torture

Welcome

priyanka — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Phillippe Lioret’s award-winning film, Welcome, zooms in on the anti-Muslim attitudes now gripping much of the Western world. The result is compelling, poignant, and profoundly tragic.

At the center of the story is Bilal (Firat Ayverdi), a seventeen-year-old Iraqi Kurd who has somehow traveled to Calais, a small city on the northern coast of France. While the details of his voyage out of Kurdistan are sketchy, it is obvious that the trip has exacted a horrifying toll and viewers see Bilal as he struggles with the emotional aftermath—in flashbacks—of having been tortured by police as he moved from country to country.

At the same time, Bilal is bullheaded, and fiercely determined not to let political and social roadblocks deter him. After all, he knows what he wants: His goal is to reach England and be reunited with the girl of his dreams, Mina, and join a Manchester soccer team.

But how to get there? After several failed attempts to hide in vehicles headed for Britain, Bilal decides to swim the thirty-two kilometer English Channel that separates Calais from his desired destination. To do this, Bilal needs to become more adept in the water and he enrolls in classes taught by instructor Simon Calmat (Vincent Lindon), a middle-aged former Olympian.

At first, the kid repels Simon—he is clearly illegal and Simon wants no part in aiding and abetting him. His lessons, which Bilal has paid for, are perfunctory, the work of a teacher who couldn’t care less whether his student learns or not. Then something happens that causes Simon to have a change of heart. After he is served his divorce papers, Simon abruptly decides to help Bilal. This shift, of course, has nothing to do with the boy, but is instead a calculated attempt to win back Marion (Audrey Dana), his ex.

The reasoning is simple: Marion volunteers at an outdoor soup kitchen that feeds undocumented and homeless men, and Simon believes that if Marion learns that he is helping Bilal—even going so far as to put him up in his flat—she will be so touched that she’ll return to him. Sound far-fetched? Well, yeah. But what often happens in everyday life happens here. That is, the one-on-one encounters between Simon and Bilal result in life-transforming changes in Simon. As he gets to know Bilal and hears his story, the young man morphs from the Alien Other into someone for whom Simon feels deep respect and admiration.

In short order, Simon is driven to act, ignoring French immigration law to help Bilal reach his journey’s end. The risks are enormous. At one point, Simon’s neighbors report him to police, prompting an investigation into whether he is harboring an undesirable foreigner. It’s grim stuff, calling up seventy-year-old images of Christians protecting Jews, queers, and communists from Nazi thugs.

Lioret’s rendering is sympathetic without ever becoming maudlin. Simon comes across as painfully real—as do Bilal and his always-scheming friends and associates. At the same time, Welcome’s reach extends beyond the personal to the political, in this case highlighting the lunacy of France’s immigration policies—policies that elevate demonization over understanding and judgment over compassion. The end result is a film that makes us wonder what we can do to help the strangers in our midst. What’s more, it asks us whom we—as a society and as individuals—are willing to welcome, and why.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, October 20th 2010

Death to the Dictator!: A Young Man Casts a Vote in Iran’s 2009 Election and Pays a Devastating Price

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:05:00 +0000

By Afsaneh Moqadam

Sarah Crichton Books

Less than one year after Iranian demonstrators took to the streets to protest the fraudulent re-election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of the Islamic Republic, writer Afsaneh Moqadam tells the true story of Mohsen Abbaspour, a man in his early twenties who votes for the Reformist party and its leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Swept up in the euphoria of possible change, the once politically apathetic Mohsen finds himself alongside his friends and fellow reformists in the streets posing the greatest challenge to Iranian authorities since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Presidential Guard, Basijis and police eventually suppress the demonstrators through brutal force and mass arrests. Like many fellow citizens, Mohsen is arrested, taken to the notorious Evin prison and then to Kahrizak. He is repeatedly interrogated, tortured, and raped until he is finally released on August 29, 2009.

In the letter that accompanied this book, the publisher vouches for the truthfulness of this account and informs us that a pseudonym has been used to protect the author’s identity. Given the relatively short period since the events of June 2009, the requisite anonymity is unsurprising, especially since Moqadam could well be Abbaspour. This book offers an insider account of what transpired in June 2009 from the perspective of a twenty-something secular protester and gives the reader a rare glimpse into how a young Iranian views the ruling party, his parents’ generation of revolutionaries and the shift in power from the mullahs to the neo-fascist Revolutionary Guard and its protector, Ahmadinejad. This perspective is particularly significant when we consider that Mohsen and his generation are largely the result of a pronatalist policy implemented in the 1980s in order to create an Islamic army of twenty million. This policy backfired producing a baby boom made up of individuals similar to Mohsen: educated with bleak employment opportunities and little if any interest in military service.

