I’ve Lived Through Political Violence--We Don’t Want It Here
We Need to Double Down on Democracy, not Give Up on It
I’ve lived through and repeatedly documented the devastating impacts of political violence abroad. Nobody should want or support that for the United States.
As a human rights researcher in Colombia, I took down stories like that of Miladis, who told me how right-wing paramilitary groups showed up at her 300-person town of El Aro in 1998 and systematically killed 17 people, torturing and raping along the way, burned the town down, and stole 2,000 heads of cattle. Another story: in 2002 the left-wing FARC guerrillas lobbed a gas cylinder bomb toward paramilitaries near a church in the small town of Bojayá. The bomb landed on the church instead, killing at least 79 people who had taken refuge inside.
That level of violence is entirely foreign to most Americans’ experience. Many probably think this could not happen here.
But Colombia’s internal armed conflict started with a single assassination, of political leader José Eliécer Gaitán, in 1948.
That in turn led to a decade so bloody—and so difficult to explain—that it is known simply as “La Violencia” or “The Violence.” More than 200,000 people died as Liberals and Conservatives killed each other, in theory for political reasons, but often for profit—for example, to steal a neighbor’s land—or for power or to settle personal scores.
La Violencia eventually morphed into a horrific 50-year armed conflict involving guerrillas, paramilitaries and the government. Today, despite a 2016 peace deal, the country still wrestles with significant violence.
Colombia is not alone. There are so many places where political violence has escalated into nightmare scenarios. Sometimes, one side wins— the rebels in Syria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the state in Sri Lanka and Peru—at tremendous cost. In others, as in Haiti and Libya, the violence just grinds on.
And it is usually ordinary people who suffer the most. Not just from killings, but also forced displacement, hunger, the destruction of schools, businesses, and livelihoods.
Today, the US is in a very dangerous place, with political violence on the rise in a way not seen in generations.
Many people are pointing to polarization as the key problem, but it’s so much more than that. We’re dealing with a collapse of trust in our political system, rooted in part in longstanding corruption and unfairness baked into it. The Trump administration is taking advantage of that cynicism to take corruption to a whole new level, destroy checks on its power, persecute critics and undermine basic freedoms. Many people are already suffering the consequences.
The answer to this crisis is not violence. It’s working across our differences to turn the tide on corruption and authoritarianism, and creating momentum for a government that is accountable to the people, not just the powerful.
Most Americans do not want violence or repression. Most still believe, across party lines, in ideals like the rule of law, checks and balances, freedom, fairness and due process. And that gives us a lot to build on.
So let’s start there, now:
Let’s use our power as neighbors, relatives, friends, and fellow citizens to reach out and engage on how we build together, fairly, giving everybody a real voice.
Let’s use our power as constituents to put pressure on our political leaders, at all levels, to stand up to rising authoritarianism and corruption.
Let’s build a nonviolent movement that cuts across political ideology for a government that truly serves all of us.
Image: Youth Network of Medellín © Stephen Ferry for Human Rights Watch.