Structural violence outweighs and causes more death than war – it clouds itself behind lethal structures

[Raymond J., “Addressing structural violence: Reforming our perspectives,” International Academy of Practical Theology, 2019, https://iapt-cs.org/ojs/index.php/iaptcs/article/view/53/52, accessed July 1, 2023, GDS-LL]

Violence

Galtung points out that, as a result of structural vio- lence, life is shortened from what it would have been had one had the world’s average amount of resourc- es. One lives fewer years and in a diminished state of development of potential. Avoidable pre-mature death is a type of violence. As Farmer et al. (2006) put it, structural violence describes “social arrange- ments that put individuals and populations in harm’s way.” Harmful social structures, supported by stable institutions and regular experience can be invisible. Unequal access to resources, political power, education, health care, and legal standing are examples of these potentially lethal structures, says Farmer, following Galtung.

Forensic psychiatrist James Gilligan says that structural violence is the cause of more deaths than war, accidental death, homicide, and suicide togeth- er (1996, 110). It operates continuously, independent of individual acts, individuals, and groups, and is normally invisible (192). He focuses strongly on so- cio-economic causes. The gap between rich and poor produces more than 14 million deaths per year (195). 20% of the world’s population is absolutely unable to provide for itself nor do anything about it (287–288). Gilligan (2009, 253), drawing in part on Hannah Ar- endt, notes that there is a certain connection be- tween structural violence and individual violence in the sense that the more power people have, the less they need to resort to individual violence.