Last posts on violence

Anarchic Mercy

2008-09-14T14:35:00+02:00

Love this, from Rowan Williams via Inhabitatio Dei:

"To believe in Jesus' God, the God of unconditional accessibility and even-handed compassion, to believe in an anarchic mercy that ignores order, rank and merit, is to accept that our projects and patterns are the mark of failure, of illusion, of the infantile belief that we can dictate truth and reality. Because it is menacing and painful to be confronted with the knowledge that our constructions of controlled sense are liable to be empty self-serving, we readily turn to violence against the bearers of such knowledge: in Johannine terms, we have decided that we want to stay blind when the light is there before us, claiming we can see perfectly well." -- Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge (1990)

Rewards and Other Ways

2008-07-20T15:10:00+02:00

This week's Parshah (Torah portion):Moses' great-nephew is rewarded for his zealotry; he receives a "covenant of peace" because he killed a prince and princess from two non-Hebrew tribes who indeed posed a serious threat to Moses and his people. In the Torah, the vav (ו) in the word "shalom" (שלום) is broken. This story is followed by a story of five women who, facing an injustice, ask the question, "is there another way?"

Collective Violence - Examples - Part V

2008-06-20T12:00:00+02:00

It's been another month since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues pretty well unabated. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

I won't be making the Girardian connections for each of these as I have previously because the connections are the same as always -- scapegoat is often someone from the margins (disabled, poor, stranger, female, old, young, from another caste or class or country, seen as privileged, etc. ), mob often forms spontaneously or grows larger as the scapegoating occurs due to accusatory mimesis, perpetrators easily justify the scapegoating as necessary and right, scapegoating's intention is to bring about peace in the community.

INCIDENTS

** 15 May 2008, Baltimore MD: "Child Was a 'Demon'"
"One Mind Ministries of Baltimore, MD, allegedly starved an 18-month old child because he was viewed as a ‘demon' ... after the baby wouldn’t say 'amen' at mealtime." The baby's "body was found last month in a suitcase in Philadelphia two years after his death." Immediately after his death, "the baby was placed on a mattress, on which cult members said God would resurrect him from the dead." Examiner article here.

** 31 May 2008 Para, Brasil, in the Amazon: "Brazilian Tribes Say Dam Threatens Way of Life" reported at NPR

Indigenous people protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam on the "remote, pristine Xingu River," near the mouth of the Amazon River, attack Paulo Fernando Rezende, a representative from the state's electric power enterprise, with machetes as he speaks to them about the dam:

"Roquivan Alves Silva takes the microphone and declares: 'If necessary, I will make war to protect the Xingu and the people of the entire region.' Moments later, the Indians rise in unison. A mix of warriors and women moves menacingly across the room toward Rezende. Then suddenly they're on him. Machetes and sticks flailing, they push Rezende to the floor, poking him with their weapons. The warriors rip his shirt to shreds and carve a deep gash in his right arm. Blood pooling on the floor, Dom Erwin, the Catholic Bishop of Xingu, steps in. The gymnasium hangs suspended between fear and euphoria. Chief Tabata, whose tribe lives in the Xingu National Park in the state of Mato Grosso, says he feels the Eletrobras representative lied. ... 'We have to hurt them. They weren't respecting the Indians. ... That's our fight. I want the people, the white people to understand why the Indians are so angry.'"

** 2 June 2008 Imphal, Manipur, India: Woman killer lynched: Mob justice at Umathel:

"In a macabre incident, a woman (45) was hacked to death by a man (60) who was subsequently lynched by an angry mob at Umathel Mamang Leikai under Waikhong Police Station this morning. ... According to police report, at around 6 am today, Sangai was returning home from collecting monthly subscription of a Marup from a person at Umathel Mamang Leikai. While she was preparing to cross a bailey bridge, Khullachandra, who was then splitting bamboo, came from behind and hacked her on the neck killing the woman on the spot. When the news of the incident spread, angry locals came out in large number and beat up Khullachandra to death. The body of Khullachandra has been picked up by the Waikhong police. None of his family members have come to claim the body so far."

** 2 June 2008 Flushing, New York: "Mob Violence Against Falun Gong Worsens in Absence of Police"

"About forty Falun Gong practitioners were surrounded on Main Street in front of the Flushing Library Saturday evening between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. by a large, angry mob. According to eyewitness reports and Epoch Times reporters on the scene, the mob was emboldened by the absence of the police. ... 'These mobs, there were hundreds of them, at least 200-300 of them.'" ... There is speculation that the Chinese consulate is organizing the mobs and that "some of the violence is being aggravated and encouraged by well-placed individuals among crowds of Chinese. On Sunday, an unidentified Chinese man, standing among a large crowd of Chinese on Sanford and Kissena Streets, described how he had attacked a female Falun Gong practitioner the previous week, ripping the sign she was holding and knocking her to the ground. The man, who was described as about 5'7" and in his mid-40's with scars on his face, encouraged people in the crowd to attack Falun Gong practitioners themselves." More on an earlier incident here.

** 9 June 2008 Bagamoyo, Tanzania:

Kate Kozonasky reports on her blog of an incident of mob violence: "A few nights ago ... us girls were sitting outside at night, probably around 730, inside out home base just talking. All of the sudden, we heard this massive ROAR of people coming from outside the gate; it was ridiculous. at first it just sounded strictly like shouting, but as we ran outside our protective gates to see what the fuss was, we realized that at LEAST 150 people were running down the road with torches and spears, screaming "THIEF!" Our Tanzanian security gaurd explained that this often happens in Bagamoyo when there is a crime; when something happens and a citizen witnesses it, he has to scream to get others attention to catch the criminal themselves, because police are not affective here. So apparently, a man stole from a local store and they were literally chasing him out of the town to kill him!"

COMMENTARY examining triggers for mob violence:

South Africa: Ugly Politics Aggravate Xenophobia by Terence Corrigan and Faten Aggad, 4 June 2008: The "recent eruption of mob violence targeting foreigners living among us" in South Africa" have been put down to "xenophobia," but this, the authors contend, "cannot on its own explain the violence. After all, South Africans have been living alongside foreign nationals for decades. This suggests that other factors are involved. We need to understand what they are – urgently." Factors the suggest and explore are (1) the inability of the existing democratic process to mitigate conflict; (2) the 'uneven' South African policy on immigraton, which leads to grievances such as "anger at competition for jobs and services, envy at the perceived success of foreigners, and suspicion of other cultures;" (3) a political system that fails "to channel people's grievances into formal channels;" (4) "a lack of understanding on the part of ordinary people as to how they can make themselves heard."

South Africa: Graca Machel Warns of Revolt Among Victims of Pogroms, 10 June 2008:

"Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel, who today heads one of the country's most respected NGOS, the Community Development Foundation (FDC), on Tuesday warned of possible revolt among the tens of thousands of Mozambicans who have fled from anti-foreigner pogroms in South Africa. ... Should the government prove unable to satisfy their demands, and to reinsert them into Mozambican society, that could lead the victims of the pogroms to revolt against their own government" with mob violence. ...

"She added that the solutions to such problems must lie in the establishment of governments that are able to respond to the needs of their citizens, and reduce the likelihood that they will be driven to the margins of society. Machel claimed that the mob violence in South Africa was aimed more against the sub-human living conditions in the townships than against foreign citizens. She argued that the attacks had been unleashed by people who were 'rejected, marginalized and unused' by the South African system. (However, contrary to this view, there is good evidence that the initial riots were far from spontaneous, but were organised by self-styled 'community leaders'). Machel argued that the development models adopted by African governments have produced millions of marginalized and excluded people, living in conditions favourable to outbreaks of brutal violence. 'Extreme poverty dehumanizes people and leads them to madness,' she said. 'That's what happened in Rwanda over ten years ago.'

South Africa: Xenophobia on Trial at Boekehuis: Dark Tales and Hope by Liesl Jobson, 2 June 2008:

"Johannesburg readers crammed into Boekehuis" recently to "talk about xenophobia in literature. ... Store manager Corina Van der Spoel [chaired] the event," introducing "the topic with a series of salient readings and reflections, starting with an excerpt from the Goldstone Report of 1993/4, which noted the different ways that perpetrators, victims and bystanders react to massive human rights abuses -- the callousness with which innocent people are murdered, raped and tortured, and the shallow excuses produced by the perpetrators for such brutality.

"'He finds similar behaviour everywhere,' said Van der Spoel. 'The situations are universal. Throughout the world one must recognise that any people, anywhere, has the potential for evil on a massive scale. And all victims, whoever they may be, need the opportunity to heal. No continent, no region, and no people are immune from it.'" ...

"Van der Spoel also quoted from the Southern African Migration Project's World Values Survey on International Attitudes to Immigration, which she described as 'astounding'. In calibrating attitudes to foreigners it was found that South Africans held the harshest anti-immigrant views among the 29 nations surveyed. 'More than 20% of people surveyed here wanted all foreigners barred from entering the country on any grounds, compared with 13% holding this view in Britain, 11% in China, and 4% in the USA and Mozambique.'"

