civil and revolutionary violence rob johnson
TRANSCRIPT
Civil and Revolutionary
ViolenceRob Johnson
Madrid
Iraq
Istanbul 20.11.2003
New York
London
Jakarta, 9.9.04
Beslan
German peasants rebellion, 1525
Tsar Nicholas II, c.1900
Types of Violence
State Violence (‘Legitimate’)• Capital punishment• Corporal punishment• Imprisonment, exile, transportation• Police, judges, the law• Terror.
Anti-state or intra-state violence• Civil War• Revolutionary/Guerrilla War (illegitimate)• Terrorism(illegitimate)• Racial/ethnic/religious/sectarian violence• Criminal (personal) violence against property or
the body (gangs & banditry, muggers, hooliganism, murder, rape)
The Romanticism of Revolution
Kashmir
Michael Collins
Casualties of the revolution in Russia
Victims of the fighting between Peruvian government and Shining Path
Other forms of violence
Violence of Nature• Wild animals• Climatic hazards• Geological hazards• Disease
Small pox
‘Economic’ Violence• Famine• Death by blockade• Death by ‘interest rates’ (laws of competition and
economic structures)• Death by product (tobacco, food scares, untested
drugs)• ‘Accidents’• … Disease
Arno Mayer
Revolutionary Violence:The French Revolution
September Massacres, 1792
The Terror
• Retarded economic growthRetarded economic growth• FamineFamine• Political murders, and massacresPolitical murders, and massacres• Ideological coercionIdeological coercion• Foreign interventionForeign intervention• Civil unrest leading to dictatorshipCivil unrest leading to dictatorship• Eclipsed by Britain, USA and Germany (The Eclipsed by Britain, USA and Germany (The
‘Anglo-Saxons’).‘Anglo-Saxons’).
The Russian Revolution
Overthrow of the monarchy by popular unrest and court coup, Feb 1917
Overthrow of a democratic provisional government by coup d’etat, Oct 1917
Civil War, 1918-1922, state repression, famine
Casualties from the World War, 1914-1917
DiseasesMostly cholera, typhus, influenza Starvation
AtrocitiesGrain requisition and violence against peasants, peasant reaction, political murder
Social dislocationUrban depopulation (‘deindustrialisation’): Petrograd fell from 2m to 750,000 – violence over resources
Religious violence Conventional/Guerrilla fightingAnti-Semitic massacres by Whites ‘Greens’, Whites and Reds Murder of priests and imams
Themes in violence since 1919 (The global view)
The Spanish Civil War
Druze Rebellion, 1925
China’s Civil War
Angola Civil WarAlgeria, War of Independence
Mau Mau Emergency
Northern Ireland
Palestinian Intifada
Warlordism
NankingNazi death camp, Hungary
Jihadist execution
Interpreting Violence
• Edmund Burke• Thomas Carlyle
Making Sense of Violence
• Albert Soboul• E.P. Thompson
Justification and Popularity?
Revolutionary Violence as a Response to State Violence
• Michel Foucault• Peter Linebaugh
Destruction of villages in Nazi occupied Yugoslavia
East Timorese children
Muslims in Soviet Central Asia
Contemporary Violence
Iranian woman being prepared for stoning
Cliterodectomy
Execution in Afghanistan
Lockerbie, December 1988
Hamas Member: ‘You don’t choose to be a shaheed. Allah chooses you. It’s a long road to shahada. I don’t know whether my operation will involve a settlement or a bus. The leadership takes care of that. My family does not know I’m involved. Of course, separation will be difficult for them, but in the afterlife I will be their saviour. I will take them to paradise with me. Knowing that will give them solace. The goal of any operation is to kill as many people as possible. We don’t differentiate – soldiers or civilians. The Israelis don’t make distinctions when they kill Palestinians, so why should we? I’d be happy to kill Israeli women and children.’
Trainer of shaheeds, Al Aqsa Brigade
‘We only work with people we trust. A lot of people offer themselves and are not accepted. Its important to us that a person is thoroughly ready. Having your photo taken and making a video for the family, that only takes an hour. But a shaheed has to be ready at all times. …
The hardest part is leaving to go on the mission. Seeing your family for the last time. Some who wish to become a shaheed go on a mission and are captured or only injured. Not everyone succeeds.
A lot of fighters who are in charge have themselves gone on to become shaheeds. We are all equal. We are all willing. There is always someone to take your place.
• Law• Accountability• Rules of Engagement• Light footprint• Rapport• Reconstruction