ABSTRACT

Violence, according to the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995), is ‘actions or words which are intended to hurt people’. Physical violence is manifested by beating, kicking, punching, shooting, stabbing, torture, arson, rape, pogrom and genocide. The set of phenomena collected under the heading ‘violence’ is a break from the civilized order, a failure of other forms of interpersonal mediation. Social actions and events which can be regarded as ‘violence’ are viewed, in cultures which espouse the rule of law, with a deeper gravity than others.