Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as persons not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognised.

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian philosopher and educator. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed, originally published in Spanish in 1968. The text below was translated by Myra Bergman Ramos.

With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation.

“Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as persons not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognised. It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the rejects of life.

“It is not the tyrannised who initiate despotism, but the tyrants. It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is not used by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.

“For the oppressors, however, it is always the oppressed (whom they obviously never call the oppressed but depending on whether they are fellow countrymen or not those people or the blind and envious masses or savages or natives or subversives) who are disaffected, who are violent, barbaric, wicked, or ferocious when they react to the violence of the oppressors.

“As the oppressors dehumanise others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanised.