Seminar Three
Warfare, genocide and ethnic conflict
Human nature versus individual psychopathology
If we consider that violence is inherent in human nature, how do we distinguish between normal human behavior and pathological (sick) human behavior? Consider these categories:
- Soldiers in war
- Genocide
- Violent ethnic conflict
- Street gangs
- Terrorist activity
- Torture
Where do we draw the line between normal and abnormal forms of violence? Unfortunately, this is an unanswered question and a painful confrontation. In any human group some individuals are seriously disturbed and more inclined to violence than others. These people are often seen in psychiatric emergency rooms and prisons. But there are many cases in which violence and torture are seen in a large segment of the population, as in the Gulag prisons and in warfare. Sadly, there is no way to draw a line, at least at our present level of understanding.
In a 2007 article, Hamza Hendawi describes Iraqi children playing make-believe war games inspired by the Shiite-Sunni conflict in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Iraq. He writes:
“Playing such games is normal,” said a schoolteacher in Baghdad. Violence has become part of children's lives. A toy store owner said that most of the children who visit his store are looking for the “biggest and most harmful toy guns. Ninety-five percent of the toys I sell are guns.” A policeman said he tries to discourage his two sons from playing, and talks to them about Shiites and Sunnis living in peace, but “they keep going back to the same game.”