Pakistan: Burning of robbers shows lack of justice, police inefficiency by Zamir Sheikh, 26 May 2008:

Speaking of "the unfortunate burning of two alleged robbers by an angry crowd in Karachi recently" -- due to "a daylight robbery in a flat located in the congested locality" -- Skeikh points to "the rising unbearable cost of living" as a possible cause.

He also notes, "The desperate element in the street justified the mob justice arguing that there is no other way than to handout instant justice to the perpetrators of heinous crime. ... It is difficult to single out one single factor as the cause of the incident. It was just the instant anger with no restraining saner voice in the mob that caused the gruesome and inhumane act. But if discussed from various angles, one could reach the conclusion that snail pace process of justice, overburdened police force dominated by a few corrupt elements, tribal justice system prevalent in some areas the country and lack of trust of the judicial system were some of the factors that forced the unconscious mind of an enraged mob to indulge in an act which is prohibited both by the God and the man made laws.

"None other than William Shakespeare had written about the mob mentality in his famous drama Julius Caesar, how Mark Antony is his funeral speech played with mobs emotions in order to whip them into a frenzy of rage.

"The crowd that caught hold of the robbers as soon as the victims raised hue and cry had to react immediately and in the fit of mob anger they found no alternate than to beat them near death. Some one in the crowd who might have seen or undergone the sufferings of facing a similar personal experience lost his sanity and resorted to an act which otherwise under normal circumstance he would have just avoided and handed over the culprits to the police."

Pakistan: Rule of the mob by Ishtiaq Ahmed, 7 June 2008:

"In the wake of viciously gruesome attacks recently by angry mobs on criminals -- robbers and thieves -- caught recently red-handed on the scene in Karachi and other parts of the country, Gallup Pakistan conducted an opinion survey on May 18 and 19, 2008 ... Fifty-two percent (52%) of the total respondents were of the opinion that beating to death and then burning the bodies of those robbers apprehended on the spot was the "right thing to do" while 42 percent (42%) disapproved of such brutal methods. ...

"If we now recall that in the past few weeks a Hindu worker has been killed in a similar fashion by a mob which suspected him of blasphemy, incensed lawyers beat up pro-Musharraf ministers of the previous government in Lahore, and rival groups of lawyers fell upon each other in Karachi, causing a number of deaths, then the situation becomes very worrisome. It is symptomatic of not only a state and its institutions failing to establish and uphold law and order but civil society failing as well to inculcate norms and ethics that discourage violent conduct.

"When such a situation becomes endemic the name for the phenomenon is ochlocracy, devised by the ancient Greeks to describe mob rule or mob justice. Sometimes another word, "mobocracy," is applied instead to describe the power of the masses, in contrast to the power of an established ruling elite. ...

"The outbursts of mob fury and the concomitant 'rough' justice meted out to the culprits [in Pakistan] reflect not only loss of faith in the political leaders and state institutions' ability to maintain law and order and practice justice. Rather, in a more serious manner such extreme behaviour is a manifestation of helplessness and despondency in relation to the ruling class. "

More on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and the consequences for those accused of it. ("The blasphemy laws impact everyone, regardless of religion -- and the tragedy is that almost every case is completely fabricated. ... The reason is simple. The blasphemy law requires no evidence other than an accusation made by one person against another.")

Religion and Polarity

2008-05-25T16:45:00+02:00

Tim Townsend's "Love Thy Neighbor: The religion beat in an age of intolerance" in the May/June 2008 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, is worth the read, in light of the Jeremiah Wright drama and the fundamentalist Mormon news of late here in the U.S., and the ongoing and manifold religious conflicts (and power conflicts cloaked in religion) all around the world.

Townsend is a reporter who has covered religion at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the last four years. The gist of this essay is that religion is divisive and religious folk -- Jesus, too! -- are polarising. (The Matthew passage he quotes at the start of the essay doesn't convince me, but I agree generally with Townsend that a prophetic message can be polarising, and that Jesus's harsh language at times is divisive. My view is that Jesus disrupts the 'peace' we cling to, the very peace Jesus threatens verbally in the Matthew passage, in order to displace that temporary, violent sort of peace with a shot-through-with-life peace ...)

Townsend suggests that this polarity is nothing new in America, citing Puritan John Winthrop's landing-in-America sermon outlining "a political system whose top priority would be ... 'the duty of suppressing heresy, of subduing or somehow getting rid of dissenters.'" Townsend doesn't state the obvious, that suppressing heresy and marginalising dissenters had been the modus operandi of many in power, or seeking power, long before this.

Later, he speaks of the current chasm in the Episcopal church, which he says isn't about "sex, or even theology, but about power, and who gets to make the decisions that will tie the hands of everyone else." He quotes Cathleen Falsani, a religion columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times: "'Heat is good for a story, and religion is consistently good for that. ... Religion is polarizing. Maybe that's not the way it's intended to be, but it is.'"

I think adherence to religion both is and isn't intended to be polarising; it's intended to bring cohesion among some by excluding, marginalising, demonising, and polarising others, and it's very effective. Townsend quotes Neela Banerjee, religion beat reporter for The New York Times, who, speaking of the 'culture wars' between 'secularists' and 'the Christian right,' says that "'each sees the other as a profoundly dangerous influence on society.'" Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service, agrees: "All parties, he says, feel their worldview is under attack." Look at almost any conflict, geopolitical or interpersonal, and you'll see the same mechanism, the same justification: the other is a danger, a threat, to what's good, to what's right.

Quickly, Townsend himself, when in his reporting he sought to respect all beliefs, became seen as the dangerous other and became the target of accusations: "Besides being called ignorant, arrogant, balding, stupid, rude, fat (my new nickname was Burger Boy), lazy, and incompetent, I was depicted as a Satanic baby. My mother was insulted. I was accused of lying about my academic degrees, having a comb-over, being a paid agent of the Saudi government, and acquiring 'numerous social diseases.' I was, apparently, a plagiarist and a terrorist. Someone did a search to see if I was a pedophile." And not only was he accused, his life was threatened.

I think, from a Girardian perspective, one could say that it's never the other who is the danger; the danger -- the real obstacle to love and to life lived fully -- is the perception that it's the other who threatens us and our worldview. (For more, read an excerpt from René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning at Paul Nuechterlein's Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary).

Mob Violence - This Just In

2008-05-21T22:40:00+02:00

Reported today at CNN: "Mob burns to death 11 'witches, wizards'" in Nairobi, Kenya:

"Officials say a mob has burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya. Deputy police spokesman Charles Owino says the mob hunted down the 8 women and 3 men in two villages in the western Kenya district of Kisii Central. Owino says most of the victims were between 70 years old and 90 years old. Only one of the victims was 40 years old. Senior administrator Njoroge Ndirangu says ... 'These people identified who is to be killed by accusing their victims of bewitching their sons and daughters.'"

A BBC report on the attacks adds:

"The mob dragged them out of their houses and burned them individually and then set their homes alight, our correspondent says.

"Residents have been ambivalent about condemning the attacks because belief in witchcraft is widespread in the area...."

The International Herald Tribune put the size of the mob at "300 young men" and said that in some cases the victims' throats were slit or they were clubbed to death before being burned.

One police officer, Mwaura Njoroge, questioned how the young men could prove someone was a wizard and suggested that "'It is likely that the people who committed these killings had personal vendettas against their victims.'"

Added 22 May: In depth article on the issue of witch-hunting in Malawi, from the Women's Internatonal Perspective: "Mob Justice in Malawi: Accused of Witchcraft, the Elderly Are Rarely Protected by the Law"

Collective Violence - Examples - Part IV

2008-05-21T12:05:00+02:00

It's been almost a month since I last blogged about mob violence. Again, that's not because it's not happening but because it continues relentlessly. Here are some of the latest. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

26 April 2008 in the Erie Times-News, Erie, PA, USA: "Police charge 3 as victim remains on ventilator": Kyle Miles, 28, is in critical condition after being attacked by "a group of 10-15 people" who chased him and beat him severely after "a perceived slight triggered mob violence on a spring evening. ... The [original] assailant told Miles the assault was all about respect, said a witness. ... 'He was telling him that he (Miles) can't come down to this neighborhood and disrespect nobody.' ... The attacker boasted that he had dropped Miles with one hit. ... Arrington estimated up to 15 men in their late teens or early 20s chased Miles and gathered to watch the assault, as if it were a spectator event. 'Some girl said something. He said something. Someone took offense, and all hell broke loose.'

Conformity: The assault was a bonding experience for most of the onlookers. The cause of the brutal attack was a 'slight' that nonetheless seems to have justified the brutality in the eyes of the perpetrators. The victim was apparently someone from outside the community, since he ran the wrong way seeking escape.

