Violence and Suffering

Suneel Nand

MA. Sociology, 2nd year, final semester

The Act of Killing

The understanding of movie, first of all, Violence is universal. We see it in movies, television shows, video
games, we read about it in newspapers, books; we speak about it, both literally when we recount what’s
happening in the world, but more often figuratively with an array of violent phrases that spread through
everyday speech; we fear it with our security systems, weapon purchases, and police forces; and we
experience it directly or indirectly in our homes, schools, communities, workplaces, playing fields and
battlefields.

The movie raises many issues which can be understand as a student of sociologist and anthropologist. There
are many forms of Violence. In this movie, Violence is socially constructed by the military and it connects
to all social institutions and all social processes from micro level to macro level. The military hold all power
in hand and whoever raises questions against it, they will kill them on the name of communists, union
members, landless farmers, intellectuals and ethnic Chinese. The movie gives data, in less than a year, with
direct aid of western governments, over one million “communists” were murdered.

The Violence can be planned. It can be carry out through certain strategies like in this movie military uses
special paramilitaries and gangsters to kill people. Again, state uses, institutions like social media to realize
their citizen that communists are the criminal and they are against our nation. So, it has been seen that
through violence state runs their rule over the people.

Violence like all forms of behavior, is highly contextual. The examples noted above all exist in a specific
time and place, with specific actors. It is impossible to think that there could be a universal “violence
barometer” that could objectively determine what is or is not violent without accounting for these factors.
To fully understand any act of violence, we must consider the typical questions that we should be asking of
all behaviors: when and where did occur, who was involved, why was done, what actually transpired, and
how did people react.

Keeping these above some questions open, I would like to study more theoretical explanation about
violence and in our course.