Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across ethnic or communal lines, where the violent parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership.Horowitz, D.L. (2000) The Deadly Ethnic Riot. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins.Communal Oxford Dictionaries
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime includes any conflict and form of violence between communities of different religious groups, different sects or tribes of same religious group, clans, ethnic origins or national origin as communal violence.Homicide, Violence and Conflict UNODC, United Nations However, this excludes conflict between two individuals or two families.
Communal violence is found in Africa,Kynoch, G. (2013). Reassessing transition violence: Voices from South Africa's township wars, 1990–4. African Affairs, 112(447), 283–303John F. McCauley, Economic Development Strategies and Communal Violence in Africa, Comparative Political Studies February 2013 vol. 46 no. 2 182–211 the Americas,Willis, G. D. (2014), Antagonistic authorities and the civil police in Sao Paulo Brazil, Latin American Research Review, 49(1), 3–22Resource guide for municipalities UNODC Asia,Mancini, L. (2005) Horizontal Inequality and Communal Violence: Evidence from Indonesian Districts (CRISE Working Paper No. 22, Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford)Werbner, P. (2010), Religious identity, The Sage handbook of identities, , Chapter 12 EuropeTodorova, T. (2013), ‘Giving Memory a Future’: Confronting the Legacy of Mass Rape in Post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, Journal of International Women's Studies, 12(2), 3–15 and Oceania.Bell, P., & Congram, M. (2013), Communication Interception Technology (CIT) and Its Use in the Fight against Transnational Organised Crime (TOC) in Australia: A Review of the Literature, International Journal of Social Science Research, 2(1), 46–66
The term "communal violence" was coined by European colonial authorities as they wrestled to manage outbreaks of violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in their colonies, particularly Africa and South Asia, in early 20th century.Arafaat A. Valiani, Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity, , Palgrave Macmillan, pp 29–32David Killingray, Colonial Warfare in West Africa, in Imperialism and War: Essays on Colonial Wars in Asia and Africa (Edited by Jaap A. de Moor, H. L. Wesseling), , Brill Academic
Communal violence, in different parts of the world, is alternatively referred to as ethnic violence, religious violence, non-State conflict, violent civil disorder, minorities unrest, mass racial violence, inter-communal violence and ethno-religious violence.Donald Horowitz (1985), Ethnic Groups in Conflict,
History Europe
Human history has experienced numerous episodes of communal violence.David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, Princeton University Press, 1998 For example, in medieval Europe, Protestants clashed with Catholics, Christians clashed with Muslims, and Christians perpetuated violence against Jews and Roma. In 1561, Huguenots in Toulouse took out in a procession through the streets to express their solidarity for Protestant ideas. A few days later, the Catholics hunted down some of the leaders of the procession, beat them and burned them at the stake.Pierre-Jean Souriac, "Du corps à corps au combat fictif. Quand les catholiques toulousains affrontaient leurs homologues protestants," in Les affrontements: Usages, discours et rituels, Editor: Frédérique Pitou and Jacqueline Sainclivier, Presses Universitaires de Rennes (2008) In the French town of Pamiers, communal clashes were routine between Protestants and Catholics, such as during holy celebrations where the Catholics took out a procession with a statue of St. Anthony, sang and danced while they carried the statue around town. Local Protestants would year after year disrupt the festivities by throwing stones at the Catholics. In 1566, when the Catholic procession reached a Protestant neighborhood, the Protestants chanted "kill, kill, kill !!" and days of communal violence with numerous fatalities followed.Julius Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe 1500–1800, Cambridge University Press, 2001 In 1572, thousands of Protestants were killed by Catholics during communal violence in each of the following cities – Paris, Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Lyon, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulouse, and Troyes. In Switzerland, communal violence between the Reformation movement and Catholics marked the 16th century. Ireland has a long history of communal violence with the period between July 1920 and July 1922 being particularly violent. This period of time saw the partition of Ireland and the establishment of Northern Ireland. The violence that occurred during this time in several towns/cities within Northern Ireland has been referred to as the Belfast Pogrom.