28 April 2008, Karachi, Pakistan: "Jagdeesh Kumar, a 22-year-old Hindu worker in a garment factory in Pakistan's largest city, was beaten to death by a mob [as police looked on] for allegedly making blasphemous remarks about Prophet Mohammad. ....'His murder may have nothing to do with blasphemy. What we saw was an honour killing, coloured as a killing for blasphemy. Most, if not all, of the cases of killing for blasphemy have a different, more mundane and criminal reason. Blasphemy provides a cover,' says [A.H.] Nayyar [, an Islamabad peace activist]. He has reason to believe that the Hindu boy was in love with a Muslim girl." Hindus make up less than two percent of the population in Pakistan. (Sify News)

Conformity: Hindus, a tiny minority of the population in Pakistan, would be prime scapegoat material because they are non-conforming, marginalised and have been historically persecuted in Pakistan since the Partition of India in the 1940s. The scapegoating is cloaked in religious terms -- the scapegoaters claim to kill for sacred reasons -- while the truth seems rather different.

6 May 2008, Madurai, India: "A police official was stabbed and 17 policemen injured while a police jeep and four motorcycles were set on fire in mob violence which engulfed Eliyarpathi Village of the district today. Police sources said the trouble started when members of Mutharayar Community resorted to road blockade demanding action against some Dalits who allegedly desecrated a portrait of King Perumpidugu Mutharayar in the village. The incident was sequel to the stoning of Dalit houses in the villages by Mutharayars over a petty quarrel in a tea shop last night." (MyNews.in)

Conformity: Apparently a revenge attack. Dalits are the lowest caste in India, the so-called untouchables, and here they are alleged to have desecrated something sacred.

8 May 2008, Patna India: "Villagers pour acid into man's eyes in Bihar": "A man was severely beaten and acid was poured into his eyes by residents of a village in Bihar's Purnia district. ... The villagers "overpowered Vinay Yadav alias Pappu Yadav, wanted in connection with the February 28 killing of Bihari Lal Yadav and his grandson, and beat him mercilessly with sticks and iron rods on late Monday night. As Vinay collapsed in pain, the villagers poured acid into his eyes. The police soon arrived and took him into custody. He was rushed to the Purnia sadar hospital where his condition was stated to be stable. ... A mob had recently gouged out the eyes of two alleged thieves in Bihar's Nawada district. "

Conformity: Not much based on this report, other than the mob aspect and the escalation (if acid in the eyes is worse than being beaten with an iron rod ...) . Ruthless revenge attack of an alleged murderer.

10 May, Patna, India: "Mob justice takes 5 lives": Four bank robbers (including a murderer) and a would-be thief were beaten to death in Bihar in two separate incidents.

"In Siwan, Chand Quereshi (29), was beaten to death right in front of Siwan police station early in the morning. The incident took place around 3am when Quereshi broke into the Jai Prakashnagar residence of Vinod Mehta. 'Some 10 to 15 neighbours rushed to the house, overpowered the thief and beat him up till he fell unconscious.' ...

"At Buxar, four robbers were beaten to death by a mob, while another drowned in the Ganga while trying to escape the crowd. The robbers ... were part of a group of seven, who were trying to flee after a loot this afternoon," which they had taken from a branch of the State Bank of India at gunpoint after shooting and killing the bank's guard. ... The alarm alerted residents and they chased all seven and overpowered six of them within 500m from the bank. A mob of 100 started beating the men up and attacked them with bricks, stones and sticks -- anything they could lay hands on."

Conformity: Again, pretty common story of retaliation, in one case a small mob for an attempted crime and in another a large mob for an apparent robbery and killing. "Anything they could lay hands on" gives a sense of the frenzy of the mob. And did 100 men all start beating at one time, as if on cue, or did one start, and then another, and then the rest joined in?

12 May 2008, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India : "2 Dalit boys paraded naked for killing birds": "In yet another instance of mob justice, two Dalit minors were paraded naked for allegedly killing birds at Byawar village in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district. ... The minors, identified as Vinod (12) and Sagar (10), belong to the Kanjar tribe. The two were caught by villagers while they were catching birds and, on rummaging through through their bags, were found with a few pigeons and partridges. Furious villagers then beat up the boys and stripped them naked in public, police said. The villagers then called a barber and got their heads tonsured before parading them naked in the village."

Conformity: Humiliation of two Dalit boys, the lowest Indian caste (the 'untouchables'), easily scapegoated. I don't know enough to know what the aparent crime was here, what made the villagers 'furious': that the boys killed the birds (animal cruelty? the birds belong to someone else?), an 'untouchable' touching the birds that others might want to eat? Keeping the birds for themselves (stealing)?

13 May 2008 in the Sun News Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: "Police chief warns thugs following swarmings": Edmonton police chief Mike Boyd proclaimed that his city would not tolerate "this kind of mugging and swarming mentality against our police officers and any citizen in this city" after "the school resource officer at Eastglen high school was kicked in the head when he tried to stop former students from stunting in a vehicle. ... One pulled out a baseball bat but dropped it when the officer pepper-sprayed him. During the fight, the officer was pulled to the ground and kicked in the head, leaving him unconscious and having to be taken to hospital. ... Boyd said there have been other swarming incidents and muggings in which civilians are also being targeted.

Conformity: This story points to the no-holds-barred nature of group violence when the group feels provoked, including against law enforcement officers. (Perhaps drugs were involved, too?)

14 May 2008, Karachi Pakistan: "Residents of an apartment building attacked and set on fire three alleged robbers here on Wednesday, killing them all, police said. Police officer Amir Shaikh said residents of the building heard gunshots from an apartment where a neighbour had resisted robbers trying to steal his possessions. A mob of residents confronted the thieves and beat them with burning wood from the oven of a nearby bakery, setting them on fire." (That's the entire reported story.)

Conformity: Another brutal act against would-be thieves. The intention and outcome, as it often is, is not just to keep the thief from one's possessions but to punish the thief indelibly -- either because there's that much rage towards the thief or to signal to others that such an act won't be tolerated. Does the mob really feel that their actions should be tolerated? Is there that much perceived justification?

17 May 2008, Calcutta, India: "Shop fire triggers mob attack": "Over a dozen youths today stormed the home of the owners of the Sodepur shop where 12 people died in a fire yesterday, and failing to find them beat up a heart patient who stood nearby." They were thwarted from setting fire to the garment shop owners' house by neighbours. Two of the owners were in intensive care after the fire while other family members had fled to avoid retaliation and/or probable arrest. "Faced with a locked house, the young men ... vented their anger on a local youth. Raju Nag Biswas, 30, was standing in front of the house ... when he saw the cars pull up. About a dozen men jumped out and rushed to the house, but seeing it locked turned towards Raju," whom they apparently took to be the shop owners' watchman. Raju "pleaded with them saying he was not the guard and was a heart patient. 'But some of them grabbed my collar and began slapping me.'

Conformity: Retaliation. The beating of the innocent bystander when the intended victim can't be found -- and the justification that the bystander was culpable by association, is as guilty as the intended victim -- is a hallmark of scapegoating. Any victim will do to discharge the rage, to bring about peace. Interesting that according to the victim, only 'some' of the dozen youths/men continued to attack him after he denied association with the shop owners.

Tell Them: Physicians Should Screen for Sexual Violence History

2008-05-06T05:55:00+02:00

For many people a routine visit to the doctor is anything but routine. But for 1.8 million Texans (According to a University of Texas at Austin study) the visit to the doctor can be an even greater challenge. According to the study these Texans at some point in their lives have been a victim of sexual assault. According to RAINN 82% of people who are victims of rape/sexual assault never recieve medical interventions but they are being seen in the physicians office. They are being seen for symptomology related to chronic depression, eating disorders, obesity, anxiety disorders, gasteroentistinal problems, difficulty with concentration, maintaining healthy b0undaries/relationships and sleep disorders. Many doctors at intake will ask questions concerning a client's history that some people may indeed feel are invasive and personal. The problem is that when people with a history of sexual assault present themselves in the doctors office with these symptoms and a sexual assualt history has not been taken, physicians are missing opportunities to offer survivors access to interventive measures (through a referral system) to counseling, therapy, support groups and other social services.The second part of the problem is that almost 50% of persons sexually assaulted are under age 18. Of those victims, 70% of the victims know their perpetrators or are related them. Many physicians find this challenging with respect to having to report instances of child sexual abuse, but the law is not merky, they must report. The following are some other reasons that physicians list as why they do not screen:They fear opening Pandora's BoxThey lack the trainingThey lack the timeThey believe it is a personal issueThe cost would be too muchThese arguments are indeed valid but one has to wonder about the correlation between having to screen for domestic violence in the ob/gyn community but no such requirements for the other medical disciplines. When so many children are at risk it does not seem at all seem prudent or fair. But for the sake of a balanced argument, suppose all of these arguments had merit. The question then becomes not why it is not possible, but how can we work through the barriers of screening for sexual assault to be able to offer survivors access to the best possible services to ensure a better overall quality of life.With respect to training physicians must CME trainings which can be used toward education related to sexual assault. As for time, it is clear that time in the physicians office is less and less. However, others in the office can recieve the appropriate training to be able to approach individuals who make the decision to make an outcry. The staff can also where buttons which encourage people to ask questions; for example: Ask Me About Sexual Assult. This gives whomever wants to talk about the issue the opportunity to ask of their own volition in their own time about their concerns. Physicians can also work with local and are sexual assault agencies to have brochures in their offices which give informtion about sexual assault, available interventions, brochures that talk about help, hope and how to obtain justice. If the oath that the doctors take is to first do no harm, could it not be taken that lack of movement on this issue on behalf of victims, though passive is doing harm?As for this being a very personal issue, this is right. It is one that involves fear, shame, guilt, sometimes hopelessness and mistrust. When physicians make the decision not to ask the question at intake and directly to the client as a part of a routine doctor visit then they have made offering hope, healing and justice for survivors less attainable and contribute directly to the darkness and secrecy that predators depend on to continue these dastardly acts. It is their responsibility.The bottom line is that if advocates, survivors and other concerned persons don't let physicians know that screening is something they want to see done in their physicians office it will never get done. Let your physicians know that you want them to screen for sexual assault, have educational materials available in their office, have referral and legal brochures, DVDs available and also be prepared with respect to training to avoid re-victimization of victims.

