Mass Violence

Historically, mass violence became part of our global landscape as numbers and diversities among people began to separate and distinguish groups and individuals. Its perpetrators may act alone, or they may be affiliated with government or military institutions. They target men, women, and children in atrocities committed in the home or as acts of war.

Mass violence does not only consist of murder, but can take many forms, such as rape, beatings, arsons, and slavery. Rummel (1995) estimates that, excluding war deaths, over 170 million violent deaths have occurred between 1900 and 1987. An even more ominous number would include “residual deaths” or deaths resulting from emotional and long-term physical damage, as seen in the genocide of the Armenians in Turkey and the “ethnic cleansing” in ...