Africa The Horn of Africa and Western Africa have a similar history of communal violence. Nigeria has seen centuries of communal violence between different ethnic groups particularly between Christian south and Islamic north.Desplat & Ostebo (2013), Muslim Ethiopia: The Christian Legacy, Identity Politics, and Islamic Reformism, In 1964, after receiving independence from British rule, there were widespread communal violence in the ethnically diverse state of Zanzibar. The violent groups were Arabs and Africans, that expanded along religious lines, and the communal violence ultimately led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar.. Local radio announced the death of tens of thousands of "stooges", but later estimates for deaths from Zanzibar communal violence have varied from hundreds to 2,000-4,000 to as many as 20,000. In late 1960s and early 1970s, there were widespread communal violence against Kenyans and Asians in Uganda with waves of theft, physical and sexual violence, followed by expulsions by Idi Amin.Kasozi, Abdu Basajabaka Kawalya; Musisi, Nakanyike; Sejjengo, James Mukooza (1994). The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, 1964–1985, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, Phares Mukasa Mutibwa (1992), Uganda since independence: a story of unfulfilled hopes, C. Hurst & Co. United Kingdom, Idi Amin mentioned his religion as justification for his actions and the violence.Arnold M. Ludwig, King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership, University of Kentucky Press, , pp 182–187 Coptic Christians have suffered communal violence in Egypt for decades, with frequency and magnitude increasing since the 1920s.B. L. Carter, The Copts in Egyptian Politics, , Routledge, pp 272–279
Asia
Communalism is a term historically used to denote attempts to construct religious or ethnic identity, incite strife between people identified as different communities, and to foment communal violence between those groups, particularly in Asia. It derives from history, differences in beliefs, and tensions between the communities. Communalism is a significant social issue in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Recent, communal conflicts between religious communities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially Hindus and Muslims have occurred since the period of British colonial rule, occasionally leading to serious inter-communal violence.
The term communalism was coined by the British colonial government as it wrestled to manage Hindu-Muslim riots and other violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in its colonies, particularly in British West Africa and the Cape Colony, in the early years of the 20th century.
The 4th Earl of Minto was called the father of communal electorates for legalising communalism by the Morley-Minto Act in 1909. The All-India Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha represented such communal interests, and the Indian National Congress represented an overarching "nationalist" vision. In the runup to independence in 1947, communalism and nationalism came to be competing ideologies and led to the division of British India into Pakistan and the Republic of India. British historians have attributed the cause of the partition to the communalism of Jinnah.
East, South and Southeast Asia have recorded numerous instances of communal violence. For example, Singapore suffered a wave of communal violence in 20th century between Malays and Chinese.Leifer, Michael (1964), Communal violence in Singapore, Asian Survey, Vol. 4, No. 10 (Oct., 1964), 1115–1121 In the Indian subcontinent, numerous 18th through 20th century records of the British colonial administration mention communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, as well as Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, particularly during processions related to respective religious celebrations.Bayly, C. A. (1985), The Pre-history of Communalism? Religious Conflict in India 1700–1860, Modern Asian Studies, 19 (02), pp. 177–203Baber, Z. (2004), Race, Religion and Riots: The ‘Racialization’ of Communal Identity and Conflict in India, Sociology, 38(4), pp. 701–718
The frequency of communal violence in South Asia increased after the first partition of Bengal in 1905, where segregation, unequal political and economic rights were imposed on Hindus and Muslims by Lord Curzon, based on religion. The colonial government was viewed by each side as favoring the other side, resulting in a wave of communal riots and 1911 reversal of Bengal partition and its re-unification.Richard P. Cronin (1977), British Policy and Administration in Bengal, 1905–1912: Partition and the New Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, In 1919, after General Dyer ordered his soldiers to fire on unarmed protestors inside a compound in Amritsar, killing 380 civilians, communal violence followed in India against British migrants.DRAPER, A. (1981), Amritsar – The Massacre that Ended the Raj, Littlehampton, There were hundreds of incidents of communal violence between 1905 and 1947, many related to religious, political sovereignty questions including partition of India along religious lines into East Pakistan, West Pakistan and India.PANDEY, G. (1983),␣in Editor: GUHA, R., 1983, Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society, Delhi, Oxford University Press, pp. 60–129, The 1946 to 1947 period saw some of the worst communal violence of 20th century, where waves of riots and violence killed between 100,000 and a million people, from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Jain religions. Examples of this communal violence include the Jammu massacres and the Rawalpindi massacres.BRISTOW, R.C.B. (1974), Memories of the British Raj: A Soldier in India, Johnson, PANDEY G. (1990), The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, Oxford University Press,
It has recently been argued that in the post-colonial era, communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims contributed to the making of Muslim ghettos in those cities that had witnessed sustained communal mobilizations. It has furthermore been shown that the communalized real estate market, urban planning, and communal mobilizations often come to constitute each other in developing spatial majoritarianism.
The 20th century witnessed inter-religious, intra-religious and ethnic communal violence in the Middle East, South Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.Tambiah, S. J. (1990), Presidential address: reflections on communal violence in South Asia, The Journal of Asian Studies, 49(04), pp 741–760; Vaughn, B. (2005, February), Islam in South and Southeast Asia. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON DC, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (2005); Baker & Hamilton (2006), The Iraq study group report, Random House, ; Azra A. (2006), Indonesia, Islam, and democracy: Dynamics in a global context, Equinox Publishing, , pp. 72–85