The Contagion of Violence

2008-05-04T02:40:00+02:00

Long cover article titled Blocking the Transmission of Violence by Alex Kotlowitz (author of There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, 1992) in the NYT Magazine today about CeaseFire, a group of mostly ex-cons working in Chicago and a few other cities to contain the contagion of violence. The key point: violence is contagious, like an infectious disease:

"THE STUBBORN CORE of violence in American cities is troubling and perplexing. Even as homicide rates have declined across the country -- in some places, like New York, by a remarkable amount -- gunplay continues to plague economically struggling minority communities. For 25 years, murder has been the leading cause of death among African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has analyzed data up to 2005. And the past few years have seen an uptick in homicides in many cities. Since 2004, for instance, they are up 19 percent in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, 29 percent in Houston and 54 percent in Oakland.

"The traditional response has been more focused policing and longer prison sentences, but law enforcement does little to disrupt a street code that allows, if not encourages, the settling of squabbles with deadly force.

"CeaseFire tries to deal with these quarrels on the front end." 'Violence interrupters "suss out smoldering disputes and to intervene before matters get out of hand. ... [It] doesn’t necessarily aim to get people out of gangs -- nor interrupt the drug trade. It's almost blindly focused on one thing: preventing shootings.

"CeaseFire’s founder, Gary Slutkin, is an epidemiologist and a physician who for 10 years battled infectious diseases in Africa. He says that violence directly mimics infections like tuberculosis and AIDS, and so, he suggests, the treatment ought to mimic the regimen applied to these diseases: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source.

"'For violence, we’re trying to interrupt the next event, the next transmission, the next violent activity,' Slutkin told me recently. 'And the violent activity predicts the next violent activity like H.I.V. predicts the next H.I.V. and TB predicts the next TB.' Slutkin wants to shift how we think about violence from a moral issue (good and bad people) to a public health one (healthful and unhealthful behavior)."

About violence and murder, Slutkin is convinced that "longer sentences and more police officers had made little difference. 'Punishment doesn't drive behavior,' he told me. 'Copying and modeling and the social expectations of your peers is what drives your behavior.'"

The interruptors, Slutkin says, "have to deal with how to get someone to save face. In other words, how do you not do a shooting if someone has insulted you, if all of your friends are expecting you to do that? ... In fact, what our interrupters do is put social pressure in the other direction."

---

About this contagion of violence, and its cure, Girardians have a lot to say:

** Rene Girard, in "Are the Gospels Mythical?" talks about the contagion with reference to Peter's denial of Jesus:

"Peter spectacularly illustrates this mimetic contagion. When surrounded by people hostile to Jesus, he imitates their hostility. He obeys the same mimetic force, ultimately, as Pilate and Herod. Even the thieves crucified with Jesus obey that force and feel compelled to join the crowd. And yet, I think, the Gospels do not seek to stigmatize Peter, or the thieves, or the crowd as a whole, or the Jews as a people, but to reveal the enormous power of mimetic contagion -- a revelation valid for the entire chain of murders stretching from the Passion back to 'the foundation of the world.'"

** James Alison, in a 2007 lecture entitled "Love Your Enemy: Within a Divided Self," talks about Jesus's command in Matthew 5, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you":

"The instruction is not one about being a doormat, it is one about how to be free. 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' means 'do not be towards them as they are towards you, for then you will be run by them, and you and they will become ever more functions of each other, grinding each other down towards destruction. ... Instead of that, allow your identity to be given to you by your Father who is in heaven, who is not in any sort of reciprocity with them, and is able to be towards them as one holding them in being and loving them, without reacting against them.'"

Alison says that to change the pattern of our desires so wholly requires prayer, a recognition of our similarity with our enemies; this will "'eventually empower you to be towards your enemy as God is. Thus you will be free of any contagion from their violence towards you'."

Alison also speaks, in Blindsided by God: Reconciliation from the underside (2006), of the Holy Spirit's power to operate "neither from fear, nor from necessity, nor from togetherness, nor from contagion, nor from hate, nor from vengeance, nor from survival, nor from any other of the structuring forces of our society. And so it enables the person who is moved by it and recreated by it to begin to swim spaciously in the midst of violence without that violence infecting them."

** Drasko Dizdar, citing both Girard and Alison in his paper "Leaving the Temple" in the Australian EJournal of Theology (2004), says:

"Humanity is, indeed, so easily misled -- and not least by those who 'come in my name, saying: I am! – leading many astray' (Mark 13:6). The contagion of violence, working through fear, anxiety, indignation, anger, resentment, vengeance, etc, infects all who are not immunised against it: 'But when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be terrorised (throeisthe); this must happen, but the end is not yet' (Mark 13:7). Maintaining peaceful balance in a storm of contagious violence is Christ's gift...."

** G. B. Caird (in Richard B. Hays, chapter "Revelation" in The Moral Vision of the New Testament, quoted here) explains the contagion, expressed in the book of Revelation, this way:

"Evil is self-propagating. Like the Hydra, the many-headed monster can grow another head when one has been cut off. When one man wrongs another, the other may retaliate, bear a grudge, or take his injury out on a third person. Whichever he does, there are now two evils where before there was one; and a chain reaction is started, like the spreading of a contagion. Only if the victim absorbs the wrong and so puts it out of currency, can it be prevented from going any further."

---

The work of CeaseFire seems to be to convince the victims to imitate another model, to absorb the disease, to keep each other from reacting against 'the enemy,' and thus to keep the violent contagion from spreading and eventually to free the community from the disease.

---

Read the article for more details about the violence interruptors, why they turn from violent perpetrators to interruptors, how they operate (e.g., they "respond to every shooting and stabbing victim taken to the hospital"), founder Slutkin's background, the impact of CeaseFire on communities, its struggles for funding, etc.

Collective Violence - Examples - Part III

2008-04-26T03:25:00+02:00

It's been 16 days since my last Mob Violence post. The delay isn't due to lack of material but instead to being overwhelmed with material. The news from the Patna area of India would be enough by itself to fill this entry.

(If you want to know why I'm doing this, read the first posting.)

On with the show ...

1. 25 March, Port Harcourt, Nigeria:

The Advocate reports on the brutal beating of a chapter director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, a gay rights group, during a funeral service: "A man approached him while the congregation sang a hymn, asking him to speak with him outside. He said he was then attacked with slapping, punching, kicking, and spitting by a group of six men.

"'While beating me they were shouting, "You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?" Those who attacked me were well-informed about us, so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of our Anglican church have hands in this attack.' ... The attackers "said they would not rest until gays are silenced from activism."

"Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude England, said in the release that violence against LGBT people has been encouraged by the Church of Nigeria's leaders, including notoriously antigay archbishop Peter Akinola, who is primate of the Church of Nigeria."

Conformity: Homosexuals are likely scapegoating targets in a majority heterosexual society, particularly one that considers homosexuality 'an abomination.' The attackers seem to have found meaning in their violence, announcing that they would not rest until their mission was accomplished.

2. 9 April, Karachi, Pakistan: 7 die in Pakistani clashes

"Rival groups of lawyers fought Wednesday in Pakistan, triggering greater mob violence that left at least seven people dead in Karachi, police said.

"Five of the victims, including a woman, were burned alive when rioters set fire to Tahir Plaza, the Press Trust of India reported. Fifteen more people were reported injured, and a bank and several vehicles were torched, PTI said.

"The confrontation between the lawyers started near the office of the Sindh High Court Bar Association over the alleged manhandling of former federal minister Sher Aftgan in Lahore the previous night. The violence then spread elsewhere in the city with armed men exchanging gunfire at several locations, PTA reported." Per UPI

Conformity: Not much info here. The spreading of the violence to other quarters speaks to the contagion aspect of violence and mob actions.

