Since the end of the 90s, when the term ‘PIGS’ became popular, not without a certain pejorative tone, to refer to Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, we have carried the prejudice of the northern countries that we are more disastrous, more irresponsible and even inferior. Although the term began to be used at the end of the 1990s in the Anglo-Saxon financial circles to highlight the deficit and balance of payments problems of these countries, today the idea that we are “pigs” has spread, unconsciously , beyond the merely economic. And in the collective image of many northern countries, the ‘PIGS’ are a kind of exotic barbarians who waste and are always partying.
But, among so much stigma, There is a fact in which Spain comes out very well and lowers the burden of that label: it is the country of the ‘PIGS’ that has improved the most in terms of armed violence data, and it is already the eighth safest territory in all of Europe. they only surpass him North Irelandwith a relationship of 0.13 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants; Luxembourg (0.16/100,000), both countries very far from the rest; in a strip more similar to Spain is Italy (0.56/100,000), Slovenia (0.63/100,000), Swiss (0.65/100,000), Norway (0.68/100,000) and Netherlands (0.75/100,000). for his part Spain has a ratio of 0.76 violent deaths per 100,000 peopleone of the best data in Europe and, therefore, in the world.
This is clear from the data of the Swiss organization Small Arms Survey, dedicated to the study of armed violence, in which the positive evolution of Spain since 2004 is also discovered, when the data reached 1.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. In fact, it is the country of the four that are part of the stigmatized group of PIGS that has improved the most in the last decade, also a good demonstration of progress.
Beyond Spain
These data, which reflect the situation of armed violence throughout the world, are a very good sign for Spain. It has a much more positive reality in terms of security than that of those northern countries that look at our country with some suspicion because of that imposed label (although sometimes also confirmed by us) of being disastrous, not only economically, but also socially. Compete in the league of the eight European countries with the best security.
In fact, we got a much higher grade than those who gave us the mote: England has an average of 1.39 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. France, also tending to show distance with Spain, has a rate of 1.58-100,000; Germany 1.12-100,000, and Belgium, the cradle of Europeanism, 1.48-100,000. On our continent, the two worst territories, since a long time before the war broke out, are Ukraine and Russia. In fact, in 2004, Russia registered a ratio of 33.6 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitantsthe record in Europe since that same year they began to collect the data.
On the other side of the pond, the British Virgin Islands take the cake in the ratio of violent deaths-inhabitants (76.07-100,000). Although if only deaths are taken into account, without relating them to the citizens of each country, Brazil, Mexico and the United States are the worst off: 50,446, 43,250 and 29,445 violent deaths respectively.
Worldwide, the most violent country according to this organization it’s afghanistan, with a relationship of 88.38 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. These data belong to 2020, because from then on the data collection stopped. But with the arrival of the Taliban, in the summer of 2021, the number is likely to be much higher now.
