Communal violence

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(Redirected from
Communalism (South Asia)
)
Dhammayietra, an annual peace march in Lampatao, Cambodia at Thailand border against communal violence.

Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across

communal lines, where the violent parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership.[1] The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins.[2]

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime includes any conflict and form of violence between communities of different religious groups, different sects or tribes of same religious group, clans, ethnic origins or national origin as communal violence.[3] However, this excludes conflict between two individuals or two families.

Communal violence is found in Africa,[4][5] the Americas,[6][7] Asia,[8][9] Europe[10] and Oceania.[11]

The term "communal violence" was coined by European colonial authorities as they wrestled to manage outbreaks of violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in their colonies, particularly Africa and South Asia, in early 20th century.[12][13][14]

Communal violence, in different parts of the world, is alternatively referred to as ethnic violence, non-State conflict, violent civil disorder, minorities unrest, mass racial violence, inter-communal violence and ethno-religious violence.[15]

History

Europe

Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Over two months in 1572, Catholics killed tens of thousands of Huguenots in France.[16][17]

Human history has experienced numerous episodes of communal violence.

Belfast Pogrom
.

Africa

The

Western Africa have a similar history of communal violence. Nigeria has seen centuries of communal violence between different ethnic groups particularly between Christian south and Islamic north.[22][23] In 1964, after receiving independence from British rule, there were widespread communal violence in the ethnically diverse state of Zanzibar. The violent groups were Arabs and Africans, that expanded along religious lines, and the communal violence ultimately led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar.[24][25] Local radio announced the death of tens of thousands of "stooges", but later estimates for deaths from Zanzibar communal violence have varied from hundreds to 2,000-4,000 to as many as 20,000.[26][27] In late 1960s and early 1970s, there were widespread communal violence against Kenyans and Asians in Uganda with waves of theft, physical and sexual violence, followed by expulsions by Idi Amin.[28][29] Idi Amin mentioned his religion as justification for his actions and the violence.[30] Coptic Christians have suffered communal violence in Egypt for decades,[31] with frequency and magnitude increasing since 1920s.[32]

Asia

Arson and communal violence of 1946 between Muslims and Jains, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Communalism is a term historically used to denote attempts to construct religious or ethnic identity, incite strife between people identified as different communities, and to stimulate communal violence between those groups, particularly in Asia.

India, especially Hindus and Muslims have occurred since the period of British colonial rule, occasionally leading to serious inter-communal violence.[35]

The term communalism was coined by the British colonial government as it wrestled to manage

Hindu-Muslim riots and other violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in its colonies, particularly in British West Africa and the Cape Colony, in early 20th century.[12][36][37]

The

Republic of India. British historians have attributed the cause of the partition to the communalism of Jinnah and the political ambitions of the Indian National Congress.[40]

East, South and Southeast Asia have recorded numerous instances of communal violence. For example, Singapore suffered a wave of communal violence in 20th century between Malays and Chinese.[41] In Indian subcontinent, numerous 18th through 20th century records of the British colonial administration mention communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, as well as Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, particularly during processions related to respective religious celebrations.[42][43]

The frequency of communal violence in South Asia increased after

Partition riots in Rawalpindi.[47][48]

It has recently been argued that in the post-colonial era, communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims contributed to the making of Muslim ghettos in those cities that had witnessed sustained communal mobilizations. It has furthermore been shown that the communalized real estate market, urban planning, and communal mobilizations often come to constitute each other in developing spatial majoritarianism.[49]

The 20th century witnessed inter-religious, intra-religious and ethnic communal violence in the Middle East, South Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.[12][50]

National laws

India

The Indian law defines communal violence as, "any act or series of acts, whether spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the person and or property, knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his or her membership of any religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within the meaning of clauses (24) and (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution of India" [51]

Indonesia

In Indonesia, communal violence is defined as that is driven by a sense of religious, ethnic or tribal solidarity. The equivalence of tribalism to ethnicity was referred locally as kesukuan.[12] Communal violence in Indonesia includes numerous localized conflicts between various social groups found on its islands.[52]

Kenya

In Kenya, communal violence is defined as that violence that occurs between different community who identify themselves based on religion, tribes, language, sect, race and others. Typically this sense of community identity comes from birth and is inherited.[53] Similar definition has been applied for 47 African countries, where during 1990–2010, about 7,200 instances of communal violence and inter-ethnic conflicts has been seen.[54]

Causes

Damage from communal violence between Christian Greeks and Muslim Turks in Cyprus.

