Four major forms of ethnic violence - Essay Example

Topic: Ethnic violence varies in forms and applications, but it has similar effect. The magnitude of violence could provide a chilling psychological outcome and the force lashed much intensity to emotion when seething pain engulf one’s physique to exact an apparently revolting compulsion or agreement. Experts posit that the differences of violence also depend on the level of state control and mass killings which could at time take place in a polity where murdering is viewed as a strategy to calibrate political control and to sustain power.

Some are motivated by ideological inclination while others are simply drugged totally to complete a fantastic psychotic murderous crime scene. Life for them is a tool for power; some followers viewed it as meat for slaughter. Still others thought of violence as instrument, oddly, for political and competitive leveraging.Sociologist and anthropological experts classify the kinds of violence. These are symbolic violence, lynching, pogrom and massacre. Arnold (2012) defined symbolic violence as a form violence employed to properties of other cultures but no actual harm is done to persons.

This is illustrated by attacks done to important properties, places, or place of worship to employ meaning that such violence is authored and directed towards a leader or a congregation of groups representing these edifices (Armold, 2012). The attack is a symbolic communication to intimidate the targeted victims, whether they are institutions, or groups. For instance, in a rage on a film allegedly made by a westerner Coptic Christian pertaining to the life of Muhammad in a film “Innocence of Muslim,” people who represented the religion of Islam gathered and flocked to embassies of United States of America bearing placards that assaulted the sensibilities of diplomats and its workers.

Violence was done when its ambassador in Libya was gun down due to the showing of this film and by posting it in youtube, an online medium for vloggers. Lynching on the other hand is a murderous attack done by persons coming from a different ethnic demonization (Arnold, 2012). The attack can be done by hanging or any forms of inflicting physical harm. It may include beating but such kind enough to intimidate the family of the person within a community (Arnold, 2012). This kind of violence is done to send a signal or message to the community that anyone who will emulate the victim’s will be punished the same way.

For instance, in the Philippines, some women secretly discussed about a Maranao woman being raped. This is a cultural violation as much as a personal assault against the woman’s virginity and personhood. Rape means death for the rapist. The family of the victim could get the suspect and inflict terrible harm on him until his death. Pogrom is an indiscriminate attack done to property of ethnic minority (Arnold, 2012). This is demonstrated in cases like when all properties of the minority group are destroyed just like what happened recently when alleged hundreds of armed men attacked the ethnic Orma herdsmen in Kenya due to land conflict and grazing rights.

They locked these tribesmen inside their homes and burned them to death.Moreover, Arnold (2012) defined massacre as an indiscriminate form of violence directed to a number of people. Politics dubbed this as mass killing or mass murder. This is the extreme and horrendous form of violence. For instance, series of bombing and indiscriminate firings violently disturbed 15 cities in Iraq that killed 93 persons and wounded 270 people recently. Reports mentioned that the crime was allegedly authored by Islamic State of Iraq.

Security management was increased to address this concern.ReferenceArnold, R. (2012). Ethnic Violence Disaggregated: an inquiry into the forms of violence, Ohio State University, pp. 1-32