Book Review: Networks of Violence in Social Space

Violence is a multidimensional reality, the relationship between one violence and another cannot be separated. There is one common thread that is the main root of a series of violence that appears one after another in society, Dom Helder Camara calls it the spiral of violence. The theory of the spiral of violence is personal, institutional, and structural. Several factors that are the source of violence are injustice, civil rebellion violence and state repression. The three are interrelated with each other, the emergence of one violence is followed by and causes the emergence of other violence.

Of the three forms of violence, the most fundamental and the main source is injustice. Camara calls this type of violence type 1. Because of its fundamental nature and being the source of other violence. Injustice occurs as a result of the efforts of the national elite group to defend their interests so that a structure is maintained that encourages the formation of "subhuman" conditions, namely living conditions below the standard of living as a normal human being.

This subhuman condition then creates continuous tension in society, encouraging the emergence of violence number 2, namely rebellion among civil society. In this subhuman condition, humans suffer from pressure, alienation, dehumanization of dignity, then pushing those who directly suffer from structural pressure and young people who can no longer stand the stuffy subhuman conditions, to rebel and protest in the streets. This violence occurs when the oppressed and young people firmly fight injustice to demand a more just world.

After conflicts, protests, and rebellions emerge on the streets, when number 2 tries to fight the violence of number 1, the rulers see themselves as obliged to maintain order, even if they have to use violent means. From here, violence number 3 arises, namely the repression of the rulers. In other words, violence number 3 is the use of force and violent means by state institutions to suppress civil rebellion.

The working of the three types of violence resembles a spiral, therefore Camara calls it the spiral of violence. Violence number 1 or injustice encourages civil rebellion or violence number 2, then it invites the presence of state repression or violence number 3. When state repression is imposed, it further worsens the condition of injustice number 1. As Camara said, when violence is followed by violence, the world falls into a spiral of violence.

Injustice

Injustice lowers the standard of living of human beings into sub-human conditions. Injustice is found everywhere. Sub-human conditions can be interpreted as the impact of poverty. Poverty not only brings humanity into misery, it is more dangerous than war. Poverty causes physical, psychological and moral damage. When humans realize that they are experiencing marginalized conditions, it will have an impact on the emergence of structural tension. In other words, according to Galtung, such an imbalance in social relations occurs because of differences in terms of existence (being)), own (having), and position in a structure (Marzuki, 2006). Feelings of marginalization are a factor that triggers the birth of violence.

Injustice does not only occur in developing countries. Injustice can also be found in developed countries, both capitalist and socialist. In capitalist countries, for example, there are backward (poor) layers of society, in Canada they are called grey belts. In addition, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in the United States. Although sub-human conditions in developed and developing countries will be very different, the gap between wealth and poverty shows a sharp and severe contrast. In the socialist world, for example, the Soviet Union and China do not want pluralism (diversity) in society. The climate that is created is dictatorship. Society is oppressed if they give criticism and feel unsafe.
A violent structure, according to Galtung, has exploitation as a center of peace. This means that the majority group has access and interaction into the structure much more than the smaller group. In this position, the smaller group is disadvantaged so that they die due to unfair exchanges, namely extortion (exploitation). In other words, the frequency of violent behavior is directly proportional to the amount of frustration felt by a person or group of people. If there is an intensive drive that responds to or motivates that frustration, then a person will lose control or rational awareness (Isnaeni, 2014).

Rebellion of the Oppressed

No human being is born to feel humiliation, injustice and helplessness (restrictions). According to Camara, humans who live in sub-human conditions are like a cow or a donkey wallowing in the mud. Currently, the egoism of a handful of people with privileges (privilege) push countless humans into subhuman conditions. The impact of subhuman conditions makes humans helpless and humiliated. The injustice felt is the absence of partisanship and fear of future certainty. When life becomes increasingly hopeless, the oppressed or young people act to fight back, this is what Camara calls violence no. 1 which results in violence no. 2, namely rebellion. The goal of this rebellion is to win a more just and humane world.

This rebellion was not only carried out by the oppressed, young people also took part in fighting for justice. When the oppressed have been directly involved for a long time, but have fallen into fatalism because they have lost hope or have been silenced, then young people also appear to take part. Young people demand that those who have privilege to give up their privileges. Young people can see the government only side with the privileged class. So young people turn to radical and violent actions.
According to Camara, young people have idealism, a fire, hunger for justice, thirst for authenticity. In certain places, with the same enthusiasm, they adopt extreme ideologies and prepare guerrillas in cities and throughout the country. In communities with low socio-economic status, education and religious experience, there is a tendency to have high emotional reactions compared to rational ones. Information about violence, the amount and nature of direct experience information, direct or indirect interpersonal communication. Factors between attitudes and interests that influence selective perception of available information. Images of violence and assessments of the risk that a person or a particular group of people will become a potential target of violence, the consequences that arise, and so on (Marzuki, 2006).

Repression of the Ruler

When the conflict has created a protest situation on the streets as a form of fighting injustice, the rulers feel they have an obligation to maintain and restore public order. The ways in which the rulers secure the protest action often use violence, this is what is called violence no. 3. The logic of violence causes them to carry out moral and physical torture.

Mahatma Gandhi is known as a non-violent leader. The meaning of Gandhi's teachings to third world countries and developed countries lies in the liberating moral pressure. This is a real alternative to armed revolution. The established regime must respect human rights, especially the right to freedom of expression. Totalitarian methods are not designed to blame the truth and there is no moral and physical violence.

The United States military intervention in a number of countries in various parts of the world is an act of violence triggered by the political and economic interests of the superpower. Jamil (2005) for example noted that the role of the United States in spreading violence for political and economic reasons occurred repeatedly. Between 1789 and 1895, the United States military intervened in other countries 103 times, then between 1896 and 1945 57 times, and between 1945 and 1991 218 times (including Grenada, Panama and Iraq) (Marzuki, 2006).

The culture of violence that grows in society by Johan Galtung is classified into three types of interrelated violence, namely direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct violence is an event. Structural violence is a process that experiences ups and downs. Cultural violence is more permanent and tends to run stably according to the basic cultural transformation which is also slow. These three forms of violence enter time differently, almost the same as the differences in the theory of earthquakes as an event, tectonic layer movements as a process, and earthquake paths as a more permanent condition.

The vicious circle of violence often begins from the angle of structural violence which is marked by increasingly striking social differences that slowly take on vertical characteristics with the occurrence of increasingly unfair exchanges and distributions. Social groups that are not benefited by the structure then independently seek and create social actions for their own maintenance and resistance, one of which is through direct violence. This seems to be in line with the theory of the spiral of violence offered by Dom Helder Camara which explains the workings of three forms of violence, namely personal, institutional, and structural violence. Violence that begins with injustice, then violence, civil rebellion, and then violence is born as state repression. The three are related to each other, the emergence of one violence is followed by and causes the emergence of other violence.

Bibliography

Isnaeni, Ahmad. Violence in the Name of Religion. Kalam: Journal of Islamic Studies and Thought. Volume 8, Number 2, December 2014.
Marzuki, Suparman. Violence and Fear of Violence. UNISIA No. 61/XXIX/III/2006.