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7.5 Violence and ideology▶ Nationalism as an ideology affirms the existence of people or nations whosemembers share a common history and destiny – the identity. Nationalist sentimentsmight lead individuals to see their own group or nation as superior toother groups. Challenges to one’s nation are often regarded as a threat to one’svery existence. In this light nationalism can act as a cause of conflict, as severalhistoric examples prove: for instance the genocide on Jews in World War II, thegenocide on mainly Tutsi in Rwanda in 1996.▶ Ethnicism means defining yourself exclusively through your ethnic identityand excluding or attacking others on the basis of their ethnic identity has becomea major conflict issue and cost many lives in many countries: the Balkans inEurope, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Mali, Rwanda before and during the genocide,etc.▶ Both supporters and opponents of the twenty‐first century ‘war on terrorism’regard it largely as an ideological and religious war 56 .▶ Anti‐capitalists assert that the ideology of capitalism is violent. They mayuse the term ‘structural violence’ to describe the systematic ways in which agiven social structure or institution kills people slowly by preventing themfrom meeting their basic needs, for example the deaths caused by diseasesbecause of lack of medicine. Free market supporters argue that it is violentlyenforced state laws intervening in markets which cause many of the problemsanti‐capitalists attribute to structural violence 57 .7.6 Violence and religionReligious ideologies have been the cause of interpersonal violence throughout history.However, religion itself is seldom a genuine reason for violent conflicts, eventhough claims are frequently made to this effect. Still, religious ideologues oftenfalsely accuse others of violence and unrighteousness and take it as the reason orexcuse for their own execution of violence, such as the ancient blood libel againstJews, the medieval accusations of casting witchcraft spells against women and currentaccusations of satanic ritual abuse against day care centre owners and others.On the other hand, there are uncountable examples in most religions throughouthistory about fighting against violence. Individuals like Mahatma Gandhi have notonly preached but have been living examples that humans are capable of eliminatingindividual violence and organizing societies through purely nonviolent means.182 V. V I O L E N C E