Luckily, it has not all been bad/creepy: one of the few productive things that has come out of all this is that in an attempt to become interested in his interests, I have been doing a lot of reading on various humanitarian crises, mainly in Sudan and Myanmar (good starting points: Not On Our Watch and Nicholas Kristof's columns). If you have not devoted entire days to reading about genocidal regimes, and innocent people having their eyes gouged out, and children getting limbs blown off, and gang rapes, and tens of thousands of people starving to death while the international community mostly twiddles their thumbs, some words of advice: have a puppy around or listen to some Disney music, because it's a quick jump from "I'm sad" to "I no longer have the will or desire to live in a world like this."
The more I learn about this stuff, the more incomprehensible everything becomes and the more confused I get (I find this is true of most things). In order to deal, I've formulated a working thesis, and I'm interested to hear how others feel about it: There are some things worth dying for, but there is absolutely nothing that is worth killing for.
When I came across especially heinous atrocities, two questions overwhelm me. First, how can anyone commit these crimes? And second, what kind of people are we (you, me, every single person who is aware in any way of these crimes) such that we are not doing everything we can to stop it? The only answers I have come up with to these two problems are completely inadequate, yet I still feel the need to share them because I have wracked my brains and I really can't come up with anything else.
My response to the first question: I don't think the people doing these horrible things actually understand what they are doing. Clearly they've thought about it to the extent of, "take gun, shoot person" or whatever, and maybe they even think they've got a reason to do it, but I don't think they actually understand the consequences of what they do. I am sure they don't feel the consequences of what they do, because it is unfathomable that a sentient being can come across that kind of suffering and allow it to happen, much less cause it to happen.
When I read about the regimes in Sudan and Myanmar cutting off humanitarian aid to millions of people so that they will slowly die of hunger and thirst and related diseases, I try to imagine what it's like to be a refugee. I fail to do this, because I have no capacity to understand that sort of suffering. The best I can do (and my best is very lame) is to remember some pretty extreme diets I've been on. I know what it's like to be hungry all the time for a long time, and I know how intensely miserable that is, but I know that I got through it because I knew there was food to be eaten at some point in the future and because I did it to myself. How must it feel to know that the awful empty feeling would continue and worsen until the moment you die? To know that starving to death is the best possible thing that could happen to everyone around you?
The regimes and people causing such situations must have never thought about this, and because they haven't, they can allow people to die this way.
As for the people who go around shooting, torturing, raping, disfiguring people, I don't think they think beyond the moment their act is over. I don't think they ever consider how it must be to live with the consequences of their actions--whether it be for the members of the community who witnessed the event, or for the person who has to live with the memory of violation. They know they have a thing to do so they do it, and then they move on to the next horrific thing. Perhaps they do these things because the act itself gives them pleasure, but I refuse to accept the idea that it is the pleasure of their victim's suffering that makes them do it. I don't think this is true because such a realization is so repulsive that it would be debilitating. No one can realize such a thing about themselves and still go on living. They don't really understand the things they're doing or they wouldn't do them.
The very obvious flaw in this reasoning is that if bad people do bad things because they don't realize these things are bad, then just show them how much it sucks to be on the receiving end and people will stop doing bad things. Sometimes, I imagine the UN taking Bashir around Darfur and Chad and showing him the terrible things he's done, and when he realizes how awful he is, he would be overwhelmed with remorse and repent and devote the rest of his life to undoing in some small measure the disaster he created. I imagine diplomats showing videos of mutilated women, of disfigured children, of men with their eyes gouged out being led around by their wives and children, to the leaders in China and the Chinese leaders would break down in tears and stop giving weapons to these horrible regimes. Then I get even more confused because if this is how it should happen, why hasn't it happened, why doesn't it happen?
I have no answer for that.
Which leads me to my second question and my pathetic response: there isn't much that I or the people I know can do about these situations. I don't have much money to give, and even if I could make a sizable contribution to aid-relief organizations, they're being kicked out of the disaster-zones so the money wouldn't make a huge difference anyway. I've taken personality tests for volunteer organizations and failed miserably because I don't have the strength to not become a useless, sobbing, hysterical mess when faced with such intense suffering, so no one will take me as a volunteer. I sign petitions and write messages to people with more power than I do, but I sincerely doubt the utility of those things. I'm probably just making excuses for my inaction, but the money I "have" isn't mine to give away, and the time that I have no one will take. But the thing that really gets me is the people in power--Obama, Clinton, the UN, the EU, Bush, Cheney, Rice--all talk about how awful everything is but let it continue! What have they (other than France) actually done about it? If the whole world agrees that the mess in Darfur and Myanmar and the Congo and all those places is terrible, can the whole fucking world not put a stop to it? Who the hell is Bashir anyway that he can successfully fend off the free world for six years and go on killing people and ruining lives? When your job actually entails international relations and politics and "spreading democracy/peace", what can be more important than putting an end to mass killings?
