when an individual or a group of individuals try to maintain or create a sense of order in order to protect themselves and/or their property and/or way of life. This is a broad term that is often used by authority figures to maintain an oppressive hold on a group of people who hold less authority. “Keeping the peace” was a common excuse amongst the south during the civil rights movement.
Several hundred law-enforcement officers stated that they were “Keeping the peace” or dealing with individuals who were “disturbing the peace” as an excuse for why they arrested, attacked, and, at times, murdered peaceful demonstrators in cold blood. British soldiers used the same tactic during several peaceful demonstrations lead by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his fight for India’s independence. The Russians were no strangers to this practice either; in fact during The Cold War they would use this as an excuse for random search and seizure of property owned by Russian civilians. In truth “keeping the piece” is just another word term for “oppressing the weak and helpless to maintain a believe system that is in power or to protect a group’s property.”
Violence also gives birth to revolution. Both the acquiring of goods and the spread of an idea characterize revolution, this is where revolution deviates greatly from the other main purposes in of violence in history. Revolutionaries tend to rise up as a result of oppression, new ideas, or a combination of both. Revolution is one of the only acts of violence that one can justify, because it, in essence, is helping the weak, the down trotted, and the oppressed to overcome and either take power over their oppressors or establish a system of social equality.
There are issues with this though. Often times when an oppressed group is suddenly thrust into power they quickly tend to abuse that power that they’ve acquired and become just as tyrannical as their previous oppressors, and typically when a revolution takes place that creates a type of social equilibrium individuals from both groups (the group that possessed authority and the group that was subject to the authority of the dominant group) have members that resent members of the other group respectively.
The last purposes that violence is the most acceptable reasons; defense of one’s self and one’s people. The defense of one’s self is violence that one must inflict on another person and/or group of people in order to prevent one’s own body harm. An example of the defense of one’s self would be if one were preceding down a dark alley and one were assaulted at knifepoint. Due to the risk of bodily harm and death one would be obligated to defend one’s self.
Defense of one’s people is somewhat different. One is defending one’s people typically from some large oppressive force, such as a different, more powerful ethnic group. The most common example of the defense of one’s people would be a war fought on the soil of one’s homeland.
As one can see from the above reading violence is typically avoidable by levelheaded individuals. However even the most intelligent and most reasonable of us can find ourselves engaging in acts of violence that we would otherwise have no part in, but the answer to the question of why we would do such atrocious things remains a mystery. Why would we resort to violence? Why would we give into such primal uncivilized desires? Well there are several reasons why we would give into these beastlike urges.
The most apparent reason is that we associate a belief system with certain people who hail from certain ethnic groups, subcultures, and countries. This association of beliefs tends to create a sort of “Us and Them” mentality, meaning that we find was to look at people who fall into the category of “Them” as something that’s not “normal;” something “different.” With that being said, these kinds of thoughts are extremely dangerous; they make one think of others as “less than human” and hence, one might have few, if any qualms about killing another person, especially if one classified that other person as one of “them,” and one may fail to even hesitate if one has adopted the “Us OR Them” mentality.
Another reason one might commit heinous acts of violence against one’s fellow man is because a leader told him to do so. A lot of the violence committed, even in this modern day and age, is subordinate violence. This is a type of violence in which one harms another because one is told to do so. The subordinate typically commits brutal acts of aggression against another person or group of people because he or she is instructed to do so by some type of authority figure, these can range from a religious leader, to a mob boss.
Typically subordinate violence relates to politics in the fact that corrupt politicians tend to have violent subordinates who do their dirty work for them. This can be seen as recently as the assassination of the Rwandan president just prior to the Rwandan genocide. The agents of those who disagreed with his political stances had him assassinated because of his politics. You also see this method being used commonly within organized crime syndicates.
Corruption breeds much of the violence in the world, especially when on a local level. Corrupt law-enforcement officials and politicians can do the most damage, and seem to hold the most power in small communities. Police officers who abuse their power often let their own prejudices influence the nature of their work, and oppress people who do not fit into all of the norms of their community, or those that deviate from within their community.
Politicians who are corrupt might not participate in the violence directly, however they may turn a blind eye to the abuse by certain groups of people and by certain groups of people. People of the same religion, ethnicity, race, or socio-economic class may get special treatment if they have a member of their group in power, and that can lead into violence. In addition politicians, like religious leaders, can rally people against one another by preaching party affiliations (much like religious leaders, except religious leaders focus on religious affiliation). Politicians also tend to use these agents they have to gain and maintain power and jurisdiction. That practice goes back as far as history though.
Adolf Hitler is a key example of how a politician might use his agents to maintain his power. Whenever Adolf Hitler ever had any major political competition he would simply retool a law and have his agents arrest and/or assassinate them. That is one of many reasons why he remained in power for so long.
Hitler is a good topic to relate to all politicians, and the violence that they can create. He was an extremely convincing and extremely charismatic speaker, and hence he was talented at brainwashing people and creating the “Us and Them” mentality, and eventually at endowing the sense of “Us or Them” mentality. He manipulated the law to keep those he favored in power. He had his agents murder millions of Jews, Africans, Gypsies, politicians and homosexuals. He convinced millions of people to give up their better judgment and follow him blindly. He then took these people who were awestruck with the glamour and charisma that he displayed that the willingly gave up their freewill to a fascist; that they willingly committed and cheered on atrocious rampages through the Jewish ghettos; that they bowed their heads and said “I will submit, I will obey.” It’s that kind of thinking that allows for genocides, holocausts, and other vile acts to go on unchallenged.
