Inhumane: Ruminations from A Pictorial Tale

  Charles Sarvan, courtesy of  Colombo Telegraph,  19 March 2019, where the title is “ On ‘Reading’ A Picture” …. Note that I have taken the liberty of inserting emphasis in colour and  introducing more paragraph divisions in Charlie Sarvan aka Ponnadurai’s  presentation in order to assist readability and analytical work –though this act may well distort his philosophical bent…… Bio-data is at the end of the article Editor, Thuppahi

“The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single picture.” This particular picture appeared in ‘Colombo Telegraph’ on 12 Feb. 2019; I shared my reaction privately with some of my contacts including, as a courtesy, Colombo Telegraph Editor who suggested that I rework the material with the possibility of it being uploaded. Unsatisfactory health has hindered an earlier response. In philosophy, an ‘essential’ is a quality that something must have for it to be what it is, while an ‘accidental’ is one that it happens to have but could lack. In what follows, that the men in uniform are Sinhalese and the prisoners Tamil is accidental. In other words, what I attempt here is a modest, general investigation and reflection.

Today  Sivaloganadan: Who’s next? By Shamila Daluwatte

First they raped Manamperi
And buried her body alive
I did not speak
Because there was an insurrection

Then they came for women in Kahawatte
I did not speak
Because I was not from Kahawatte

Then they came for women in Nuriwatte
I did not speak
Because I did not live in Nuriwatta

Then, they came for Women in the North
I did not speak, because
Krishanthi Kumaraswami, Koneshwari, Isaipriya
They were not my sisters

Then they came for women with a different skin colour
Eight men gang-raped Victoria Alexandra
I did not speak
Because she was just a foreigner

Then they gruesomely gang-raped Rita John
Stabbed her body fifteen times
Left her murdered body on the Modera Beach
I did not speak
Because she was an Indian
She was asking for trouble
By walking on the beach
with her jewellery in the evening

Then they gang raped a woman in Wijerama
I did not speak
Because she was just a prostitute

Then they raped hundreds of virgins
And celebrated with champagne
in Akuressa and Monaragala
I did not speak
Because I was too scared of politicians

Then they raped Logarani
Threw her naked body into a sacred temple
Then they gang raped Saranya Selvarasa
I did not speak

Finally they raped
Vithiya Sivaloganadan
I did not speak
Because she is Tamil
She lived on a small island in Kayts

Looking at the picture (rather than cursorily glancing at it) what draws immediate attention is the young woman or girl because (a) she happens to be almost at the centre of the picture and (b) is the only female. The naked man on the right seems to stare at her with concern, apparently resigned to his nakedness, and indifferent to the fact that a soldier behind him is, presumably, tightening the rope that binds him. Did he know her? Was she a much-loved relation? The nine prisoners, all stripped to their underwear (the one on the extreme right is naked) hands tied behind their back, three of them knee-deep in muddy water, have their attention focused on something to their left. At whom or what are they staring? What comes their way? The boy on the female’s immediate right stares in the opposite direction. The prisoner standing, his nakedness edited by Colombo Telegraph to preserve a modicum of decency, seems to be more concerned about the female than with his own “shameless” condition.

In the foreground of the picture are the nine males and one female; the middle ground of the picture has two soldiers and the naked man. A somewhat portly soldier bends over the young woman, preparing to lift her up. Her face is devoid of all feeling, expression or reaction: a mixture of extreme exhaustion and resignation? Indeed, her left foot is slightly raised as if to help in standing up. Why was she singled out? What was done to her? What she endured is not to be contemplated: torture, gang-rape and murder? De profundis clamavi (Psalm 130: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee”) but her cry probably only fuelled further sadism and triumphant jeers.

