trauma – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

Crimson soil: AFSPA

Posted on March 11, 2013March 6, 2013 by kathiemm

[Part 3 in a series by guest author, San’aa Sultan]

India is viewed as the world’s largest democracy, a progressive nation, and a rising and powerful country. This success story, however, hides its human rights record.

Kashmir protest. Photo used with permission.

In the occupied territory of Kashmir, human rights are almost out of reach for the general population. Safety within one’s own home is not guaranteed, nor is the right to a dignified life.

In contrast, the perpetrators of the abuse are allowed to roam free under a draconian law known as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

The AFSPA allows the occupying forces the right to:

Shoot to kill
Arrest without warrant
Detain without time limitations.

The law also forbids the prosecution of soldiers without an approval from central government, which is rarely granted. This has allowed the army to develop systematic methods of violating the Kashmiri population which include torture and rape.

This widespread use of violence against a population of 12 million without any hope of justice not only abuses Kashmiris physically and mentally, but also acts as a source of psychological trauma.

The never ending cycle of perpetration and what subsequently amounts to justification of injustice is harming Kashmir. Women, men, and children who have suffered loss over many decades have not had their cries heard nor their pain eased. Instead, it has deepened.

Today I ask, why is it that their pain is veiled by silence? Why is it that the world does not call for an end to the use of such draconian laws that subdue our people? Are we not ultimately one and the same?

The AFPSA and similar laws around the world must be brought to an end if we wish for justice to prevail. Freedom from occupation will never truly come without the implementation of justice.

San’aa Sultan

Recovery through forgiveness

Posted on December 26, 2011December 27, 2011 by kathiemm

[Note from KMM: Guest author Elina Tochilnikova graduated from Boston University where she was a member of the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) and a contributing author to a chapter on Russia in State Violence and the Right to Peace. She has recently worked on 3 short documentary films on the forgiveness processes of Holocaust survivors.]

Eva Mozes Kor, a “Mengele Twin” who survived the genetic experiments at Auschwitz, chose the non-standard route to recovery: forgiveness.

Eva Kor photo by OberRanks. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

For this she failed to win acceptance from the survivor community. As have her predecessors and contemporaries in social change, she has had to define her own path, and in that, defined herself.

In 2010, with the assistance of Boston College Professor Dr. John Michalczyk, I interviewed Eva. She explained that in 1993 she was offered an opportunity to meet with former Auschwitz Nazi doctor Hans Munch, a former colleague of the infamous Josef Mengele. Although emotionally wrought by the prospect, she flew to Germany to interview him and gather information on the deadly human medical experiments.

Unexpectedly, Dr. Munch welcomed Eva; she states “he treated me like a human being and shared useful information.” Furthermore, he expressed deep and sincere remorse, disclosing his psychological torment ever since his work in the camps.

As an expression of gratitude, Eva wrote a letter of forgiveness to Dr. Munch. Through this process, Eva discovered that she, “the guinea pig of the angel of death,” had the power to forgive even Dr. Mengele himself, and everyone else who had ever hurt her, including her parents toward whom she had harbored resentment about their not being able to protect her.

Eva states: “As soon as I forgave, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders … I felt that I had the power to forgive and that no one could take that power away from me.”

On 13 occasions since meeting Dr. Munch, Eva has visited Auschwitz, where she has met with former Nazis as part of a forgiveness ceremony.

Eva Kor remains the spearhead of the concept of forgiveness as an act of self-healing. She opened the Candles Holocaust Museum, produced films, and led programs teaching forgiveness in schools worldwide. In addition, her films and interviews are used to help patients heal following emotional trauma. Thus, she has combined her motto of “heal the world” with tangible steps that can prove useful in recovery from trauma.

More than a few “bad apples”: American soldiers, the legacy of torture, and the trauma behind it

Posted on October 18, 2010March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

[Editor’s Note: In today’s post, we introduce a new feature to our engagingpeace.com blog. Periodically we intend to offer a brief review of a contemporary book that sheds light on issues such as war, torture, terrorism and their aftermaths, as well as on peace, reconciliation, and apology and forgiveness. We also invite our readers to submit commentaries on books they have found helpful.]

Review of None of us were like this before: American soldiers and torture By Joshua E.S. Phillips

Reviewed by Charikleia Tsatsaroni

In this thought-provoking and revealing book, Joshua Phillips asks why U.S. forces and officials believed that torture was effective, permissible, and necessary, and what were the factors that led them to engage in such practices.

He begins his quest with the death of Sergeant Adam Gray, who made it home from Iraq and died in his barracks. Phillips then guides us through his interviews with ordinary American soldiers, their families and friends, victims of torture, military, governmental, and intelligence officials, human rights lawyers, and activists, to name a few.

These interviews provide many examples of Albert Bandura’s socio-cognitive mechanisms of moral disengagement (e.g., advantageous comparison, euphemistic labeling) as the expanding set of individuals connected with the use of torture try to make sense of what happened.

Phillips’ narratives lead inevitably to the idea that Americans who engaged in torture were not just a “few bad apples” (p. ix) and that the factors leading to torture did not lie only within individuals but also and most importantly within the societal context and its interwoven systems.

His book also strongly reinforces the importance of greater attention to the trauma inflicted on soldiers by their involvement in torture and abuse; it is apparent that most of his interviewees deal daily with personal demons.

Overall, I would recommend this very readable book for its eye-opening narrative and its ability to keep you involved until its painful ending, which highlights the fact that wars have victims on both sides.

Even physically untouched “victors” can bear wounds forever because of what they did in the context of war.

Charikleia Tsatsaroni, MSc., EdM., from Greece, is the former head of the Department of Human Resource Training and Development of the Greek Organization Against Drugs (OKANA), and is a member of GIPGAP.