Communal violence (sometimes intercommunal violence) refers to a situation where violence is perpetrated across ethnic lines, and victims are chosen based upon ethnic group membership. The term communal violence is commonly used in South Asia, to describe those incidents where conflict between ethnic communities results in massacres.
Communal violence, as seen in South Asia, typically takes the form of mutual aggression, in which members of all involved ethnic groups both perpetrate violence and serve as its victims. Genocide is a sub-category of communal violence, in which the participating ethnic groups can be assigned mutually exclusive roles as either perpetrators or victims of violence.
Famous quotes containing the words communal and/or violence:
“A communal horse anybody can ride.”
—Chinese proverb.
“For most Northerners, Texas is the home of real men. The cowboys, the rednecks, the outspoken self-made right-wing millionaires strike us as either the best or worst examples of American manliness.... The ideal is not an illusion nor is it contemptible, no matter what damage it may have done. Many people who scorn it in conversation want to submit to it in bed. Those who believe machismo reeks of violence alone choose to forget it once stood for honor as well.”
—Edmund White (b. 1940)