The background of soldiers fully clothed and armed provides a contrast to the prisoners’ nakedness. The soldiers are relaxed: what’s being done, and is about to be done, is nothing exceptional. What’s calamity and death to the prisoners is a casual matter to them. The second soldier in the middle-ground seems to ask his comrade-in-arms: “Need any help in lifting her up?” My wife wondered about the person we don’t see: the photographer. What was his motive in taking this picture? Was it deep compassion and high moral condemnation or congratulation, as proud hunters record themselves with their trophy? “See what we’ve done! Aren’t we great?” Louder, the applause!

Moving now to more general considerations, if prisoners are going to be killed why are they, not infrequently, stripped naked? Why humiliate those whom you are anyway about to “eliminate”? Neither space nor my competence enable me to be comprehensive but I offer a few possible explanations. Enforced nakedness brings home to the prisoner his or her utter helplessness; his or her total vulnerability. It removes any thought of resistance or even of escape. On the other hand, it gives the captors a sense of their god-like power. Lord Acton (1834-1902) wrote that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely: in this picture we have a visual illustration of that truth.

Reflecting further, I was reminded of Franz Stangl, commandant of the Nazi extermination camps at Treblinka and Sobibor. Note: unlike concentration camps where inmates were forced to work until they could no more, Stangl was in charge of camps established for the express purpose of extermination. At war’s end, he fled to Brazil, was brought back to what was then West Germany; tried, sentenced and died in prison. When asked why humiliation and cruelty were heaped upon those who were soon going to be killed, Stangl’s answer was on the lines of so as to make it possible, psychologically and emotionally, for the soldiers to do what they did: Gitta Sereny, ‘Into that Darkness: An Examination of Conscience’, Vintage Books Edition, 1983, p.101.

Here and elsewhere, I draw on my review of a very perceptive and powerful work, Worse Than War, by Daniel Goldhagen, Professor of Political Science for many years at the University of Harvard. The review is included in my Public Writings on Sri Lanka, Volume 2. War is terrible but more horrible is what Goldhagen terms “eliminationism” and its eliminationist policies and actions.

Stangl’s reply shows, among other things, how we degrade our fellow human beings and then use that degraded condition to justify degrading treatment: see, at random, the plight of “natives” under imperialism, of slaves, of the so-called “coolies” on estates and the so-called Untouchables in their hovels. Effect or result is used to justify cause, the treatment meted out. While pedagogues, journalists and even artists are no different from the illiterate and the lowest in society when it comes to eliminationism (Goldhagen), soldiers, the paramilitary and policemen play a major role. They inhabit a brutalizing and brutalized world, and constitute “pre-existing institutions of violence”. They are either “the lead killing institution or in a critical support role” (Goldhagen).

I would draw the attention of readers to Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay. Readers will recall that Homer’s Achilles was prone to anger, and when angry, pitiless and destructive: the word “berserk” comes to mind. Truly, it’s the “undoing” of a character. Sometimes our hate is so strong and intense that not even the death of the other can quieten and quench it. Achilles tied the slain body of Hector to his chariot and dragged it round and round the walls of Troy to the deep distress of Hector’s parents and wife; family, comrades and friends. In Sri Lanka, after the final battle with the Tamil Tigers, “desecrated” bodies were found: those, particularly those of females, with objects thrust into their private parts.

Soldiers disregard the laws of war when their officers signal that it’s alright; and the officers do so because those still more senior support them, tacitly if not overtly. And the highest ranks permit, if not order or encourage, such behaviour because they know politicians will approve and reward. Those in uniform are the creation and creatures of society. They act with brutality because they know they have the support of the majority of their people, and that “their” state will protect them from investigation and justice. Under an electoral system (unlike in a dictatorship), final responsibility lies with society and the state. (I admit: not all electoral systems are democratic in the true sense of the word.)

Returning to Stangl’s explanation, we cannot recognise the other as fully human like us and then proceed to subordinate her or him. No, the humanity of the other must first be destroyed for non-human treatment to follow. (A student of mine once questioned the word “inhumane” because it suggests that humans are humane.)