3. 15 April, Zweletemba township, Worcester, South Africa:

IOL reports:

"Thomas Chamiso, 32, an Ethiopian refugee, ran the Thembikosi Trading Store in Fulang Street in Zweletemba township, Worcester. A month ago, he was one of 50 foreigners chased out of the town by local residents.

"With his four cousins, Chamiso fled Zweletemba with only their wallets and cellphones. They lost their refugee permits, business papers, financial records, identity documents and driver's licences. 'Maybe we will sleep on the street. What will we eat? We have nothing. How can I start a business again? I have nothing left, nothing. Who will give us money? We have lost our humanity in Worcester.'

"As one drives from the bustling town of Worcester ... it is hard to imagine that this place, where the shacks have neat gardens and children play in the streets, could have been the scene of violent all-night looting of 23 foreign-owned shops.

"Foreigners, about 20 from Somalia, 15 from Ethiopia and a handful from Zimbabwe, the Congo, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, were driven away on the night of Friday, March 7.

"The violence is said to have erupted after two shooting incidents in which a teenager was killed and a woman injured. Two Somalis have been arrested, one on a charge of murder and one on a charge of attempted murder. Both were released on bail and are scheduled to appear in Worcester Magistrate's Court again on April 25. ...

"South African shopkeeper 'Lani' Rasi, whose parents own Vukuzenzele Spaza Shop, said it was as though the community 'were just hungry for violence'."

"[Worcester police spokesperson Captain Mzikayise] Moloi said the perception of many locals that Somalis were murderous and intent on 'killing our children' was an issue that needed to be addressed. 'Locals don't acknowledge how many people their children have killed,' he said. ...

"Duncan Breen of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa) said the Worcester attacks seemed to fall into the same pattern as other recent xenophobic attacks across the country.

'There appears to have been tension building for a while, and it just took a trigger to ignite into mob violence. One of the common challenges we see is that many foreign nationals and South Africans have very little interaction, which allows negative stereotypes of foreign nationals to remain unchallenged.'"

Conformity: Pretty typical choice of scapegoats, people who aren't (for the most part) an intrinsic part of the community, strangers and unknowns on whom the locals can project all manner of evil. All 'foreigners' could be tarred with the same brush. What surprised me most was the police spokesperson's comment that while locals may perceive Somalis as child killers, the same locals don't take into account how many people their children have killed!

4. 17 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two men lynched in Bihar for theft

"In yet another case of 'mob justice', two people suspected of committing a theft were lynched by a mob in a Bihar village, the police said Thursday. The victims, identified as Mahant Nat and Butan Nat, were brutally beaten after they were caught allegedly while stealing a water pump set Wednesday night in Pokhra village of Siwan district, about 150 km from here. Both victims belonged to the economically weaker nomadic Nat community.

"'An angry mob of villagers caught them and beat them to death with bricks, bamboo sticks and iron rods. One eye of Mahant Nat was gouged out by the mob,' police sources said." Reported by ThaiIndian News.

Conformity: No sense of the size of the 'angry mob' or the unifying aspects of the violence. As I commented last time, with the regularity of these mob lynchings in Bihar, one can only assume that the feeling of unity and peace during and following the lynching, if there is any, is extremely short-lived. The victims' status (or lack thereof) -- poor and nomadic -- conforms to Girardian predictions for typical scapegoats, those on the margins.

5. 19 April, El Alto ("La Paz's destitute and neglected satellite city"), Bolivia, S.A.:

The BBC reports on mob violence in January against two innocent bystanders mistaken for perpetrators:

"Tony and his friend arrived at a birthday party in the Bolivian city of El Alto and realised they had come empty handed. After greeting the host, they went to find a shop. But as they came out of the house a girl who had just been the victim of an attempted robbery saw them, and alerted the neighbours.

"'People started to point at us, they started to bang the doors yelling we were robbers,' Tony told the BBC as he walked down the streets where he was attacked, his face still swollen from the beatings.

"'All the other people around there woke up and were coming out of their homes with whatever they had at hand, like sticks. They started to beat me insanely, with their hands, with rocks.'

"'They were out of control, not listening at all … we were yelling: "you are confused, we are innocent, we are innocent, please", we begged a lot, even crying', Tony added.

(The article continues with a discussion of Bolivia's increase in mob violence and of the distinction between community justice and mob justice.)

Conformity: The mob was not interested in the guilt or innocence of the people it was beating; they came out of their homes ready to attack whoever was there. Tony even recounts the accusatory gesture: "People started to point at us."

6. 24 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two [more] beaten to death in Bihar

Headline looks the same, but it's a different case a week later, as ThaiIndian News reports:

"In two incidents of 'mob justice', a man was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl while another man was beaten to death for opposing extramarital relations of his wife in Bihar. Mithilesh Singh was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl at Kelbanni-Dahiyar village under Rosra police station in Samastipur district, about 100 km from here, police said Thursday.

"Singh entered the house of Manju Devi, a ward member in the village, and allegedly tried to rape her twelve-year-old daughter. But the family members caught him and beat him to death, a police official said.

"In another case, Nasib Paswan was beaten to death by the family members of his wife for opposing her extramarital relations in Betadi village in Bhojpur district, about 70 km from here."

Conformity: The first case doesn't sound as much like mob justice as protection of a child by her family. The second case is perplexing -- the man was killed by his wife's family because he didn't like her having an affair? Probably more to this than the short article can convey.

7. 24 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Man lynched for delay in serving tea:

"In yet another case of mob violence, a tea shop owner was beaten to death by a group of youths for delay in serving tea in Bihar's Araria district, the police said on Thursday. Abdul Qayum, in his 40s, was the victim of the violent act. ...
The police said some youths were angered by the delay in serving tea. They first beat up Qayum's son Bittu. When Qayum intervened to rescue his son, they severely beat him with bamboo stick and bricks, they said. He died on the way to hospital and his son was admitted to the hospital for treatment, the police said.

"According to the police, the victim was busy serving tea to people at his shop and requested others to wait for some time. But the youths took the request as an act of humiliation." Reported at Rediff.

Conformity: The lynching was seen as justified because the youths felt humiliated.

8. 25 April, Gotkharik village in Bhagalpur, Patna, India: Mentally challenged man lynched

From India enews: "A mentally challenged man was beaten to death by a mob in a Bihar village on charges of trying to give injections to children. ... According to the police, some girl students informed the villagers that a man was trying to lure them so that he could administer injections.

"A group of people attacked him with bamboo sticks, bricks and stones. He was seriously injured and fell unconscious. Some people took him to the house of a village council member. But before the police could intervene, he was dragged out and beaten to death.

"Deputy Inspector General (eastern range) Raghunath Prasad Singh said the police were yet to identify the victim. 'No injection needle was found (on him),' said Singh."

Conformity: 'Mentally challenged' is almost shorthand for 'likely scapegoat.' (Bamboo sticks and bricks certainly seem the brutal weapons of choice in Patna.)

9. 26 April, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia:

(This is a follow-up to the actual attack, reported by GoldCoast.com.)

"Some of the teenagers responsible for a sickening attack on an off-duty Gold Coast police officer and his girlfriend have walked free from court, smiling and laughing. Meanwhile, their victims, Constable Rawson Armitage and Michelle Dodge, who have been left physically and psychologically devastated by the attack, made a secret exit from the court yesterday, away from the spotlight.

Constable Armitage "told the court he was questioning his career as a police officer, had lost his confidence and desire to have children because of the violence inflicted on him by 'the pack of animals'.

"Of the nine teenagers sentenced in Southport District Court yesterday, six -- including ringleader Tiani Slockee, 18 -- walked free with either probation and community service or a suspended detention sentence.

"Two other teenagers, who assaulted Constable Armitage while he was unconscious, were sentenced to 15 months in juvenile detention.

"Many of the teenagers allowed to go free yesterday were happy to pose for the cameras, safe in the knowledge the media cannot identify them. Queensland's Juvenile Justices Act prevents the media from doing so.

"Described as inflicting 'mindless, gutless, mob violence' by Crown prosecutor Stuart Shearer, the gang worked together to render the couple completely defenceless as they walked home from a night out in Coolangatta.

"Constable Armitage was beaten unconscious and his head then stomped on.

"Ms Dodge was repeatedly punched and large chunks of her hair and scalp were ripped out as she tried to call for help.

"Alcohol abuse, peer pressure and a lack of parental supervision were raised as explanations for the attack."

Conformity: The article doesn't talk about what led the children (in their minds) to attack the couple, so it's hard to draw conclusions. Obviously, lots of communities have alcohol abuse, lack of parental supervision, and peer pressure without mob violence resulting, though those conditions certainly increase the chances. The article does imply that the teens are perhaps not unhappy with their identity as savage attackers.