Another interesting aspect of the story is the speed at which change apparently occurred. Shadi, a veteran of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, tells Mohsen that it took them a year or two to get as far as the reformists had in just two weeks. Moreover, just ten days after the stolen election, brazen and fearless protesters began chanting the previously inconceivable, “Death to Kamenei!” The story sheds light on how technology acted as a catalyst in this revolt. In spite of using spy-ware provided by a major cellphone maker and slowing Internet speed to a snail’s pace, the authorities were unable to keep up with the transfer of information and images through new technology and social media.

Although many readers will find the rape and torture difficult to stomach, this part of the story must nevertheless be told. The more people become aware of rape and torture, the greater the likelihood that one day they will take a stand against these acts. Death to the Dictator! reads like a true account; however, in addition to a few structural problems, the English was somewhat stilted, which did interfere with the flow of the story and led me to believe that this book was released prematurely. Nevertheless, if you’re interested in knowing more about one Iranian’s experience during this tumultuous time then you will enjoy this book.

Written by: Heather Leighton, August 30th 2010

The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Hector Aristizabal, Diane Lefer

Lantern Books

As a survivor of government sanctioned torture in Colombia, Hector Aristizabal was left with unsettled anger and fear. His wariness towards both his country and his future there worsens when one of his brothers is murdered by paramilitary soldiers. Aristizabal is eventually able to cast aside his bitterness, and find ways to aid others in their struggles by holding workshops for prisoners and victims of violence in the United States. While the dust jacket of The Blessing Next to the Wound gives the impression that it is a memoir of surviving both torture and a corrupt government, the book's focus is actually splintered. It tells many stories connected through Aristzabal’s drive to aid others set both before and after his imprisonment and torture for alleged political ties.

The Blessing Next to the Wound begins with Aristizabal aiding his pregnant girlfriend and other young women seeking an illegal abortion. While Aristizabal boastfully lists the many women he seduced throughout his life, he also offers sympathy for the plight women face in a country with limited birth control resources. This later motivates him to undergo a vasectomy following the birth of his own two children, admitting that while he may not always be faithful to his wife, he will never impregnate another woman. While Aristizabal shows himself to grow, his treatment of women is never shown to be fully resolved. As a feminist, I fruitlessly waited for this to be given some resolution during the course of the book.

Each chapter tells a different vignette from Aristizabal’s rich life experience. While this approach causes the book to lack a clear focus, and often a sense of chronology, the bits and pieces he shares from his life are nonetheless captivating and often moving. During the course of the memoir Aristizabal chronicles the hardships faced by his homosexual brother who eventually dies of AIDS, the effect of the cocaine industry on Colombia, the many human rights violations that exist in the United States, and how his theater-based therapy work aids others in places of crisis in their lives. Now and then Aristizabal will make a connection between the chapter’s experience and his time spent imprisoned and tortured; these connections serve to lessen the fragmented feel of the work.

Despite its lack of focus, The Blessing Next to the Wound offers a moving portrayal of finding inspiration and direction after surviving torture.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, August 17th 2010

One of the Guys: Women as Aggressors and Torturers

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:14:00 +0000

Edited by Tara McKelvey

Seal Press

Are there lessons to be learned from the interminable nightmare in Iraq? Was more heartbreaking instruction needed, even after My Lai and William Calley and Zippo raids? The media, with its relentless blather about heroism, simply can’t accommodate the postmodern ambiguity in the story of Private Jessica Lynch or the fragging death of Pat Tillman. And then there’s Abu Ghraib.

Tara McKelvey brings together a fine collection of essays in One of the Guys, contributed by the likes of Eve Ensler and Angela Davis, mostly responding to a single horrible image from that episode of torture: Private First Class Lynndie England and two of her fellow soldiers holding a naked Iraqi man on a leash. Some of the writers in the collection, such as Barbara Ehrenreich, are struggling to accept “a tough new kind of feminism” that recognizes that atrocity knows no gender. It is not women who are the heroes and men who are the enemies, but rather feminism as an idea and spirit that holds out the promise of human liberation—and patriarchy as a system that has kept us in chains.

Ensler makes what should be an obvious point: “having a vagina is not a prerequisite for being a good leader.” Women who submit themselves to a system that encourages torture, killing and destruction are perfectly capable of the same malevolent behavior more typically associated with men. Some of the writers in this collection note the mixed emotions they experience after having advocated for women’s equal access to the military, an opportunity, many felt, that entails the possibility of social mobility for many poor or working class people.

Davis points out, however, that being assimilated into an “ideology of male dominance”—a culture of violence wherein women are given “equal opportunity to torture”—is antithetical to what feminism can and should be. The fact that women soldiers (along with uncounted female “noncombatants”) are being injured and killed in record numbers is a dubious mark of progress, to say the least. Some try to defend Lynndie England by pointing out that her relationship with a male supervisor played a role in the torture—or that she is more victim than persecutor. The larger point is that there can be no heroes in war, postmodern or otherwise, and the sooner we accept that principle, the sooner we can move on to the next stages of feminist critique and social justice.

Written by: Rick Taylor, April 28th 2007