FEATURE: THOUGHT
civil logic of violence
By Enrique Gil Calvo
The overturning of the civil war in Libya, after the failure of the young rebels who were eager to emulate their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt, has once again restate the perennial problem of violence: the most effective remedy, according to political realism, to decide contests policies.
Which is unfortunate, because at first did not seem so. By contrast, the rapid success of democratic revolt in Tunisia and Cairo was interpreted as a victory of non-violence on armed struggle, which came to end a long cycle of terrorism as a dominant strategy of struggle against tyranny. Thus, the logic of al-Qaeda jihadist and company gave way to a momentary superiority of democratic pacifism mobilized through social networks. But the mirage of the "Republic of Facebook" would take very little, because when you tried to spread to Libya quickly proved powerless to resist the wave of fire unleashed by Gaddafi. Which brings us back to the iron law of violence as archaic spring power struggle.
Here are some recent books that reflect on the phenomenon of political violence. The cultural historian Robert Muchembled presents a panoramic view on popular forms of violence and its gradual control by the modern state. And the common denominator is the violent role of networks of angry young men who fail to integrate socially. A deadlock situation identical to that now given in the Arab countries caught in a Malthusian trap, given the strong growth in the number of young people who can not give decent. It's the bomb that jihadist terrorism explained before but now no longer applies to non-violent pacifism Young Democrats. And this decline in the propensity to violence should be attributed to the improvement of the education of Arab youth of both sexes. For unqualified young people, violence is their only political and hallmark. While professionally qualified young people prefer to claim their rights using non-violent demonstrations in the public square and the digital network. Although little can cope with the brute force of Gaddafi.
war But another factor intervenes Libya: the struggle for control of oil. Is the subject matter covered by Welzer, who focuses his research on Resource Wars (Michael Klare, Uranus, 2003) and those that are tearing the continent, vying for control of oil and strategic minerals or precious. But the originality of Welzer is predicted by the multiplication of wars for resources from the already inevitable climate change (from Diamond: Collapse, Debate, 2005), whose progressive deforestation and soil erosion will determine an increasing shortage of food and drinking water: the resources they explode future wars, causing massive displacement of refugees, which in turn trigger new wars, genocidal ethnic cleansing.
Moreover, the resource wars are always civil wars, whose logic is discussed in the book of Kalyvas. From the theory of rational choice, and with extensive evidence from multiple civil wars (like ours) among which the Greek (where the author did extensive work in the field), the book aims to solve a fundamental enigma . Why in some places a terrible civil violence while others similar or even neighbors is hardly? And the explanation provided by Kalyvas is the degree of territorial control by the antagonists that the military operations. With total control of one side or joint balance between the two, hardly any violence against civilians potentially deserters, either because there are none in the first case or because the enemy can be easily passed in the second. In contrast, when one side reaches disputing the hegemony over territory, but their degree of control is not complete, then violence against potential dropouts is very high, the effect of increased interest accusations.
And this lucid result could well traspolarse a creeping civil war that has been suffering from the Basque Country, which focuses the attention of recent books analyzed. The Aurelio Arteta, whose high level of debate can not be addressed in this place, like Kalyvas focuses on the analysis of betrayal and murder of political cooperation that is necessary. But Arteta is not a betrayal but otherwise expressed tacit accusation by default, denying protection to victims. One type of analysis may well be included in the final work to be considered, a volume compiled by Rivera and Butcher in which historians write (Aróstegui or Julia), political scientists (Cruz, Del Rey) and sociologists (eg Sánchez-Cuenca) devoted to cross-sectional analysis of political violence and whose thinking spans from the Civil War to terrorism in Euskadi. Hence, the work is diverse and uneven, highlighting the dense essay on Martin Alonso discursive rhetoric of political violence.
A history of violence. The end of the Middle Ages to the present. Robert Muchembled. Petit Núria Fonserè translation. Polity Press. Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2010. 398 pages. 29.90 euros. Climate Wars. Why kill (and kill us) in the XXI century. Harald Welzer. Obermeier Alejandra translation. Katz. Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2011. 342 pages. 21 euros. The logic of violence in civil war. Stathis N. Kalyvas. Translated by Peter A. Piedras Monroy. Akal. Madrid, 2010. 655 pages. 38 euros. Mal agreed. The complicity of the viewer indifferent. Aurelio Arteta. Alliance. Madrid, 2010. 319 pages. 20 euros. Political violence. History, memory and victims. Antonio Rivera and Carlos Herreros Butcher (eds) Maia. Madrid, 2010. 367 pages. 15 euros.
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