Generally, language reflects reality: signifier and the signified. For example, the existence of that pachyderm has led in English to the word “elephant”: But language can also create reality; more precisely, create our perceptions, attitudes and conduct. So while it is a sin and a crime to kill “fellow human beings”, it is admirable and meritorious to slaughter “the enemy”. Dehumanisation not only permits but encourages dehumanising treatment. Perception is paramount. I have suggested to students that while we see through our eyes, we “see” with our minds. The man who would risk his own life by jumping into the water to save an infant or child whom he doesn’t remotely know is capable, under different circumstances, of hacking that same baby or child or throwing it into the fire: as riots and pogroms prove. I repeat: perception is paramount, and the latter depends not on the eyes so much as on the mind. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wondered: What kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother’s milk, and for the mother to witness this murder while she is being gang-raped by security forces? (See, Tom Fletcher, Prospect Magazine, 23 July 2018.) We humans are indeed a strange, contradictory species. Karl Marx once commented, if this is Marxism, then I’m not a Marxist. Similarly, one can imagine the Buddha sadly saying, if this is what has been made of Buddhism, then I’m not a Buddhist – and so too with Christ and Christianity, with the Hindu gods and Hinduism, the Prophet Mohammed and Islam.

South African Bloke Modisane published his autobiography in 1963 titled Blame Me on History. There’s something fundamentally flawed in the human makeup: can we shift responsibility and say, “Blame us on (evolutionary) biology”? Robert Sapolsky is an internationally known Professor of Neurobiology, and here I turn to his Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. We don’t hate violence per se but only what we consider to be the wrong kind of violence by the wrong sort of people. Though we are not aware of it, our conversations are filled with military metaphors (Sapolsky). We are “hardwired” (innately predisposed) to violence. I am an ignoramus when it comes to science but have long seen that thoughts are the products of the brain – and the brain is a physical organism. We are an aggressive species, given both to defensive and offensive aggression. “The amygdala is the archetypal limbic structure, sitting under the cortex in the temporal lobe. It is central to mediating aggression” (Sapolsky, page 31).

Returning to the picture, before subordination; before we degrade and eliminate, there must be division: the separation between “Us” and “Them”. While “we” are made up of unique individuals, “they” are a homogeneous, unchanging group. “Our brains form Us/Them dichotomies with stunning speed” (Sapolsky, page 388). This has been demonstrated by the well-known Implicit Association Test. (For IAT, see the Internet as a starting point.)

But this excluding dichotomy is not fixed and permanent. If creatures from outer space were to attack Planet Earth, then all of us (including Sri Lanka’s present divisions and groups) would immediately become “Us”. Not so long ago, Jews were seen as non-European, as Asian. The Nazi general Walter von Reichenau in his notorious ‘Severity Order’ to the Sixth Army, declared the Jews to be sub-humans; an Asiatic danger to Aryans and so to be exterminated – women and children not exempted. Now occasionally I note that Israeli individuals or teams participate in some European competitions. “They” have succeeded in metamorphosing themselves into “Us”, and it’s the Palestinians who remain “They”.

Sapolsky admits that he tends to pessimism but, on the positive side states that genes aren’t about inevitabilities but about potentials and vulnerabilities. They don’t determine anything on their own. Perhaps, this where our (evolutionary and biological) nature can be influenced by nurture; by culture, in the general sense of the term, including moral upbringing? The frontiers of exploration are not only in faraway space but also with and within us.

   **** ****

BIO-DATA: Charles Ponnadurai was educated at S. Thomas’ College and was in my batch at Ramanathan Hall and Peradeniya University from mid-1957.  He pursued a degree in English Honours and our paths diverged somewhat. He moved to Zimbabwe or Zambia as one step in his career and I think it was there that he married his German wife. They eventually settled down in West Germany.  He has authored several books on Sri Lanka and the two of us crossed swords on aspects of the contemporary conflict on one occasion (see below). 

