Here are excerpts from an article which appeared in The Australian
newspaper on May 10th by Ariel Dorfman,. It is titled 'Paradise's
Prize is Torture'.
...torture is not a crime committed only against a body, but also a
crime committed against the imagination. It presupposes, it requires,
it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine someone else's
suffering, to dehumanise him or her so much that their pain is not our
pain.
It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond
any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else
the same distancing, the same numbness, those who know and close their
eyes, those who do not want to know and close their eyes, those who
close their eyes and ears and hearts.
...torture does not, therefore, only corrupt those directly involved in
the terrible contact between two bodies, one that has all the power and
the other that has all the pain. Torture also corrupts the whole social
fabric because it prescribes a silencing of what has been happening
between those two bodies.
Ravinder
On 10/05/2004, at 11:02 AM, David McInerney wrote:
> The (homo)sexualization of torture might be new to the Iraqis, but I
> doubt
> it, mainly because the Iraqi torturers were trained by the US
> government in
> the 1980s, as the famous 'Michael Jackson' scene in the film _Three
> Kings_
> points out. US-trained torturers throughout Latin America - notably in
> Argentina under the military junta, but in many other places as well -
> used
> all of these techniques, from the materials I've read. It's an
> attempt to
> literally destroy the self, a technology of destroying the self, aimed
> at
> destroying the capacity for resistance.
> DM
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Kelly" <mgekelly@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 8:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Panopticon Reversed
>
>
>> hmm . . .since the panopticon is supposed to be *pan*optic, what we
>> are
>> seeing is the beginning of panoptics in Abu Ghraib, not its
>> 'reversal'.
>> Indeed, many of the complaints are precisely that the panoptic
>> principles
> of
>> imprisonment were not observed, although there was a level of
>> visibility,
> in
>> that prisoners themselves saw what was going on as did the guards,
>> and so
>> did their superiors (apparently), and copious photography was done,
>> which
>> has now made the practices of the prison visible to the world at
>> large.
>> The interesting question about Abu Ghraib is what sort of power is in
>> play
>> here? It would not seem to be disciplinary, but nor is it the
>> sovereign
>> power, as practised by Saddam Hussein, which involved marking bodies
>> by
>> violence etc. While the Americans certainly have inflicted brutality,
>> this
>> aspect of humiliation of inmates is something rather new. The use of
>> dogs
>> and homosexuality is an attack on the inmates via their cultural
>> norms,
>> doing things which were unspeakable to them, and as some inmates have
>> pointed out, were things that the Ba'ath regime would not have done,
> despite
>> itssavagery. It seems like an attack at the level of culture, but more
> than
>> that I don't feel immediately able to characterise it, or ts
>> objectives.
>> Anyone else?
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "max neill" <meneilu2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 5:34 AM
>> Subject: Panopticon Reversed
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Any opinions on the apparent reversal of the 'Panopticon Effect' at
>>> Abu
>> Ghraib, where now the gaze of the world is focussed on the jailers?
>>>
>>> "We speak and the word goes beyond us to consequences and ends which
>>> we
>> had
>>> not conceived of" Gadamer
>>>
>>>
>
>
Dr Ravinder Sidhu
School of Education
University of Queensland
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newspaper on May 10th by Ariel Dorfman,. It is titled 'Paradise's
Prize is Torture'.
...torture is not a crime committed only against a body, but also a
crime committed against the imagination. It presupposes, it requires,
it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine someone else's
suffering, to dehumanise him or her so much that their pain is not our
pain.
It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond
any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else
the same distancing, the same numbness, those who know and close their
eyes, those who do not want to know and close their eyes, those who
close their eyes and ears and hearts.
...torture does not, therefore, only corrupt those directly involved in
the terrible contact between two bodies, one that has all the power and
the other that has all the pain. Torture also corrupts the whole social
fabric because it prescribes a silencing of what has been happening
between those two bodies.
Ravinder
On 10/05/2004, at 11:02 AM, David McInerney wrote:
> The (homo)sexualization of torture might be new to the Iraqis, but I
> doubt
> it, mainly because the Iraqi torturers were trained by the US
> government in
> the 1980s, as the famous 'Michael Jackson' scene in the film _Three
> Kings_
> points out. US-trained torturers throughout Latin America - notably in
> Argentina under the military junta, but in many other places as well -
> used
> all of these techniques, from the materials I've read. It's an
> attempt to
> literally destroy the self, a technology of destroying the self, aimed
> at
> destroying the capacity for resistance.
> DM
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Kelly" <mgekelly@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 8:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Panopticon Reversed
>
>
>> hmm . . .since the panopticon is supposed to be *pan*optic, what we
>> are
>> seeing is the beginning of panoptics in Abu Ghraib, not its
>> 'reversal'.
>> Indeed, many of the complaints are precisely that the panoptic
>> principles
> of
>> imprisonment were not observed, although there was a level of
>> visibility,
> in
>> that prisoners themselves saw what was going on as did the guards,
>> and so
>> did their superiors (apparently), and copious photography was done,
>> which
>> has now made the practices of the prison visible to the world at
>> large.
>> The interesting question about Abu Ghraib is what sort of power is in
>> play
>> here? It would not seem to be disciplinary, but nor is it the
>> sovereign
>> power, as practised by Saddam Hussein, which involved marking bodies
>> by
>> violence etc. While the Americans certainly have inflicted brutality,
>> this
>> aspect of humiliation of inmates is something rather new. The use of
>> dogs
>> and homosexuality is an attack on the inmates via their cultural
>> norms,
>> doing things which were unspeakable to them, and as some inmates have
>> pointed out, were things that the Ba'ath regime would not have done,
> despite
>> itssavagery. It seems like an attack at the level of culture, but more
> than
>> that I don't feel immediately able to characterise it, or ts
>> objectives.
>> Anyone else?
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "max neill" <meneilu2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 5:34 AM
>> Subject: Panopticon Reversed
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Any opinions on the apparent reversal of the 'Panopticon Effect' at
>>> Abu
>> Ghraib, where now the gaze of the world is focussed on the jailers?
>>>
>>> "We speak and the word goes beyond us to consequences and ends which
>>> we
>> had
>>> not conceived of" Gadamer
>>>
>>>
>
>
Dr Ravinder Sidhu
School of Education
University of Queensland
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