terrorizing – Engaging Peace

by Kathie MM

Camp Pendleton Counseling Services’ POWER Workshop is a program designed to help service members and their families overcome domestic violence and child abuse. This image is a work of a U.S. military or Department of Defense employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. In the public domain.

The corporate media, when it does not have enough juicy crime and scandal stories to shock and awe, often provides us with a new episode in the “war on terror”.

Internationally, the dominant approach to combatting terror appears to be using or threatening more terror.

I think we know how well that has served us. (Is the world safer for democracy yet?)

Fundamentally, there appears to be little global appreciation for the complexity, the pervasiveness, the insidiousness of terrorizing–that is, the human propensity to “fill with terror or anxiety,” “scare,” or “coerce by threat or violence.”

Let’s face it, wherever there is an imbalance of power, there is a potential for terrorizing.

Often, throughout history, in much of the world, men have terrorized women (including husbands terrorizing wives), first borns have terrorized later borns (think of Cain and Abel), members of different gangs have terrorized each other, bullies have terrorized whomever they can, and, sadly, the rich and powerful have terrorized the poor and meek (who seem to have a long way to go before they will be allowed to inherit the earth).

If we are going to have a successful war on terror, we need to take an ecological approach; that is, we need to tackle terrorizing at all levels of society—in the home, in the neighborhood, in the broader community, in states, and in the international community.

Terrorizing behavior is contagious—once you allow it into your home, it can go viral.

There are lots of efforts underway that can help inhibit terrorizing as a power-wielding, power-seeking tactic—domestic violence prevention programs, anti-bullying programs, women’s rights programs, civil rights programs, and a wide range of United Nations human rights initiatives.

All of these programs have flaws; after all, they were developed by human beings. However, if you want to participate in the most general, most far-reaching, most likely-to-succeed war on terror, then supporting , defending, trying to improve, and contributing to the success of those programs is as good a place to start as any.

By Kathie MM

I bit my tongue yesterday. Really, not metaphorically. It hurt like the devil.

Why do I tell you this trivial story?

Because every time I bite my tongue, which I do more often as I age, I find myself agonizing about torture.

I think how infinitesimal my pain is compared to the pain that all too many people deliberately inflict on others while proclaiming their own superiority and the justifiability of their acts.

Almost everyone knows how hurtful, how uncomfortable, how agonizing, how disrupting, how destructive life’s ordinary injuries–bad toothache, broken bone, burned hand–can be. Yet right now, around the world, there are countless people torturing other living beings in a variety of ways.

You have to ask why.

I know there are lots of reasons why some people behave cruelly towards others, particularly others who are not just different but also weaker, more defenseless than they. I also know that a penchant to hurt, punish, maim, harm others often stems from the experience of childhood maltreatment and the observation of domestic violence.

International, national, and state laws against domestic violence and child abuse have been promulgated and efforts undertaken to address these issues. Why has the United States government failed to ratify the International Convention on the Rights of the Child ? Why has there been such resistance to legislation protecting women from violence ? And for how long will international conventions against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment be flouted by U.S. government agencies ?

The record of the U.S. government in regard to torture is a sorry one indeed, as indicated in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA torture. In my view, torture–like terrorism–is a tool of tyranny and the anathema of democracy.

Please stay tuned for my upcoming series on Tyranny, Torture, and Terrorizing.