Working with torturers

I am trying (operative word is trying) to ready an article for submission and hopefully publication. I routinely ask myself, everyday I think, why did I embark on this research? I have been asked this on numerous occasions. Why do research with torturers? The closest is probably that it fell on my lap and I could not allow men who were so distraught by their own behaviour face the journey of exploration alone. I have also always been aware of my own guilt with regard to apartheid and how I have benefitted by that evil system. I have never tortured, but I knew I had I had done nothing to prevent what was wrong and had benefitted from it.

As I write the article, I revisit my thoughts on my experiences working with men who have tortured. I am unaware of any work on the impact on the researcher or therapist who works with perpetrators of torture and other atrocities.

Initially I felt as though the participants were inviting me into an abyss. Wilson and Thomas (2004, p. 19) refer to the abyss experience as archetypal and define it as: "individual encounters with extremely foreboding psychological experience, which typically involve the confrontation with evil and death; the experience of soul death and the spectre of nonbeing; the sense of abandonment by humanity; the sense of ultimate aloneness in the universe and despairing; and the cosmic challenge of meaning." They are referring to work with trauma victims. I worked with men who caused this in others and in themselves and invited me to join them in their journey of attempting to understand why they tortured and killed. They needed to reconstitute themselves and re-establish meaning in their lives.

Looking back, I ask whether this has had any long-term effects on me? I developed empathy with the participants in my study. It was the only way to avoid pseudospeciation. If I decided they were not like me, "of a different species" the following step was dehumanisation and that is a building block for committing atrocities. In order to have empathy , I had to be aware of my capacity for evil. I had to know that although I have never tortured, it was a mere accident of birth that I had not.

I found that once I became aware of my ability for evil, I could work with perpetrators. I became aware of an interlinked universe and could allow both victims and perpetrators in the room. I shared humanity with all of them. I was victim and perpetrator.

Police, firepower and human rights

We have the history we have in South Africa of police brutality during apartheid. We have a constitution based on human rights and the rights of police to shoot have been defined in the police act. And now the police minister wants to increase the police's firepower. Numerous comments have been made on this matter. But:

• Most of us have no idea of what it is like to do the job the police do. Imagination is insufficient. We know that even if someone has been trained for months and they have not been exposed sufficiently to the sensory experiences of being shot at that they can freeze or not respond correctly. How much less can people judge who have not been there at all?
• Human rights is a beautiful philosophy. In practice it leads to numerous dilemmas which are extremely difficult to resolve. Professional philosophers struggle with these dilemmas. The police officer on the ground has no chance of resolving these dilemmas.
• It is, I think, a matter of interpretation. If criminals are carrying heavy caliber or automatic weapons it should be interpreted that the police officers as well as the public’s lives are endangered. Waiting for them to demonstrate further aggression is stupid. Dead police cannot shoot back. Hopefully the new amendments will sort this out.
• There are confusing demands on the police officer on the street. If they arrest a gang of hijackers, the commanding officers will ask them why they are still alive. They understand the message. The community demands strong action; I suspect that if we surveyed people, most are going to demand that criminals are shot dead. Everyone is gatvol. The police know this. They act in compliance with society’s demands. They know the law, but they also know society does not always agree with the law.
• It comes down often more to whether we want to know what is happening or not. We can keep the law as is and reports will be manipulated so that it appears that the police are sticking to the law. We’ve had this before in South Africa. I do not doubt for a moment that it continues. All current reports indicate the police were shot at and then opened fire. Maybe I am unduly cynical, but I do not believe this. It does prevent controversy, suspensions and internal investigations when it is presented in this way. And the police are congratulated on their quick action. We, as a society can recognize all the issues involved and take responsibility for decisions made, but I doubt that we have the courage. A policeman (who has committed various atrocities) explained to me that he is a sacrifice for the community. He does what we expect him to do and carries the guilt and emotional effects as a result. We just want results and do not know what he does in order to get the arrest and conviction. I think he is right.

The morality of torture

When is torture wrong? Always? I came at this initially from a human rights position. It is then a relatively easy question to answer. In interviewing men who have tortured, I decided to take in a post-modern position as I was incapable of understanding their positions and beliefs from a pre-determined moral position. It is no longer an easy question to answer. They position themselves as a sacrifice for the community - they torture because we expect them to. I have had to consider whether they are correct. I think they are. We expect them to do whatever dirty work that is needed to protect us, but we do not want to know about it. We need to take in a moral stance and say that torture is wrong. This is necessary to protect our personal sense of integrity, of being good people.