Correlation between Rainfall and Witch Killings

2008-04-13T20:50:00+02:00

Nicholas Kristof's column in the NYT today -- "Extended Forecast: Bloodshed" -- connects the killing of witches with the environmental affects of climate change:

"Here’s a forecast for a particularly bizarre consequence of climate change: more executions of witches. As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars -- and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.

"In rural Tanzania, murders of elderly women accused of witchcraft are a very common form of homicide. And when Tanzania suffers unusual rainfall -- either drought or flooding -- witch-killings double, according to research by Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

"'In bad years, the killings explode,' Professor Miguel said. He believes that if climate change causes more drought years in Tanzania, the result will be more elderly women executed there and in other poor countries that still commonly attack supposed witches."

Kristof also looks at the strong relationship between economic hard times and lynchings, civil wars, and other forms of violence against 'the other' who is judged to have caused the hardship.

Collective Violence - Examples - Part II

2008-04-09T16:00:00+02:00

I wasn't sure how often I'd be posting stories of contemporary mob violence but it looks like there are enough incidents to post a list of them every two weeks or less. (If you want to know why I'm doing this, read the first posting.)

Be sure to read the last incident, which is different from the others.

1. 8 April, Bolivia, S.A.:

Journalist Carlos Quispe Quispe, with Radio Municipal in Pucarani, was beaten and left unconscious when a mob opposing the mayor attacked the radio station on 27 March. He died on 29 March of his injuries.

"At least 150 protesters rallied outside the government building in Pucarani, a small city about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, La Paz, and called for the ouster of Mayor Alejandro Mamani. ... The protesters forced their way into the municipal building and broke down the door to the government-run Radio Municipal. ... Protestors wielding whips and metal rods beat Quispe in the head and chest." The group was allegedly made up of "members of the municipal government's monitoring committees (comités de vigilancia) who have accused Mayor Alejandro Mamani of corruption" and who "felt the station had been used by the mayor to defame them."

Conformity: The mob felt justified in beating the 'mouthpiece' of the radio station, believing they had been defamed by him. I.e., he deserved it. A journalist is an outsider to some extent because simply by acting as observer and commentator, he places himself outside the circle of those he observes and comments on. No report on how the scapegoating may or may not have united the townspeople.

2. 6 April 2008, Igunga, Tabora, Tanzania, Africa: Igunga police kill, hold 14 over witchcraft saga

Police in Igunga have shot dead a 20-year old youth and are holding 14 people in connection with mob violence in which the Igunga Police Station was burned. ... The regional police chief said an angry mob of more than a thousand people, holding stones, laid siege on the police station on Thursday, threatening to kill two women, Hawa Athman and Malizia Ramadhani, residents of Nkokoto Street in Igunga. Their neighbours accuse them of practising witchcraft, prompting the police to put them under protective custody.

Conformity: The accusation of 'witch' makes those accused seem to be outsiders. There are no details about how the accusation came about, what perceptions it was based on, whether the women had caused perceived harm to anyone. The group attacked the police station where the women were in protective custody because they felt the police were delaying 'justice' in this case. That there were more than 1,000 people in the mob indicates strong community unanimity in the accusation.

3. 5 April, Bihar, Patna, India:

"With a man suspected of stealing books being beaten to death by a mob here, shocking incidents of lynching continue in Bihar. Ram Pravesh Mahto, in his late 20s, was Friday brutally thrashed after he was allegedly caught stealing books from a printing press at Chakaram intersection under the jurisdiction of Buddha colony police station. 'Mahto was beaten to death with bricks and bamboo sticks by a mob after he was caught stealing books,' Gaurishankar Singh, officer in charge of the police station, said. He was a resident of the Dujra locality here and his family said that he was not a thief."

Conformity: Not much info here. This part of India sees a lot of lynchings, so obviously if there is a sense of peace and unity afterwards, it's very short-lived. The most interesting part of this report is the family's testimony that he is not an habitual thief. Remember that in the report on the man lynched on 26 March in Bihar it was said that "there seems to be no resentment as the man had criminal antecedents." In this new case, the family may be signalling that the man did not deserve this treatment and that there may well be "resentment." (Or they may just be upholding family honour.)

4. 3 April 2008, Sheffield, England, UK:

"Three Asian men were locked up this week for their part in the 'mob violence' that led to the death of an Iraqi Kurd on the streets of Sheffield. Ismail Rashid, aged 42, was the victim of an 'honour killing', beaten to death because he had been sleeping with a married Pakistani woman. A gang of up to 20 attacked him ... in June last year and he died in the Northern General Hospital eight days later, despite brain surgery. Amjad Latif, aged 27, armed himself with part of a roof rack from his car and hit Mr Rashid around the head, knocking him to the ground, Sheffield Crown Court was told. A 'sustained attack' by others followed, with Ashraf Latif, 18, and Ishtiaq Ahmed, 19, both admitting kicking him as he lay on the ground. On Tuesday they were sentenced to a total of 20-and-a-half years in custody. ... The purposes of sentencing in a case like this are clear – to punish the individual offenders and to send a clear message that the use of mob violence in the streets cannot be tolerated in a civilised society." The catalyst for the attack had apparently been Rashid's spraypainting of his nickname 'Rambo' while he was drunk on the front of a shop owned the Latif brothers' cousin.

Conformity: The victim was seen as deserving violence, because he was breaking a cultural (and presumably religious) taboo. He further 'incited' his attackers by flaunting himself and defacing another's property. In a 'civilised society' that places a cultural prohibition on extra-marital affairs, the victim probably would not be attacked or killed (though he might be, but probably only by one person, not a group) but would likely be scapegoated in more subtle ways, by economic and social exclusion, by ruining his reputation, and so on. The woman would probably be scapegoated as well. In some civilised societies, there is little or no prohibition on extra-marital affairs, perhaps because the role of religion is minimal in those areas. ? Are there 'civilised' countries where such things are handled by a civil legal system?

5. 1 April 2008, Waycross, GA, USA: Third-graders plot to harm teacher.

"A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday. The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said. ... The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack."

"The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair."

Conformity: For 8- and 9-year-olds, the teacher is an outsider by virtue of both her exalted role and her advanced age. Justification for the attack was that one of their classmates was 'unjustly' scolded for what they probably considered a minor infraction. The unusual thing about this case is that the mob attack was heavily premeditated, not spontaneous. If it had actually occured, however, others might have joined spontaneously, sucked into the excitement of the moment.

6. A different kind of mob story.

J. Dunne at Through the Eyes of Faith: Holy Cross Ghana blogs about witnessing and transforming an incident of mob violence last month.

At around Noon that same day [Good Friday] I heard a loud ruckus outside the school library where I was working with a student. I turned to see a few students running across the assembly area towards the canteen just outside the campus grounds. As I walked out of the room I saw about a hundred of our boys gathered around the canteen outside the campus.

I knew what it was before I got there. It was what I feared… Ewee. In the Fante language Ewee means thief. Now why does that cause me to fear? Stealing in Ghana, or in Africa, for that matter is a pretty serious crime. The thing is thieves aren't turned over to the police, in fact, the police sometimes don't ever hear about the incidents. When a thief is caught he faces mob justice which usually ends up with the thief being beaten, humiliated and then lynched, drowned, or burned to death. The general justification for such brutal punishment is that to steal something that someone has worked their whole lives for is like taking that person's life; so you should be killed for doing such a thing.

Anyway, the story is this. A young man was caught trying to steal a TV antennae in Anaji, where our school is located. The small mob stripped the man naked and beat him severely. They walked him down the road humiliating him in front of all who were present until the thief ran toward our school for some vain hope of refuge. His accusers continued to beat and insult him outside our school grounds.

When I finally got to the scene I was overcome with anger. There were my own students laughing, insulting, and encouraging the other men to beat the thief. Once of the students ran up to me laughing like a jolly fool, 'Hey Bro…look look Eweeo!' I shoved him to the ground and started screaming at the tops of my lungs for the students to go inside. I don't think they ever saw me that angry because they all scattered and ran inside. One of the teachers came out behind me and helped me to get the rest of the boys back inside.

I turned back to see the thief crying and begging for his life whilst bleeding all over. His accusers stood over him holding big sticks and shovels. They were shouting insults in the vernacular and slapping him across the face.

They wanted to kill him. I felt sick. I couldn't stand it so I stepped up to the accusers and begged them to let him go. At first they didn't mind me at all. Almost as if I wasn't there, but eventually they began to move away from the thief until there was only one man left. He still stood there holding his stick threatening the thief by slamming it on the bench behind where the thief was sitting. I looked at the man and told him he was sick.

All of the students were still watching from inside the campus. I had to do something for the young man. I took off my undershirt and gave it to the poor naked criminal. We made eye contact for about one second before I turned and headed back inside the school.

As I walked back into the school all of my students with impatient tones demanded to know why I would do such a thing. 'Bro why would you give that man your shirt? He is a thief.'

I was so bewildered by my mixture of rage and discouragement that I could hardly speak, but I did manage to answer their question. 'Because I am a Christian.'

