Category: Torture

Celebrating Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy, Part 3

Posted on by kathiemm
Martin Luther King Jr, at a press conference / World Telegram & Sun photo by Walter Albertin, 8 June 1964. No known copyright restrictions

By Kathie Malley-Morrison & Anthony J. Marsella

The Meaning of Peace and the Criteria for Nominations to the MLK Peace & Social Justice Activist List

To be hopeful in bad times … is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness …. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Howard Zinn (2007) A Power Governments Cannot Suppress                      

The word is Hope.

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 Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”

The XIVth Dalai Lama 

The word is Freedom.

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In 200 CE, Rabbi Tarphon spoke of the importance of individual and collective responsibility to pursue “justice, even as the eternal quest may never be fulfilled: While the task is not upon thee to complete, neither art thou free to desist from doing your part!”

The word is Commitment.

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 The words of Shantidiva, 8th-century Buddhist Bodhisattva.:

            May I be an endless treasure for the poor and destitute;

            May I turn into all things they could ever need,

            And may these then be placed close beside them.

With no sense of loss, may I give up my possessions, even my body,

            And all past, present, and future virtues, to help all beings.

The word is Sacrifice.

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“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”  Mahatma Gandhi

The word is Nonviolence.

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 “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The word is Courage.

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 “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice no matter who it’s for or against! Malcolm X

The word is Justice.

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 “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

The word is Integrity.

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Freedom, commitment, sacrifice, nonviolence, courage, justice, integrity! These, we believe, are the components of peace and the defining qualities of our nominees for the MLK Peace & Social Justice Activism List.

What do you think of these criteria? Starting with our next post, tell us what you think of our nominees and send your own selections. Together we stand.

 

Patriotism Embraces Nonviolence in the NFL

Posted on by kathiemm
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.Author: Daniel Hartwig.

It’s time—no, it’s way overdue—to pay tribute to people of color in the United States for their self-restraint  in response to centuries of violent racist resistance to their pursuit of democracy.

If we are going to accept the Miriam Webster definition of “patriotism” as “love for or devotion to one’s country” (which is not the same thing as the easily-manipulated symbols of flags and anthems),  and if “patriotism” also means love and respect for democracy and social justice (which it should), then the patriotism of countless people of color in this country far exceeds that of the white beneficiaries of the military industrial complex.

It seems almost miraculous that violent race wars are rare almost to the point of non-existence (other than during the near-genocide perpetrated on the native people by the European colonists) when decade after decade people have been beaten, tortured, murdered, and (equally-harmfully) robbed of resources, dignity, and respect.

How have people been able to tolerate so much violence perpetrated for no real reason except that their skin was not deemed white enough by the power brokers—or that they were pinpointed as easily identifiable scapegoats for diverting the rage of paler people convinced (often correctly) that they were not getting a fair break?

Gene Sharp [see here and here  and here] has advocated nonviolent resistance as the most effective response to tyranny (and racism is tyrannical), because tyrants always have more killing and destructive power than their victims.

Fascism may seem to be spreading like lice in the fabric of this nation, but we have seen some great examples this year of nonviolent resistance to the social, psychological, economic, educational, and environmental brutality of a greedy and racist power structure.

Recently,  a notable example of nonviolent protest in action is the stance of Colin Kaepernick, and a growing number of supporters, who have refused to stand up robotically in enforced homage to an anthem and a flag whose benefits have never been offered freely to people of color.  Since when is kneeling down or joining arms antipatriotic?

It is those protestors who should be honored for pursuing true democracy.

(For more on the long history of race, sports, and politics in the US, click here)

 

 

 

 

Reflections on Torture

Posted on by kathiemm
A group of slaves in front of the US Capitol. Author unknown.
Published prior to January 1, 1923. In the public domain.

By Guest Author, Anthony J. Marsella

My study of the history of torture led me to conclude that our understanding of the nature, meaning, and consequences of “torture” may best be advanced by construing “torture,” not solely as a separate and distinct act of brutality and violence, but as part of a broader spectrum of behaviors, events, and forces that justify, promote, and legalize atrocities and brutalities within many contexts and circumstances.

These contexts and circumstances include all forms of asymmetric power relations including those promoted and sustained by political, military, economic, educational, domestic, and religious institutions and powers.

In this respect, acts of torture must be seen as ultimately related to the spectrum of extreme and lesser forms of violence and abuse including genocides, massacres, war crimes, human sacrifices, domestic abuses of women & children  that are driven, promoted, and sometimes sanctioned by biological, psychological, societal,  cultural, and situational variables.

Separating torture from other brutalities may be useful for legal reasons (i.e., criminal prosecution).  But ultimately, our understanding of acts of torture will best be considered within the broader spectrum of forces, events, and situations that have occurred.

The “Genus” (i.e., a class of objects or acts) of atrocities, brutalities and extreme acts of  violence that constitute forms of torture include”: Genocides, Massacres, Human and Animal Sacrifices, War, Battle Brutalities and Atrocities, Ethnic Cleansing, Sadistic Entertainment, Serial Murders, Hate Crimes, Lynchings, Witch Hunts, Death Marches, Capital Punishments, Assassinations, Terrorism/Counter Terrorism, Bullying, Forced Prostitution, Rapes, Acts of Torture.

To these I must add the institutions of  Slavery, Colonization, Imperialism, Economic Exploitation  and Abuses, and Various Entertainment and Recreational Sports and Games. All are or include forms of torture.

All have in common the explicit motivations of control and domination, and a willingness to inflict pain, suffering, fear, trauma humiliation, powerlessness, and death to achieve certain ends.

 

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu.  He is known internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu

 

Pain’s pathways

Posted on by kathiemm
“Drunk Father.”
Lithograph by George Bellows (1845-1922).
In the public domain.

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.