In his
foreword to World Report on Violence and Health, published by the World Health
Organization (WHO) in 2002, Nelson Mandela states that “the twentieth century
will be remembered as a century marked by violence” (Krug et.al., 2002,
“Foreword”). Now we are nearly at the
end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, but violence still
permeates in our lives at various levels. Various forms of violence occurring
at levels of interpersonal, self-directed, collective, state, warfare, child
and youth violence, intimate partner violence, environmental violence, and
animal violence lay bare the complexity and pervasiveness of the phenomenon,
yet it also brings along the necessity to discuss violence from multiple
perspectives.
It is
difficult to present a comprehensive definition of violence since not only the
concept of violence is broad as stated above but also it runs the risk of
degrading the concept through fixed meanings. Keeping in mind that the concept
of violence has always attracted philosophers, writers, and artists across
disciplines throughout centuries, the evolving nature of the concept has made
it essential to address it from different perspectives. Concordantly, Dahlberg
and Krug’s definition of ‘violence’ is an applicable one which characterizes
violence on different aspects as follows: “the intentional use of physical
force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or
against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood
of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or
deprivation” (Krug et.al., 2002, 5).
