[Blog] The Multidimensional Ecology of Social Violence and Possible Long Term Solutions

Any sane observer cannot help but be worried about the recrudescence of senseless violence in our society and the world over. As clichéd as it may seem, this dystopian social breakdown cannot be the end narrative of our society, there must be a way out, even though it will probably be laborious and will demand the collaboration and good will of many. It is in this spirit that this article is being penned. Firstly, to understand the many causes of violence. For it is rightly said that in order to solve a problem you must first understand it. It is in this light that I urge the indulgence of the reader in what may appear to be an academic exercise as I enumerate the causes of violence below. In the second instance I will propose some possible strategies to counteract that dystopic reality and begin a form of rebuilding through multifocal action. 

In postcolonial societies, such as ours, violence is not limited to physical aggression or crime. It includes symbolic, structural, psychological, economic, epistemic, digital, and cultural forms of violence that accumulate and interact with features associated with modernity.

Historical and Colonial Violence is the violence inherited from colonialism following many forms of forceful subjugation of people and cultures. This resulted in racial hierarchies which unfortunately take time to disappear, even over many generations. Often this takes the form of internalized attitudes of which we might not even be conscious as we enter the tapestry of the modern nation. This can be internalization of inferiority and superiority complexes, racial hierarchies and ethnic stratification, worsened when the economic systems which were built on colonial exploitation are not totally dismantled. Because the formal departure of colonial rulers did not necessarily remove the structures of domination embedded in society.

The second type of violence is Structural violence. The concept of Structural violence refers to the harm produced by social systems themselves. They are occasioned by unequal access to education, unequal healthcare, unequal opportunities, geographic marginalization, poverty traps, exclusion from decision-making. People may never be physically assaulted, yet their life chances are systematically reduced. Great thinkers like Pierre Bourdieu have long studied this phenomenon which is inbuilt in the very structure of society. There are no quick remedies, only long term solution, through education, sensitisation and awareness. Interesting Bourdieu speaks of Education and its elitist tendency as being a major source of structural violence, as it marginalises those who are new to the ladder of social mobility, in opposition to those who can benefit from an intergenerational network of privilege. In our country it is unfortunate that this reality is often equated with race, simplifying a complex situation and preventing us from coming up with the beginning of a solution, which is not couched in rhetoric and clichés but in a real desire to understand the truth, as complex as it may be.

The Violence of Unfulfilled Equality follows directly from the above and is perhaps one of the defining tensions of postcolonial modernity Citizens are told: everyone is equal, anyone can succeed, opportunity is open to all. Yet they experience concentration of wealth., elite capture, nepotism, unequal access to power. The gap between promised equality and lived inequality generates resentment, frustration, humiliation, and social anger.

Symbolic violence is everywhere around us, built in our unconscious attitudes and behavior. It takes awareness to distance ourselves from habit which we perceive as natural. Forms of symbolic violence include: being made to feel inferior, devaluation of local cultures, prestige attached to foreign models, linguistic hierarchies, educational hierarchies, cultural exclusion. People learn to participate in systems that diminish them while believing those systems are natural. All of us have been exposed to symbolic violence either at the receiving end or as unconscious perpetrators.

Hypercapitalist violence is the violence of endless aspiration, which is the direct result of the saturation around us as consumption is promoted as happiness, wealth as virtue, success as personal responsibility. It is very shocking to see some media outlets buying into this and selling capitalist lifestyles with no restraint.  Citizens are encouraged to desire what many can never realistically attain. This creates chronic dissatisfaction, relative deprivation, debt anxiety, social comparison, status competition. The dream becomes a mechanism of frustration. Because within the present narrative where we are, inflation is not set to go down soon. Economists present inflation as inevitable once an economy is linked to the global capitalist network, or Financescape. Though it is the only way for societies to survive today, we have to acknowledge that inflation produces economic insecurity. This results in constant stress, household instability and is often the cause of family conflict. Violence is not excusable, yet it is possible to draw out the causes of some of the senseless crimes for paltry sums that we have heard of in the recent past to this sense of
•    Constant stress. 
•    Household instability. 
•    Family conflict. 
•    Psychological pressure. 
•    Fear of downward mobility. 