I don't think they understood me.

Addiction to the Sacred

2008-04-09T04:00:00+02:00

René Girard and others (particularly, and excellently, James Alison in this post-9/11 essay) talk a lot about how humans use the act of sacralising something or someone -- grief, death, a victim, violence, etc. -- to justify the thing or the one, to make it beyond reproach, to give meaning to a meaningless act, to create unanimity and excitement, and primarily and purposefully, to confer to ourselves by association with the transcendent a heightened sense of identity, stability, and worthiness.

Eric Gans explains the relatonships between sacrifice and 'making sacred': "The word sacrifice contains within itself the paradox of culture. Etymologically to make sacred (sacer + facio), it means both to renounce and to kill. Culture is about renouncing and making sacred, but it is also about killing in the service of these ends."

With this in mind, I was interested to read this in The Economist today, in an article about how science is seeking to explain religious belief as beneficial in an evolutionary framework (the entire article is chock full of intriguing studies and conclusions):

"Richard Sosis, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, has already done some research which suggests that the long-term co-operative benefits of religion outweigh the short-term costs it imposes in the form of praying many times a day, avoiding certain foods, fasting and so on." [Non-Orthodox Christian or Jewish Americans might find it difficult to understand how practicising one's religion incurs short-term costs ... ]

"On the face of things, it is puzzling that such costly behaviour should persist. Some scholars, however, draw an analogy with sexual selection. The splendour of a peacock's tail and the throaty roar of a stag really do show which males are fittest, and thus help females choose. Similarly, signs of religious commitment that are hard to fake provide a costly and reliable signal to others in a group that anyone engaging in them is committed to that group. Free-riders, in other words, would not be able to gain the advantages of group membership.

"To test whether religion might have emerged as a way of improving group co-operation while reducing the need to keep an eye out for free-riders, Dr Sosis drew on a catalogue of 19th-century American communes published in 1988 by Yaacov Oved of Tel Aviv University. Dr Sosis picked 200 of these for his analysis; 88 were religious and 112 were secular. Dr Oved's data include the span of each commune's existence and Dr Sosis found that communes whose ideology was secular were up to four times as likely as religious ones to dissolve in any given year.

"A follow-up study that Dr Sosis conducted in collaboration with Eric Bressler of McMaster University in Canada focused on 83 of these communes (30 religious, 53 secular) to see if the amount of time they survived correlated with the strictures and expectations they imposed on the behaviour of their members. The two researchers examined things like food consumption, attitudes to material possessions, rules about communication, rituals and taboos, and rules about marriage and sexual relationships.

"As they expected, they found that the more constraints a religious commune placed on its members, the longer it lasted (one is still going, at the grand old age of 149). But the same did not hold true of secular communes, where the oldest was 40. Dr Sosis therefore concludes that ritual constraints are not by themselves enough to sustain co-operation in a community -- what is needed in addition is a belief that those constraints are sanctified."

Other studies mentioned in the article corroborate the idea that, perhaps, belief in a supernatural being (whether it's G-d or a ghost, as in some studies) creates coherence and a sense of security among group members, and leads to increased cooperation, collaboration, and sharing among members of the group. This seems to accord with the Girardian thought that 'making sacred' is a way to create unanimity, stability, shared identity. It says nothing of the possible cost, which Alison addresses in his essay, talking about the response of many to the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on 11 Sept. 2001:

"And immediately we began to respond, and our response is to create meaning. ... As we were sucked in, so we were fascinated. The 'tremendum et fascinosum,' as Otto described the old sacred, took hold of us. ... The old sacred worked its magic: we found ourselves being sucked in to a sacred center, one where a meaningless act had created a vacuum of meaning, and we found ourselves giving meaning to it. And immediately the sacrificial center began to generate the sort of reactions that sacrificial centers are supposed to generate: a feeling of unanimity and grief. ... Phrases began to appear to the effect that 'We're all Americans now' -- a purely fictitious feeling for most of us [in London]. It was staggering to watch the togetherness build up around the sacred center, quickly consecrated as Ground Zero....

"And there was the grief. How we enjoy grief. It makes us feel good, and innocent. This is what Aristotle meant by catharsis, and it has deeply sinister echoes of dramatic tragedy's roots in sacrifice. One of the effects of the violent sacred around the sacrificial center is to make those present feel justified, feel morally good. A counterfactual goodness which suddenly takes us out of our little betrayals, acts of cowardice, uneasy consciences. And very quickly of course the unanimity and the grief harden into the militant goodness of those who have a transcendent object to their lives. And then there are those who are with us and those who are against us, the beginnings of the suppression of dissent. Quickly people were saying things like 'to think that we used to spend our lives engaged in gossip about celebrities' and politicians' sexual peccadillos. Now we have been summoned into thinking about the things that really matter.'

"And there was fear. Fear of more to come. Fear that it could be me next time. ... Fear and disorientation in a new world order. Not an entirely uncomfortable fear, the fear that goes with a satanic show. Part of the glue which binds us into it. A fear not unrelated to excitement.

"What I want to suggest is that most of us fell for it, at some level. We were tempted to be secretly glad of a chance for a huge outbreak of meaning to transform our humdrum lives, to feel we belonged to something bigger, more important, with hints of nobility and solidarity. What I want to suggest is that this, this delight in being given meaning, is satanic. ...

"When I say satanic, I mean this in two senses .... The first sense is the sense I have just described: the fantastic pomp and work of sacrificial violence leading to an impression of unanimity, the same lie from the one who was a murderer and liar from the beginning, the same lie behind all human sacrifices, all attempts to create social order and meaning out of a sacred space of victimization. But the second sense is more important: the satanic is a lie that has been undone. It has been undone by Jesus's going to death exploding from within the whole world of sacrifice, of religion and culture based on death, and showing it has no transcendence at all. ... The pomp has nothing to do with heaven. It has nothing to do with God."

Obviously, religious communes like those referenced in the Economist article are likely not overflowing with pomp and cathartic grief. A religious commune, or religious order, may well survive not by any contrived sense of unanimity and feverish excitement borne of co-opted tragic grief -- after all, that unanimity and excitement doesn't last, and to believe that they do is to believe the lie -- but perhaps they are characterised more often rather by true transcendence, true cooperation and compassion, a unity achieved through struggle rather than unanimity. The similarity I see between the religious communes, as briefly described in the article, and the response to 9/11 that Alison is talking about, is the simple action of making meaning by referencing the sacred and transcendent, and even by actually making sacrifices (or feeling that one is making them), in an effort to feel, by association, that one has value.

As Alison has said, and points out later again in his essay in examining a passage in Luke 13, it's so very easy to feel justified and morally good when we ally ourselves with the transcendent, to adopt a dualistic viewpoint, to see others who differ from us as bad, as 'them,' as 'other.' It's so easy to think that I am privileged and valuable, because of my experience with the transcendent, in a way that you are not. That my life has meaning in a way that yours doesn't.

Alison again:

[I]f we are caught up in the world of giving sacred meanings, then we will be caught up in the world of reciprocal violence, of good and bad measured over against other people, and we will likewise perish. Once again I stress: Jesus [in Luke 13:1-5, and in Mark 13:1ff] will not be drawn into adding to meaning. He merely asks those who come to him themselves to move out of the world of sacred-seeming meaning. What does it mean for us to learn to look at the world through those eyes? ...

"Jesus not only taught us to look away, not to allow ourselves to be seduced by the satanic. He also acted out what the undoing of the satanic meant: he was so powerful that he was able to lose to its need to sacrifice so as to show that it was entirely unnecessary. We are so used to describing Jesus's cross and resurrection as a victory -- a description taken from the military hardware store of satanic meaning -- that we easily forget that what that victory looked like was a failure. So great is the power behind Jesus's teaching and self-giving that he was able to fail, thus showing once and for all that 'having to win,' the grasping on to meaning, success, reputation, life and so on is of no consequence at all. Death could not hold him in, because he was held in being by one for whom death does not exist, is not even the sort of rival who might be challenged to a duel which someone might win. But if death can only get meaning by having victory, if the order of sacred violence can only have meaning if it matters to us to survive, to be, to feel good, at the expense of someone, then someone for whom it doesn't matter to lose is someone who is playing its game on totally different terms, and its potential for giving meaning collapses.

"Here is where I am heading: We can imagine in the abstract something of the power which has nothing to do with death. What is much more difficult is imagining that power incarnated in a human heart and eyes looking at this world. Yet that is what we are talking about. A human heart and eyes so utterly held by the Creator that they speak the Creator's heart about this world. And not just in word, but by a creative acting out and living so-as-to-lose to the sacrificial game in order to undo it, thus enabling creation to be unsnarled from our truncation of it into a violent perversion and trap.