Colm Campbell has proposed, after studying the empirical data and sequence of events during communal violence in South Africa, Palestinian Territories and Northern Ireland, that communal violence typically follows when there is degradation of rule of law, the state fails to or is widely seen as unable to provide order, security and equal justice, which then leads to mass mobilization, followed by radicalization of anger among one or more communities, and ultimately violent mobilization. Targeted mass violence by a few from one community against innocent members of other community, suppression of complaints, refusal to prosecute, killing peaceful demonstrators, imprisonment of people of a single community while refusal to arrest members of other community in conflict, perceived or actual prisoner abuse by the state are often the greatest mobilizers of communal violence.[55][56]

Research suggests that ethnic segregation may also cause communal violence. Empirically estimating the effect of segregation on the incidence of violence across 700 localities in Rift Valley Province of Kenya after the contested 2007–2008 general election, Kimuli Kahara finds that local ethnic segregation increases communal violence by decreasing interethnic trust rather than by making it easier to organize violence.[57] Even if a small minority of individuals prefer to live in ethnically homogenous settings due to fear of other ethnic groups or otherwise, it can result in high degrees of ethnic segregation.[58] Kahara argues that such ethnic segregation decreases the possibility of positive contact across ethnic lines.[59] Integration and the resultant positive interethnic contact reduces prejudice by allowing individuals to correct false beliefs about members of other ethnic groups, improving intergroup relations consequently.[60] Thus, segregation is correlated with low levels of interethnic trust. This widespread mistrust along ethnic lines explains the severity of communal violence by implying that when underlying mistrust is high, it is easier for extremists and elites to mobilize support for violence, and that where violence against members of other ethnic groups is supported by the public, perpetrators of such violence are less likely to face social sanctions.[61]

Alternate names

In China, the communal violence in Xinjiang province is called ethnic violence.[62] Communal violence and riots have also been called non-State conflict,[63] violent civil or minorities unrest,[64] mass racial violence,[65] social or inter-communal violence[66] and ethno-religious violence.[67]

See also

References

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  2. ^ Communal[dead link] Oxford Dictionaries
  3. ^ Homicide, Violence and Conflict UNODC, United Nations
  4. ^ Kynoch, G. (2013). Reassessing transition violence: Voices from South Africa's township wars, 1990–4. African Affairs, 112(447), 283–303
  5. ^ John F. McCauley, Economic Development Strategies and Communal Violence in Africa, Comparative Political Studies February 2013 vol. 46 no. 2 182–211
  6. ^ Willis, G. D. (2014), Antagonistic authorities and the civil police in Sao Paulo Brazil, Latin American Research Review, 49(1), 3–22
  7. ^ Resource guide for municipalities UNODC
  8. ^ Mancini, L. (2005) Horizontal Inequality and Communal Violence: Evidence from Indonesian Districts (CRISE Working Paper No. 22, Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford)
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  51. ^ PREVENTION OF COMMUNAL AND TARGETED VIOLENCE (ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND REPARATIONS) BILL, 2011 Archived 2014-08-14 at the Wayback Machine Government of India
  52. ^ Social violence in Indonesia is localized Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine Jakarta Post
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  63. ^ UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset Archived 2015-01-22 at the Wayback Machine Sweden (May 2014)
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  65. ISBN 978-0-202-362632
  66. ^ THE INTER-COMMUNAL TRUST BUILDING PROJECT Harvard University
  67. ISBN 978-0-415-453806

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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