ockey fighting in his
“Coach’s Corner” spot on Hockey Night in Canada have in common is this: both give
positive and even heroic value to violence. Other forms of violence, such as the use of
violence by terrorist groups, or an altercation on a picket line or at a political
demonstration, are not usually given positive treatment in North American media. Because
violence, whether approved or disapproved, is so spectacularly atypical of normal social
behaviour, it tends to reveal points of ideological and structural tension in society. In other
words, insofar as the punch, the bayonet charge, or the tear gas tears at the social fabric,
information central to how society works is made visible.
Violence, apart from its obvious function as a physically aggressive action meant to injure,
control, or pacify another, is an attempt to communicate by other than normal means.
Whether it’s about power relations between nations, a ritualized combat between martial
arts masters, or the symbolic burning of a flag at a protest, violence represents an
emotionally charged and morally dense medium. Violence is inherently uncontrollable, and
its use even for reasons thought legitimate by authority is hedged with anxiety, as it can
escalate to unanticipated levels or thwart the approved framework by which it’s presented.
Examples of incidents where escalation and a challenge to the positive representation of
violence led to an unanticipated outcome include英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】: (1) the use of pepper spray by police
against protestors at the 1997 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vancouver,
which led to a national public outcry and a royal commission; and (2) the use of violence
and humiliation against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, which invited
criticisms of U.S. behaviour in light of the Geneva Convention’s protocols for the treatment
of prisoners of war. Karim adopts peace studies professor Johan Galtung’s concept of “structural violence” to
investigate violence’s deeper nature. Galtung distinguishes the overt and incendiary form
of violence—the stuff of a Cops episode or a barroom brawl—from the systemic violence
inhering in poverty, human rights violations, alienation, and other equally persistent
problems in society. Such “structural violence”—so-called because it’s implicated in the
“structure” or patterns of social interaction---is typically not recognized as violence. When
oppressed people react to this structural violence with overt and direct action, such as was
evident in the 1976 Soweto riots against the South African apartheid system, the invisibility
of the institutionalized violence means that the victims are easily made to seem like the
aggressors.
Democratic states maintain a complex relationship to violence. States claim a monopoly
on the legitimate use of violence, and exercise this through military and police action. Yet,
to maintain their democratic credibility,
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