The deconstruction of enemy images for a nonkilling society

We know quite well that human relations can be rosy and lead to peaceful and satisfying interactions, or turn into perverse spirals of conflict and oppression. Collective violence is prepared and supported by strategies aiming at reshaping the vocabulary of social relations. So, the thought “us vs. them” colonizes minds. Of course, the creation of a borderline between “us” and the “other” is a sociopsychological process that occurs in all human relations; in the neighbourhood, community and society, people will include some but exclude others on the basis of different criteria. But these criteria are cultural constructions, and combining social and cognitive perspectives it was particularly important to understand the process of "enmification" (enemy making), when the “other” becomes an enemy. In this chapter we explain not only how enemy images maintain themselves and become more negative but also how they decrease in negativity.