SOCIAL PACIFICATION

Is it ever justified to use violence to prevent or to reduce violence? Are there circumstances in which the creation, or defence, of democracy should be attempted by violent means? More generally, is it plausible to speak of a democratic ethic of violence?

Such questions are back on the political agenda, in no small measure because even though all wars are nasty, some wars – uncivil wars like those in southern Sudan and Chechenya, Liberia and the Lebanon – have proved to be nastier than most. Marked by reckless and random killing without either mercy or ruth, they produce a trail of destructive effects that ripple through the wider world. Uncivil wars show just how easily collective strife can erupt in otherwise peaceful and vibrant societies with an impressive history of viable pluralism; and how this strife can degenerate into a random and reckless violence that has a logic all of its own. And – the darkest point of all – uncivil wars show how difficult it is to define and master the arts of social pacification and democracy-building once the unrestricted killing of anybody who can be harmed and killed has broken out.