"Now this is what I find difficult. The heart, the desire, that wants to do something like that. What does it want? Why should it do it? Why not leave us to get on with it, stuck in our charades, thinking the world of our meaning and our death? In other words, the very fact of distracting us, by word and deed from being involved in what Merton rightly called 'pseudo events' suggests a desire for us to be something else. The eye that is teaching us to look away from the lure of the sacred is powered by a heart that wants us to be something else. And we learn our desire through the eye of another. Our learning to see through Jesus' eyes will eventually result in us desiring with Jesus' heart -- which is to say, our receiving the mind of Christ. ...

"Jesus not only teaches us to look away, but models what living from utterly non-rivalistic creative power for which death is not, looks like. There is a desire in this. A desire for us not to be trapped in death. And this is where I think I'm going -- something apparently terribly banal, but I think, of earth shattering significance. The person who teaches us to look away and models for us another way of desiring actually likes us. It is only possible to imagine doing something like that for someone you actually like. And Jesus is doing it for all of us who are caught up in the sacred lie -- which is to say, all of us.

"The staggering thing that this means, for me, is that the most extraordinary fruit of contemplation in the shadow of the violence which we are experiencing is this: God likes us. All of us. God likes me and I like being liked. It has nothing to do with whether we are bad or good, indeed, he takes it for granted that we are all more or less strongly tied up in the sacred lie. In teaching after teaching he makes the same point: all are invited, bad and good. Those are our categories, part of the problem not part of the solution, not God's category. God's 'category' for us is 'created' and 'created' means 'liked spaciously, delighted in, wanted to give extension, fulfilment, fruition to, to share in just being.' We are missing out on something huge and powerful and serene and enjoyable and safe and meaningful by being caught up in something less than that, an ersatz perversion of each of those things. And because God likes us he wants us to get out of our addiction to the ersatz so as to become free and happy. "

Predicting Behaviour

2008-03-01T17:55:00+01:00

Gavin de Becker's Book, The Gift of Fear, and Other Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence (1997), is a book I recommend to everyone. To women as a handbook, to men primarily as insight into most women's experience, though I think we can all benefit from learning to recognise signals of violence, and from distinguishing between risks that our intuition warns us of, and unlikely risks, about which we worry fruitlessly.

A few bits that have spoken to me so far (1/3 through this time, my second reading of the book):

FIRST, that criminals are basically like us, not inhuman monsters, not other and therefore unknowable; and SECOND, that we successfully predict human behavior every day:

"People do things, we say, 'out of the blue,' 'all of a sudden,' 'out of nowhere.' These phrases support the popular myth that predicting human behavior isn't possible." Yet, de Becker says, we predict complex human behaviour every time we drive: "We expect all drivers to act just as we would, but we still alertly detect those few who might not." We also successfully predict "how a child will react to a warning," "how a consumer will react to a slogan," "how a spouse will react to a comment," and so on.

"Predicting violent behavior is easier than any of these, but since we fantasize that human violence is an aberration done by others unlike us, we say we can't predict it. ... The human violence we abhor and fear the most, that which we call ' random' and 'senseless,' is neither. It always has purpose and meaning, to the perpetrator, at least. We may not choose to explore or understand that purpose, but it is there, and as long as we label is 'senseless,' we'll not make sense of it.

"Sometimes a violent act is so frightening that we call the perpetrator a monster, but as you'll see, it is by finding his humanness -- his similarity to you and me -- that such an act can be predicted. ... [W]e want to believe that people are infinitely complex, with millions of motivations and varieties of behavior. It is not so. ... We want to believe that human violence is somehow beyond ourunderstanding, because as long as it remains a mystery, we have no duty to avoid it, explore it, or anticipate it. We need feel no responsibility for failing to read signals if there are none to read. We can tell ourselves that violence just happens without warning, and usually to others, but in service of these comfortable myths, victims suffer and criminals prosper."

He says that the behaviours of "violent people" will resonate with our own experience if we let ourselves make the connection. One example he later gives is of a person who seems to enjoy the fear he causes in other people: "Getting pleasure from the fear of others is something most of us cannot relate to -- until we recall the glee of every teenager who startles a friend or sibling by jumping out of the dark."

de Becker insists that someone who commits even the most heinous and gruesome crime is as human as the rest of us. He quotes Maya Angelou at the start of a chapter, who says "I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life." But then, in other spots, he makes a repeated distinction between "decent men" and "violent men," as if they are two different species, as if the "violent man" were not capable of being decent or the "decent man" of being violent.

THIRD, de Becker describes some signals of violence from strangers that can help us anticipate it. Strangers account, he says, for only 20% of homicides, while 80% of committed by someone known to the victim, and most of the book is about the 80%. Nevertheless, imo, these signals are useful to know about not only in the context of someone seeking to do you physical violence but also in the context of people seeking to pick you up, sell you something, get you to serve on a committee, do something for them, or otherwise control your actions. The signals are:

Forced teaming: The would-be attacker implies that he shares something with the victim, that they're in the same boat, so that boundaries between them blur and trust and rapport can be established. This is done by projecting a "shared purpose or experience where none exists: 'Both of us;' 'We're some team;' 'How are we going to handle this?;''Now we've done it.'" The defense is "a clear refusal to accept the concept of partnership."

Charm and Niceness: A charming man is a man seeking to charm you. It's an ability, not a character trait. "Charm is almost always a directed instrument, which, like rapport building, has motive." Similarly, niceness. "We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait." Remember that both are strategies and look for the motive.

Too Many Details: People who are lying give too many details, because even if you believe them, they don't sound credible to themselves, so they keep talking. de Becker says that when confronted with the disorienting blur of too many details, designed to make the would-be attacker (or clunky Casanova, or pyramid-scheme salesman) appear to be familiar to you, a friend, someone you can trust, it's most important to remember the context, that this is a stranger who has approached you.

Typecasting: Typecasting is when the potential perp labels the potential victim in "some slightly critical way, hoping she'll feel compelled to prove that his opinion is not accurate." Examples will be familiar to every woman and some men: "You're probably too snobbish to talk to the likes of me." "There's such a thing as being too proud, you know." "I bet you think I'm just no-good, like everyone else." The defense is silence, acting as if the words aren't spoken. Don't engage, and don't try to refute the words with actions (talking to him because you don't want to seem snobbish, allowing him to help with the groceries because you don't want to seem too proud), because that's what he wants you to do, to increase the illusion of a bond between you. (Here, that Buddhist slogan of "nothing to protect, nothing to defend" comes in handy for me. So, I'm too proud. So, I'm snobbish. Let it be.)

Loan Sharking: This is when someone helps you in order to put you in debt to them, "and the fact that you owe a person something makes it hard to ask him to leave you alone. ... The predatory criminal generously offers assistance but is always calculating the debt." The defense is to remember that he approached you and that you didn't ask for help; "then, though a person may turn out to be just a kindly stranger, watch for other signals."

de Becker notes that many of these strategies are employed by "men who want little more than an opportunity to engage a woman in conversation. I don't mean to cramp the style of some crude Casanova [he says], but times have changed, and we men can surely develop some approaches that are not steeped in deceit and manipulation."

The Unsolicited Promise: Similar to Too Many Details, the unsolicited promise is given because the would-be attacker sees that you don't trust him, that you aren't convinced, so he hopes his "promise" will overcome your doubt. The defense is simply to recognise that the unsolicited promise comes because you are hesitant to trust this person, because there is reason to doubt and you know it.

Discounting the Word 'No': "Declining to hear 'no' is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of 'no,' because it sets the stage for more efforts to control." Don't negotiate from 'no,' because "negotiations are about possibilities, and providing access to someone who makes you apprehensive is not a possibility you want to keep on the agenda."

FOURTH, de Becker talks about pre-incident indicators (PINs). These are the clues that occur before every violent act:

"Behavior is like a chain. Too often, we look at just the individual links. When we ask why a man committed suicide, someone might say, 'He was despondent over major financial losses,' as if this could possibly explain it. Many people are despondent over financial losses and don't kill themselves. Though we want to believe that violence is a matter of cause and effect, it is actually a process, a chain in which the violent outcome is only one link. If you were predicting what a friend of yours might do if he lost his job, you wouldn't say, 'Oh, he'll commit suicide' unless there were many other PINs of suicide present. You'd see the loss of his job as a single link, not the whole chain. The process of suicide starts way before the act of suicide.

"The same is true for homicide. Though we might try to explain a murder using simple cause-and-effect logic (e.g., 'He learned his wife was having an affair so he killed her'), it doesn't aid prediction to think this way. Like the earthquake [whose initiation might start thousands of years before we are aware of it], violence is one outcome of a process that started way before this man got married."

I think what resonates for me about his book is that though it is focused on predicting and intuiting the most violent human acts, which is in itself worthwhile, it is at the same time about predicting, intuiting and to some extent explaining (or at least seeing patterns in) the most minor, subtle and common acts of human violence, too -- manipulation, control, power-mongering, some advertising and sales strategies, influence-peddling, coercion, etc. All the ways we try to change people so that they do what we want them to do, so that we get what we (think we) want.