Inhumanity

WARNING: do not read this post if you are a sensitive reader.

Special Assignment, the SABC3 programme, looked at the topic of war and violence during war tonight. Their focus seems to be on rape as a technique of torture during war and telling the stories of women, children and men who have been affected. However, there were other stories shared about other types of torture and violence.

One of the stories told was of a young boy, a teenager, who was forced to rape his mother.

*Selah*

Another was of a young soldier who, upon capture, was force-fed human excrement. When he refused to eat it, he was beaten severely and then starved. Rather than give in, he was starved to death.

*Selah*

Why do I share these two stories with you? Because it shocks me to the core. I am outraged at the treatment dished out to these people.

I share them, too, because I grieve, not just for the victims, but for the perpetrators, who have become less than human.

Having read several spy stories (yes, yes, I know they're hardly reliable sources of information) I know that spies can be trained to withstand torture, but the process requires them to learn to disconnect from themselves, to separate themselves from their bodies completely.

Similarly, having read post-apartheid books by people who were torturers, one learns that in order to torture another human being, you have to be able to disconnect from your own humanity - to compartmentalise your life.

Torture and violence dehumanise not only the victim but also the perpetrator. Both become victims. Both are damaged.

But how does one get there? How does one person allow themselves to slide into becoming a perpetrator of such inhumane violence?

More importantly, how does one get back from there? Apart from the grace of God, how does one get back from that place of ... darkness?

But still I grieve for those people - both victims and perpetrators - who are still currently living in that hell.

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*'Selah' is a Hebrew word that means "Stop, and contemplate".