We have heard of people being killed for Rs 3000, being thrown acid on their face for Rs 2500, being attacked for Rs 8000. Violence can never be justified, the pointlessness of it is made ever worse by these puny sums, but the saturation of messages, advertisements which encourage people to keep buying while on the other side inflation and unequal wage increase and widen the divide, have people caught up in loops of desire and misunderstanding. Though as citizens we cannot fix the capitalist system which depends upon global financescapes, what we can do is provide grounded debates on the reality, tutoring attitudes into restraint, control, self-analysis and mutual respect. This can be done in the media, within schools as well as through public debate and through activist theatre –Forum Theatre- which would involve the audience in the action through participation and reflection. Both of the above are not valued enough as means of providing a social mirror to people for their behavior. It is only by making reprehensible behavior visible to the perpetrators themselves that they can be persuaded in the long run to change, through shame, education and the realization of the impact of their actions.

Digital and Social Media Violence is one of the least understood contemporary transformations. Social media encourages instant judgement, outrage cycles, public shaming, ‘tribalism’. It is know that Facebook, Tiktok and Instagram offer viewers more of the same once their likes have been identified. This was also the case with Twitter until Elon Musk took over and the algorithm was changed. What happens in these situations is that users are confronted with messages which reaffirm their beliefs and attitudes and filter out anything which is opposite to that. In this way users are lulled into believing only their world view exists. This can account for the violence upon encountering opposing views in the real world. The situation is made worse because often these people have developed no mechanism for entertaining and tolerating difference. This explains a lot of the recrudescence of violence the world over. This is why we need to actively privilege platforms of exchange, where debates, points of view actively help in constructing bridges of tolerance. Because if we continue to allow social media to control our socialization it will only result in algorithmic amplification of conflict. This fragments communities, dissolves shared narratives, social trust and attention. 

The result is a culture of permanent reaction. People become conditioned to respond emotionally before understanding.

Another consequence of media saturation is cognitive violence, due to information overload. Once again the signs of this are recognizable all round us: shortened attention spans, reduced capacity for reflection, simplification of complex issues preference for slogans over understanding.  Citizens increasingly encounter realities through fragments rather than coherent narratives. This weakens social judgement and encourages impulsive behaviour.

A lot of contemporary social violence spreads through mimetic behavior. Humans imitate each other and violence spreads through imitation. Online aggression encourages further aggression; public hostility becomes normalized, violent discourse legitimises violent action. In highly mediated societies, unfortunately like ours, like all societies today, violence has become contagious.

Gendered Violence

A lot has been said and still needs to be said about the need to stop gendered violence. No society escapes this, though different countries manage to reduce its frequency through dialogues, which allow social attitudes to be scrutinized and changed. Unfortunately, regressive traditionalism which is one of the reactions societies have to the perceived threat of cultural dissolution under globalization, often makes the body and identity of woman the focus of their identity trip. This gendered violence is also caused by persistent inequalities affecting women, children and vulnerable family members. Our society has inherited patriarchal structures that remain insufficiently examined. The only way forward is through structured dialogue where people learn to listen, to develop arguments and to think differently.

One form of perceived violence which is a cause of a lot of resentment nowadays is what can be called State Violence. This is not necessarily overt repression. It includes bureaucratic indifference, selective enforcement of laws, corruption, political patronage, what can be perceived as administrative exclusion. In such cases citizens experience the state not as protection but as arbitrary power.

There is a lot of public resentment when public institutions are appropriated for private interests. Public opinion gets angry when resources are diverted. Then trust collapses and it is a perception that meritocracy weakens. In such situations citizens become cynical.

Drug-Related Violence is a big scourge in our society in 2026. This has worsened over the last ten years because of the vested interest of some decision makers. It  includes cartel activity, gang formation., community destabilisation.  It can lead to family breakdown and addiction-related crime.  Drug economies often emerge where legitimate opportunities are perceived as inaccessible.

Intergenerational Violence

Traumas inherited across generations are called intergenerational violence. There are a lot of academic studies which show  that trauma survive over the generations through the neural network. This interests us here because it can have consequences on the perception and behavior of people as they identify and appropriate the trauma response in the way they relate to contemporary society and their place in it. The obvious cause of intergenerational trauma in our society is colonial trauma. This takes many forms, whether in the form of oral memory or living habits and conditions. It matters not just as data to be used for academic study but because it can account for recurring cycles of poverty, family dysfunction and community conflict. Historical wounds often persist long after their original causes disappear.