“I will submit, I will obey” is the mentality that allows all injustice to go on. Violence may occur to a certain extent on its own, but the attitude of obeying what a leader wants you to believe and submitting to what a group desires is what paves the way for riots, genocide, and other forms of mass violence. If enough people had expressed their disliking of Hitler’s plan millions, if not billions of lives could have been saved. However no one spoke up and the scapegoating lead to ethnic cleansing, which in turn became an all out holocaust.
Scapegoating is an important aspect for comprehending the importance of violence in politics. When one needs a group to blame, one to shift all of the negative focus on one finds a minority and places the blame upon them. Adolf Hitler did it with the Jews, Saddam Hussein did it with the Shi’a, and Vladimir Lenin did it with the capitalists. It’s a fairly common practice and often times will help a charismatic leader gain notoriety and power, however it almost always leads to some form of ethnic cleansing.
It seems that many violent acts are provoked and even, at times, committed by politicians. This, however, should be no surprise when one looks at the origin of politicians. The earliest politicians were either those born, and brought into power by tradition, or warlords. Naturally this would mean that the earliest politicians managed to gain and maintain their power through fear, violence, propaganda, and ignorance. These tactics though seem to still be in use in some places today, even in some of the so-called “civilized” nations of the world.
Politicians brought to power by tradition often call out that they have a “divine right” to rule. This “divine right” allows them to literally get away with murder, rape, and generally mistreating their people. They manipulate religion to frighten people into treating them as gods on earth. The concept of “divine right” is most present in monarchies.
Warlords on the other hand gain their power by force. I think that the presence of violence in that particular instance is self-explanatory. As a result of this they often tend to use violence to scare their subjects into submitting to them and accepting them as their leader. I would say that Dictators, such as Fidel Castro, would be the modern equivalent to a warlord.
Keeping this in mind, politicians seem almost frightening; people with such power, whose profession has its foundation in violence, fear, propaganda, and the public’s ignorance. While politicians have changed slightly these concepts have remained virtually the same. I find it necessary now to elaborate on how they have, and still operate.
Most politicians rise to power in our modern society because of two reasons. The first is through conflict (i.e. a revolution). The second is through ensuring us of security, be it national, financial, etc. In truth these are the only reason a politicians are given power. The nature of democratic politics, in most cases, is based on The Social Contract Theory created by John Locke. In short The Social Contract Theory states that a government’s purpose is to protect the rights of its citizens at the cost of a few rights. This is a good theory on paper, however one must ask one’s self how many rights need to be revoked for that handful of rights that our government has deemed as the most necessary to be protected, and what rights truly need protection. This is where ignorance and propaganda come to the politician’s aid. Through propaganda the politician convinces their followers to believe what their leader want them to, and with this ignorance poisoning their minds they simply choose to advance and follow one the path that their leaders have set into them.
Propaganda is also use to recruit soldiers into military and paramilitary organizations. It establishes the “Us and Them” and “Us Or Them” mentalities I spoke of earlier. Propaganda breed scapegoats, and instills prejudices within groups of people towards another group of people, and lays down the foundation for generations to experience years of violence and bloodshed.
So propaganda is in accompaniment to ignorance in the aid of violence in violence’s aid to politics. Ignorance gives birth to prejudice and fear, and nothing can be as dangerous as these two phenomena. When one is prejudiced one is inclined to commit acts of violence against a group of people, and when a politician pushes prejudiced propaganda it is more likely that a large portion of the society, the society which this politician has authority over, is much more likely commit unspeakable violence and inhuman acts against the scapegoat group to which the prejudiced propaganda is directed towards.
Fear can be just as dangerous. We as humans are still animals, and what does an animal do when it gets scared? It panics, and in a hysterical frenzy it rampages about, and in this careless thrashing about it can harm both itself and others. Hence we, as people, tend to become violent and destructive when we are around something we are afraid or ignorant of.
In our modern era we see may see more democracy, however violence remains a key to protecting that democracy. We vote someone in because we feel “safe” with him or her in office. We would vote, not based on the platforms that affect everyone, but those that simply affect our own ways of life, our comforts, and our convenience. This is the mentality that allows for dictators to come into office, for the corrupt to maintain power, and for our rights to be stolen from us as in exchange for a false freedom and a false sense of security. For that false sense of freedom we allow our freedom to be raped, soiled upon, and malformed, by those in power until it fits a shape our leaders like. In truth democratic politics is nothing but fear, and the manipulation of fear to gain the support of others. With that being said democracy is definitely a far better alternative to communism, fascism, autocracy, or any other form of dictatorship.
I will close my paper with a few humble words and the reiteration of a handful of some of the key facts mentioned above. Politics and violence go hand in hand. Through violence one can insight fear and hatred amongst a people. Through propaganda one can spark violence. Still there is a place for non-violence, and those with a strong will and a determined mind can avoid being violent unless absolutely necessary. Most people are only really violent if they are trying to gain something or protect something. People’s religious and political beliefs now often exploited by powerful figureheads to help said figureheads acquire new power. Throughout history politicians have used violence to enforce their power and cement their legacies, and these legacies, bounded in blood, laid down the soil from which countless modern political strategies have sprouted. People who bend to these political strategies as a pose to standing up against them are part of the problem because they submit. With that being said, I hope that after reading this the reader is inspired to no longer lay down and submit to what the mass tells them to, but to stand up and resist, but in a manner that is non-violent, and in a way that is productive towards all of mankind.