I don't understand this, probably because my world-view is too simplistic.
This post has degenerated into a rant, but I will shirk responsibility and blame it on the time (4 am) and my strong feelings on these issues. As a result of years of training, I've got to make some sort of effort to tie in my thesis. So I'll end with this: I don't know where life comes from--meiosis/cell division, Mother Nature, God, general cosmic forces, whatever--but I sure know that no human being has ever handed life to another. No person has ever given life, and no person has the right take it away. It doesn't matter how righteous your cause is, it doesn't matter if you are defending the Union or fighting off Nazis. Unless you've got the explicit approval of general biological processes/Nature/God/the Cosmos, if you take what is not yours, you are a thief and a criminal. Even the most monstrous person is still a person, he still has a family, he still has feelings and thoughts. No one short of Jesus Christ is, has been, or will be in a position to judge whether another has a right to live.
I admit I stopped reading this as soon as you stopped talking directly about George Clooney, but I like that you care so much about these faraway events.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wanted to tell you that I really like your very first entry, the one about your returning to Chicago (but thought that you were more likely to see my comment here, if you're anything like me as a blogger).
Hey, this is Charlez's friend Vincent. I wonder if you've seen this, and/or have any thoughts about it. I was and still am pretty conflicted.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nowpublic.com/world/blinded-acid-attack-woman-wants-eye-eye-punishment
My gut instinct is to oppose any perpetuation of harm and interpersonal violence, but I am on the victim's side about the importance of making perpetrators really think about the consequences of their actions. I think the literal "eye for an eye" sentence makes it different from the death penalty for example, where the punishment may not necessarily fit the crime.
Hey Vincent--I enjoy your posts on Charles' blog. Usually I enjoy them far more than the copy-and-pasted conversations Charles puts up. You can tell him I said that.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with what the woman wants and what the court actually did. I understand that she asked for this punishment not as retribution but as prevention, but I think it is pretty clear that "preventative punishments" do not work. That's why the death penalty is one of the most absurd aspects of our justice system. Supposedly we kill murderers because we want to send a signal to society that "killing is wrong! if you kill other people, we will kill you!" People don't commit these crimes because they don't think it's wrong--they KNOW it is. They do it because they think they'll get away with it.
I would be interested to see how Movahedi (perpetrator) is reacting to his punishment. Well, not literally see, because the thought makes me sick to my stomach. I don't imagine that being blinded by acid--a punishment imposed by the court--will make him feel any remorse, as he is not remorseful now. He says he did this terrible thing because he loves Bahrami, and I think this is the key point. If this is how he justifies his crime, why will this terrible punishment for something he doesn't feel is even wrong, inflicted by an "impartial" court, make him feel sorry? Why will it make others in his situation feel bad? They threw acid in women's faces out of "love" (twisted though this is); the court has no similar justification.
What is clear about Bahrami and Movahed is that they both need help. Movahedi is clearly not completely sane. I know that it is acceptable in some parts of the Middle East for men to do this to women, but if he was stalking Bahrami, if he was asking her to marry him by threatening to kill her, it's pretty clear that he needs help. The article says that Bahrami doesn't have medical insurance, but I hope that she will be able to either get the heck out of Iraq (from what I understand victims of these sorts of crimes are often ostracized or accused of having done something to deserve it), or find some sort of support system.
Contrary to the human rights activists, I completely agree with this idea of eye-for-an-eye. If you're going to punish people for doing really awful things, it seems like the punishment needs to match the crime. I think the way we carry out the death penalty is absurd--you give painless injections to people who stab others to death? Who cut people into pieces? Who butcher parents in front of their children? Who have raped dozens of women? This is justice? ABSURD. and hypocritical. It makes me sick. If you are going to kill someone, don't package it nicely and pat yourself on the back because you think you've got morality on your side. So anyway, I think the punishment should fit the crime. As it happens, however, I don't believe in punishment, in the sense of retribution. If I were running the justice system (and no one in their right mind would ever let me run a justice system) I would sentence Movahedi to spend the rest of his life serving in a hospital ward with acid-burn victims. Obviously he would have to be supervised, but if you really want to make a man sorry, make him see the consequences of what he did without sowing the seeds for resentment and anger.