Epistemic Violence is a concept associated with the work Gayatri Spivak. It occurs when certain voices are excluded from knowledge production. For example, when subaltern perspectives ignored, when the rural populations is unheard, when working-class experience is absent from public dialogue. 

Although this is changing gradually, the great danger in Mauritius is that some subalternities are more vocal than others, hence more visible, nationally and internationally, giving the impression that they are the only ones who have suffered from epistemic and colonial violence. This is felt as an erasure of the experience of trauma, on the part of those who see themselves marginalized in the very discourse of subalternity and the policies which come out of it, for instance in education or social services. Often these are people who find themselves categorized as on being on the other side of their own experience of social marginalisation, with no tools, intellectual, linguistic or otherwise to allow them to understand and express their experience of the paradox. This accounts for a lot of physical violence as a result of the social, psychological and cultural violence produced by this epistemic erasure. This violence is often expressed in the community itself, even within the family.

People need recognition as much as material resources. When recognition is denied humiliation develops resentment accumulates, identity politics intensifies. Many social conflicts are struggles not only for resources but for dignity.

Existential Violence is perhaps the least articulated in our rush to understand social causes of violence. Modern societies generate meaninglessness, isolation, loneliness, loss of belonging.  The experience of living in our modern societies is one where traditional structures weaken while new forms of community remain fragile. In such conditions, individuals are left navigating freedom without adequate moral, cultural, or communal support. This was articulated in philosophy and poetry as the great Romantic  and Modernist movements at the turn of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. But when a population does not have the luxury and wherewithal, educational and linguistic resources to explore the elegance of loss and meaninglessness, it is not art and literature which results but yet another form of violence.

Is there a Solution?

Violence is not reduced only through policing, laws, or punishment. Those may be necessary, but they rarely address the deeper cultural and psychological conditions that generate violence. 
It is not just through law and repression that we should tackle violence, though these are important. There is a lot of work to do on social conditioning. What is required is for a metaphoric mirror to be held up to the people to reflect their own behavior back at them and its consequences while educating the younger ones as to proper civic behavior. We need cultural technologies of reflection- social practices that help people see themselves, their communities, and the consequences of their actions.

It is with the above in mind that the following are being proposed:

1)    Forum theatre in school and community centres to stage school bullying and street harassment. This will get the younger and not so young people involved in discussing their behavior, whether they are on the side of the victims or the bullies

2)    Structured debates in Creole, French and English, depending on the topic- in the style of Intelligence Squared on BBC (not the free-for-all debate styles currently being broadcast on our local media). The purpose is to educate and change attitudes to traditional ideas we have about behavior towards the vulnerable sections of society. But this will have to be closely monitored.

3)    Use AI as an economically viable means of producing short documentaries, maybe through a kind of competition for greater engagement, on the broad topic of Civic Behaviour: for instanceHow to behave in the public space -on the train, on the street, in banks, schools, shops, on bus-stops, etc…

4)    This proposal has been overused in the past but it can still work in creating viral attitudes about violence and help change ingrained habits: Public Art and Social Murals which can make invisible realities visible

5)    More traditional documentary and participatory film: this would serve multiple purposes, while sensitizing about violence, it could also give voice to those who feel invisible in society and contribute to lessening the perception pressure they have. Tentative topics include: 

•    Everyday violence. 
•    Acts of kindness. 
•    Local heroes. 
•    Recovery from addiction. 

6)    Something along the lines of Université Populaire could be reinstated to debate philosophy in the public space, in order to develop civic imagination

7)    Any objective social observer will realise that side by side with our discourse of citizenship and modernity there has been very little progress and change in our discourse on patriarchy and the attitudes which result from it. This is a difficult issue. But the change we need cannot be left solely in the hands of the small proportion of individuals who have learnt to consciously move away from inherited patriarchal attitudes. Once again the solution to this is an open and continued debate through school, community centres, through surveys, focus group discussions, testimonies.

None of these measures will bring solutions fast but they can begin conversations which change societies in the long run. They are presented here as the beginning of a solution with view to opening debate on the question.