The faces of violence in Latin America
Book highlights types and rates of violence and
places Brazil behind only Bolivia and Guatemala

CARLOS TIDEI

Paradoxical – as well as the philosophical definition of peace itself, which
translates into the absence of its antonym, violence -, the solution to reducing crime and the suffering of the population of Latin America necessarily involves social and economic development, although the current model increases the concentration of wealth and worsens the differences that cause problems in society. region.

According to Jorge Brovetto, executive secretary of the Association of Universities Grupo Montevideo (AUGM), who signed the prologue of the book “The State of Peace and the Evolution of Violence – The situation in Latin America”, translated by Editora da Unicamp, the region carries the sad privilege of presenting the greatest social and economic inequalities in the world. The original publication is from the International Center for Research and Information for Peace (CIIIP/UPAZ).

The book aims to serve as an instrument to help promote peace, through research and other useful information that reveals the different types of violence: where, when and to what degree of incidence it occurs in different countries in Latin America . Researchers start from sectoral analyzes and classify countries in a final global violence index. Brazil, Bolivia and Guatemala appear at the top of this classification.

“Desarrojo” (development), Brovetto repeats exhaustively, pointing out the solution to most cases of violence. “This is the first step in a large project that aims to expand studies on violence, and in the future point out solutions for the search for peace in the world. We identify and point out where the violence is, combat actions can follow this path,” he says. The book is aimed at specialist professionals, who can use the information to develop actions to promote peace, and also for the general public, as violence is the greatest concern of our time.

“The continuation of this work must be considered indispensable. We are thinking about working on more indicators, with the aim of providing a critical response to this first presentation, with concrete proposals for human development”, he anticipates. “We will demonstrate the existence and where violence occurs. Solutions must be found by governments”, he explains.

Concepts – The concepts of peace and violence undergo a continuous process of change, as well as the type and nature of conflicts and the degree of visibility. Peace was once understood as the absence of war, or the conjunction of several “Ds”: development, human rights, democracy and disarmament. The absence of one of them results in violence.
This concept evolved following the dynamics of conflicts and, to characterize peace, it is necessary to define violence and its various dimensions, among which military, cultural, structural, political, ethnic, gender, State and social violence stand out. of the anomic type society (without norms).

The basic conceptualization of violence lies in the difference between realization and potentiality, that is, according to Galtung's definition: “Violence is present when human beings are persuaded in such a way that their effective, somatic and mental achievements fall below their potential achievements. ”.

Peace would be the identification and favorable resolution of phenomena characterized by some type of violence. However, Galtung distinguishes two broad categories: negative peace and positive peace. The first is related to direct and personal violence, visible as war; the second refers to indirect, structural violence, not always visible. If negative peace resides in the absence of war, positive peace exists when there is social justice, harmony, satisfaction of basic needs, autonomy, dialogue, solidarity, integration and equality.

It is precisely in structural violence that the greatest difficulty in identifying it lies, as it is often camouflaged by mechanisms of cover-up and domination. It is the degree of visibility that allows the types of violence to be distinguished and, in this aspect, the manifestation of discontent from contemporary social groups, such as discriminated minorities, contributes to the concept of visibility gaining prominence.

In this way, the concept of peace can be understood as “the ability of a society to make visible and favorably resolve the types of violence that exist within it”. “Economic and social policies that put the health, education and employment of broad sectors of the population at risk are also forms of violence, as they impede people’s full intellectual and physical fulfillment”, explains Brovetto.

Classification – CIIIP research classifies five types of violence: collective, state, structural, cultural and individual, with emphasis on the theoretical independence between the types. A classic case is poverty, treated as a generator of direct or indirect violence, without contemporary studies revealing evidence in this direction. Medellin, for example, is the most violent city in Colombia and has 100% of basic services provided, while Quibdó, the least violent municipality in that same country, is the most lacking in these services.

The end of the Cold War and major wars between countries caused a qualitative change in conflicts, which should not be underestimated. Instead of bipolarization between East and West, ethnicity, religion, identity and other forms of social identification are considered causes of modern conflicts, in addition to globalization and domination by powerful economic blocs. The scarcity of natural products will increase conflicts. And environmental degradation is the most prominent form of global violence today.

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