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| The Antidote to Mounting Violence | | |
Bharat Dogra
If a single factor is largely responsible for distress conditions all over the world, the word that comes instantly to mind is violence. From the silent violence within homes and families to the violence of widely discussed (yet seldom satisfactorily resolved) conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people suffer physical injury and mental anguish almost every day.
According to the World Report on Violence and Health (WRVH), prepared by the World Health Organisation, deaths owing to conflict increased from 1.6 million in the 16th century to 6.1 million, 7 million and 19.4 million in the next three centuries. The 20th century witnessed as many as 109.7 million conflict-related deaths, or more than a million per year on an average. (Study by RL Siward). If indirect effects are also included, then 191 million persons are estimated to have lost their lives (directly or indirectly) in the 25 striking instances of collective violence in the 20th century, 60 per cent of those deaths occurring among people not engaged in fighting (RJ Rummel’s study).
Abusive behaviour
According to WRVH, in the year 2000, 1.6 million people lost their lives in violence, including 500,000 in homicides. The report states that in the USA, an average of 65 people are killed each day and over 6000 wounded in acts of inter-personal violence. During the 1980s, in this country more than 200,000 people died as a result of violence and 20 million more suffered injuries.
The WHO’s recent report on violence and health has quoted a 1992 study which found that the yearly cost of gunshot wounds in the USA is $ 126 billion, a sum much higher than the UN estimates of the extra money needed in a year to meet basic needs of all the people in the world.
In 45 population-based surveys from around the world, between 10 per cent and 69 per cent of women reported being physically assaulted by an intimate male partner at some point in their lives. For many of these women, physical assault was not an isolated event, but part of a continuing pattern of abusive behaviour.
Studies from Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the USA say that 40 to 70 per cent of female murder victims were killed by their husbands or boyfriends, frequently in the context of an ongoing abusive relationship. Sexual violence is also common. It has been found that one in five women suffer rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. No fewer than 130,000 rapes are reported every year in the OECD countries. It is likely that only one in five rape incidents is actually reported. If the OECD statistics are used to calculate world estimates, then we are confronted with the shocking scenario that about 37,00,000 rapes take place in a year.
Keeping in view the enormous distress caused by violence, rational thinking would suggest that people will respond well to efforts to reduce violence in everyday life. Yet violence in daily life continues to remain shockingly high and well-intentioned community efforts to reduce violence can at best achieve limited success restricted to a small area. An analysis of failures to clinch deals aimed at resolving wider conflicts indicates that leaders and representatives from all sides are reluctant to make concessions necessary to achieve peace as they fear that these will not be accepted by the people.
One major reason for the failure to control violence is the neglect of the most basic task at the grassroots level ~ to discourage violent thinking and to promote the values of peace and goodwill. It is only when millions of people imbibe these values in schools, families, religious places and elsewhere that the necessary groundwork will be prepared for the success of initiatives to curb violent fights, crimes and conflicts.
Grassroots preparation, training, self-education and practice for a life based on peace and goodwill is simple, yet profound. A person has to learn the basic yet significant lesson that any irrational and hostile feelings towards others should not be entertained. Violence is often perpetrated in fits of anger. Controlling anger, therefore, is another important challenge. Another factor that leads to many acts of violence is the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants so this is another area of concern that needs to be tackled.
Considerable violence is rooted in unending greed and ambition, the desire to get ahead of others at all costs, jealousy and a completely unnecessary and irrational tendency to compare one’s own possessions and opportunities with those of others. All these tendencies, which at present are getting aggravated in many ways and from many sources, need to be replaced by a firm belief in one’s own good work and goodwill towards others.
All this doesn’t imply of course that we should suffer injustice or accept injustice. When it is clear that someone is being unjust to us, then we should first try to sort out the matter in a peaceful, friendly way, or else take the help of others (perhaps common friends) who are better placed to resolve the issue. If this doesn’t work then we can take recourse to the existing legal-administrative system to fight this injustice. True, this system today frequently fails to provide timely justice. Hence the need for several social organisations and movements that can provide help and solace to victims of various kinds of injustices
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