ABSTRACT
A number of researchers in South Africa have proposed that the reported high levels of physical, sexual and psychological assaults, coercion, and other forms of abusive behavior might be nourished by a culture of violence [Altbeker, 2007; Breckenridge, 1998; Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), 1998; Parker, Dawes, & Farr, 2004; Segal, Pelo, & Rampa, 1999]. Caution should be exercised in utilizing the idea of violent culture since it easily attaches itself to the hypothesis that certain nationalities, ethnicities, or races have an inborn propensity to aggression. Thus while he is correctly dismissive of a nativist ethos of aggressiveness hypothesis with regard to Colombia, Waldman (2007) has argued that violence in that country “cannot be comprehended without understanding the existence of a culture of violence expressed in high homicide rates, the existence of institutionalized violent actors, the prevalence of certain norms such as those of the macho and of revenge, and the absence of other norms, taboos, and prohibitive rules” (pp. 73–74). A culture of violence, after this fashion, is defined not in respect to innate properties of Colombian people, but instead in relation to reversible societal facts and attitudes prevalent in that country.
