The cycle of hatred and violence
First of two parts
By H.D.S. Greenway, 10/25/2002

''EACH SIDE viewed the other with distrust... No guarantee could be given that could be trusted, no oath sworn that people would fear to break. Everyone had come to the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect a permanent settlement, and so, instead of being able to feel confident in others, they devoted their energies to providing against being injured themselves.''

This quote could be a description of Palestinians and Israelis, whose entire history is defined by cycles of violence and revenge. Or it could describe relations between India and Pakistan, states that harbor boundless suspicion of each other. But, no, it was written 2,500 years ago by Thucydides to describe the bitterness between Sparta and Athens. There is nothing new about the deeply ingrained antagonism that exists in the world today or the savagery it produces. Xenophobia, the hatred and fear of another group not our own, may be a byproduct of natural selection, something imprinted in our genes. Homo sapiens needed to band together with other individuals to survive, and that survival group needed to be able to rally its own against others who would want to invade its territory and steal its food. ''The sense of self is intertwined at a primitive level with the identity of the group,'' as the political sociologist Vamik Voltan puts it.

When times are good, when people are feeling optimistic, they can reach out and build alliances with groups other than their own. But when a group feels threatened and under siege, then they withdraw into the survival group like a hermit crab withdrawing into its shell.

The survival group may be a city-state such as Sparta or Athens or a modern nation state such as India or Pakistan. But very often the survival group is based on race, ethnicity, sometimes language, and above all religion.

Both Pakistan and Israel, for example, are states founded upon religion - homelands for Muslims and Jews, respectively. Due to the trauma of partition, in the case of Pakistan, or the Holocaust and a long history of repression in the case of the Jews, both find it hard to trust anybody but their co-religionists. India is officially a secular state, but communal violence between Muslims and Hindus continues to defy the dreams of Gandhi.

The same could be said of Northern Ireland, where class, customs, political and economic power, as well as differing national aspirations all have their roles, but basically the belligerents are two Celtic peoples speaking the same language, but divided along religious lines. In the former Yugoslavia, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims are basically of the same racial stock and speak the same language. There were many reasons why they turned against each other, but when they did religion was there, not just nationality, to supply them with a survival group. What links all traumatized groups is an egoism of victimization, a sense that one's own pain is so great that it blocks out any sense of another's pain. All such groups have their ''chosen trauma.'' as Valkan describes it. Turkish Cypriots want to concentrate on Greek atrocities against them, while Greek Cypriots want to dwell on the Turkish invasion of their island.

When the egoism of victimization becomes too strong, people find excuses for savagery in a higher authority. Thus does Osama bin Laden find justification in his religion for acts that his religion expressly forbids.

Many Muslims feel traumatized by perceived failure and a sense of inadequacy. Rather then look inward to find out what has gone wrong for them, some strike out at ''infidels'' as the imagined source of their malaise. You can hear this in the utterances of bin Laden, the classic malignant, narcissistic personality that always finds a following in traumatized societies.

For these there comes an excessive identification with the survival group. ''The psychological functions served by that identification are common to all conflicts: survival and self-worth,'' according to sociologist John Mack. ''These are all fundamental psychological principles, a sense of power versus powerlessness. ''

Self-worth, or the lack of it, is a common ingredient in the making of a terrorist, Harvard's Jessica Stern has found. Respect and dignity come up again and again in conversations with Palestinians, traumatized by the Israeli occupation, till it begins to loom as large as national purpose or territorial aspirations as a cause of grievance against Israelis.

In its long occupation of Palestinian lands and denial of Palestinian national aspirations, the Israelis have been astute in denying Palestinians that dignity in the daily humiliations Israelis inflict. Conversely, Israelis, still traumatized by the Holocaust, see their national survival at stake, even though the Palestinians have not the means to threaten Israel's national survival. The Palestinians, in turn, have been astute at denying Israel the peace and security it so desperately wants and needs.

Thucydides would have felt right at home.