By Dr. Sawraj Singh
America has always been the most violent-prone modern capitalist society. We can compare America to Europe, Japan or even next door Canada and the amazing difference in statistics about violence can be noted. Just look at the number of American Presidents who have either been assassinated (Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and Kennedy) or an attempt was made on their lives (Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Ford and Regan). Going even further than Presidential assassinations, Andrew Jackson took part in at least 100 gun duels and even killed a rival before becoming President. America has a gun culture. This fact can be easily verified by the number of guns American own legally or illegally. There are about 300 million registered guns in America. You can go to a black or Latino neighborhood and the prevalence of illegal guns becomes very obvious. If your gun is home-made and is smaller than 50 mm caliber, then you do not even have to register it.
The problem of violence, instead of subsiding, is growing and is becoming more complicated. There are new dimensions added to the existing violence. For example, racial violence, political violence, and religious violence have either increased or new dimensions have been added to them. The white police officers shooting and killing blacks is becoming more pervasive and complicated. Muslims killing people from other religions has been a relatively new phenomenon in spite of the fact that the militant Islamic movement like the Nation of Islam has been in America for over half of a century, but it did not indulge in the type of violence which the Islamic State is now engaged in. The political violence has also acquired new dimensions. It used to mainly be between radical groups like extreme leftists, Black Panthers and the KKK.
The violence in America has changed with the social and economic conditions. The earlier violence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mainly reflected a society which was not stable and had not settled yet. In the twentieth century, there was a qualitative change in the violence. American capitalism was at a different stage than the European capitalism. Whereas the European capitalism became more mature and compromising, American capitalism was still in the crude form. Whereas European capitalism was turning towards social Democracy, the American capitalism tried to suppress any left or social democratic tendencies in the society in the most ruthless manner. There were more individualistic and self-centeredness in America, as compared to Europe. These tendencies tend to push more individuals towards violence. This tendency reached a very high level in the sixties as a result of the crisis created by the Vietnam War.
In the sixties, a new type of violence started in America when Charles Whitman, an engineering student and ex-Marine at the University of Texas at Austin went on a rampage and killed 16 innocent people. This type of violence has become very common in America, where someone who is frustrated with his life starts killing innocent people, many of whom had nothing to do with his suffering. People who became frustrated with their work or felt harmed at work started killing their colleagues or persons that they thought were responsible for their suffering. However, these killers did not want to differentiate between those people who they felt harmed them and those who had nothing to do with their suffering. They seemed to be mainly motivated by the desire to kill maximum number of people. The other type of violence, where someone starts killing at malls, movie theaters or other public places like schools, colleges or universities to inflict a high number of casualties continues.
In the eighties and the nineties, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new feeling prevailed in America and the world that American capitalism was the best system in the world. There was a relative decline in the non-traditional criminal violence (mass shootings at public places). However, at the end of the millennium, it again became obvious that the feeling prevailing at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that American capitalism was the best, was just an illusion. The fact that the world capitalist order is on the decline and is heading toward complete anarchy started asserting itself. Not only the earlier violence came back, but new dimensions were added to it, particularly religious and political dimensions. It seems that this violence is very much on the rise. In the 72 hours following the recent mass shooting incident in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed in a Gay Dance club, 93 people died across America as a result of gun violence yet these incidents did not get any attention.
It looks like there are three major factions in the world today: the western capitalists, Islam, and Russia and China and their allies. The main cause of violence seems to be a conflict between western capitalism and Islam. However, the bigger risk to the world will be the deepening conflict between the west and the Russia-China alliance. This type of conflict can easily develop into a Third World War which can go nuclear. The biggest problem for the West is that it has simultaneously opened two fronts of war: one with Islam and the other with Russia-China alliance. The West has almost forced Russia and China into an alliance. It has declared China as its biggest rival in Asia and Russia as its biggest adversary in Europe. Radical Islam is bringing violence inside the western countries, while Russia and China are challenging the West outside its borders. Unless the western capitalism radically changes its policies, there is not going to be any decline in violence.
Dr. Sawraj Singh, MD F.I.C.S. is the Chairman of the Washington State Network for Human Rights and Chairman of the Central Washington Coalition for Social Justice. He can be reached at [email protected].