Goddamn, that is elegant. Charlez has promised me Switzerland after he takes over the world. You can run my justice system there!
ReplyDeleteI think you're absolutely right that both of them need help. I think it would be counterproductive for Bahrami to seek the exact eye-for-an-eye treatment that she received. It might do her more harm than good to lower herself to his level. To paraphrase a favorite anecdote… “A teacher drew a line on a chalkboard and asked his student how he could make the line shorter. The student gave many answers, including erasing parts and cutting it into pieces. The teacher drew a second line, longer than the first. ‘Now how does the first line look?’ ” The point of this all being that she can seek justice and fulfillment in better ways than cutting down her perpetrator.
Your proposal certainly seems like the best plan of action for this particular perpetrator-victim pair. She sends a resounding message, he learns empathy for his victim. Unfortunately I think that this would have very little impact on other men who share Movahed's passion and motivation. He claims to have done this out of "love", which sounds crazy to us. But I don't think he's crazy, I think he has simply mislabeled his heartbreak under a loaded blanket term. It always hurts when romantic hopes are crushed, and he was no different. What set him apart is that normal people piece together their bruised emotions and move on, whereas he reacted in external violence. Think Anakin Skywalker – it might seem that his path to the Dark Side was driven by his love for Padme, but I just don’t think that’s true. Love is awesome. What did him in and finally drove him to become Darth Vader were deep feelings of suffering, anger, desperation, powerlessness. Unfortunately there are many Anakin Skywalkers in the world – born and raised well enough, but turned to anger and hate by forces beyond their control. People learn to hurt other people because they themselves have been hurt, and have not gone through the proper process of positively healing their own trauma. For example, most child molesters and rapists are themselves victims of similar abuse. Seeing a convicted rapist put to death might play to the conscious mind with no effect on the deeply seeded emotional mind.
To generalize, I would say that people react to suffering by looking to share that pain with others, essentially diffusing its otherwise debilitating effects. Drug addicts find NA, where other people can understand their ordeal and offer a sense of community. The families of the victims of 9-11 banded together and act to console one another and strengthen each other’s voices as activists. Movahed, too, wanted to share his pain, but in a twisted way. He wanted his victim to suffer as he was suffering. The unique thing about acid is that it causes not only physical pain, but disfigurement as well. If he could not have her, then he would make it so that nobody could have her, and she could have nobody in turn. No wonder she compares her fate to worse than death.
Very similar forces are in play on a larger scale too - the scale of countries and dictators. People in power are people nonetheless, and as such they are susceptible to the same emotions of love, suffering, hurt... They may carry the weight of the pride of a nation they love, like a certain German leader did after World War I. Some of the most tyrannical Roman Emperors came to power through violent means, thus they ruled with constant fear and insecurity over the reach and stability of their power. People in power fear powerlessness, and what better way to exert your power, than against another human being. On the interpersonal scale, this is played out in rape, torture, assault, etc. On an international scale, it’s in racism, dictatorships, nuclear arms, and genocide.
But that’s only half the equation. On the other side are the people who are totally dejected, who have lost everything important to them – their land, livelihoods, their parents or children. Their desperation turns them to terrorism, and their motivation is double-pronged. Having nothing to lose, they fear nothing and cannot be deterred by rational negotiation or superior military forces. More importantly, their violence is an outward expression of their embittered circumstances. They feel abandoned and discarded by the human race, and this is their only means of regaining the respect and power that they feel is owed to them by an unjust world. Why should they feel remorse or compassion toward a victim, when no one has ever shown the same to them? Again, people learn to hurt others because they themselves have been hurt.
As long as there is inequality and free will in the world, people will feel spurned by the choices and circumstances of those around them. World leaders are responsible for reducing these inequalities – implementing public health projects, flattening the socioeconomic gradient, distributing aid relief, etc. The citizens of the world must learn to do the rest on their own. Clearly easier said than done, but we as individuals are the starting point.
P.S. sorry to take up so much room on your blog. If it's a problem you can use vince47ma@gmail.com instead. Thanks again for responding to the article :)