The photograph he has chosen to interpret is just one in a collection (derived from Tamil sources) which I have deployed in one of my articles: namely “Cartographic & Photographic Illustrations in support of the Memorandum analysing the War in Sri Lanka and Its Propaganda Debates,‘ dated 18 November 2014 ….  http://thuppahis.com/2014/11/18/cartographic-photographic-illustrations-in-support-of-the-memorandum-analysing-the-war-in-sri-lanka-and-propaganda-debates/

That article in its turn was in support of an essay sent to the OISL investigation undertaken by the UN Offices in Geneva –who, in their profound idiocy, banned the use of photographs in any submissions. As any reference to my article will suggest there are pitfalls in focusing on just one picture. The deadly outcome of execution as probability for those extracted from the mass of Tiger POWs — for that is what they were — is not to be doubted. 

The personnel in this set of photographs are distinct from the readings of two other sets of photographs: (B) rows of Tamil Tiger corpses in uniform or some apparel collected for identification; (C) streams of people heading inland across the lagoon or land to escape from their corralled situation as fodder for international intervention  and thereby to secure safety as IDPs (which latter is yet another chapter in a long and tragic tale going back into British times).

SOME LITERATURE

Charles Sarvan: “Nation building opposed concepts and aims,” 24 Mya 2009, http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090524/FOCUS.HTM

“Charles Sarvan reflects upon Identity, Language, Animosity,” 12 August 2010, https://thuppahis.com/2010/08/12/charles-sarvan-reflects-upon-identity-language-animosity/

 

“Charles Sarvan’s Essays on Sri Lanka: A Paradise Lost?“, 19 March 2015,  https://thuppahis.com/2015/03/19/charles-sarvans-essays-in-sri-lanka-a-paradise-lost/

Dayan Jayatilleka: “Charlie Sarvan’s War,” 28 November 2010,  http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/11/28/charlie-sarvan%E2%80%99s-war/

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2010b “Information Warfare and the Endgame of the Civil War,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, May 2010 30/4: 35-37. http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/ articles/40/Sri-Lanka.

Govt Film Unit [SL] 2014 “Last Days at Nandikadal,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kEzLEafDss  OR https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/148fce36b9866525?projector=1

Gray, David 2009 “A Day at the Front Line in Sri Lanka (Photographer’s Blog),” 27 April 2009, http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2009/04/27/a-day-at-the-front-line-in-sri-lanka/

Roberts, M. 2012c “Velupillai Pirapāharan: Veera Maranam,” 26 November 2012, http://thuppahis.com/2012/11/26/velupillai-pirapaharan-veera-maranam/

Roberts, M. 2013 “BBC-Blind: Misreading the Tamil Tiger Strategy of International Blackmail, 2008-13,” http://thuppahis.com/2013/12/08/bbc-blind-misreading-the-tamil-tiger-strategy-of-international-blackmail-2008-13/#more-11221

Roberts, M.  2013 “Pictorial Illustrations of the Mass Exodus from the Last Redoubt, 20-22 April and mid-May 2009: Appendix V for “BBC Blind”, http://thuppahis.com/2013/12/11/exodus-from-the-last-redoubt-late-april-mid-may-2009-appendix-v-for-bbc-blind

Roberts, M. 2014a “Dedicated Medical Work Amidst the Heat of War, Death and Propaganda: In the Vanni Pocket, 2009,”http://thuppahis.com/2012/04/12/blackmail-during-the-endgame-in-eelam-war-iv/

Roberts, M. 2014b “Generating Calamity, 2008-2014: An Overview of Tamil Nationalist Operations and Their Marvels,” 10 April 2014, http://groundviews.org/2014/04/10/generating-calamity-2008-2014-an-overview-of-tamil-nationalist-operations-and-their-marvels/

Roberts, M. 2014 Tamil Person and State. Essays, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publishers.

Roberts, M. 2014 Tamil Person and State. Pictorial, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publishers

Shanmugarajah, V. 2014 “Dr. Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah’s Affidavit Description of Conditions in the Vanni Pocket in Refutation of Channel Four,” 5 January 2014, http://thuppahis.com/2014/01/05/drveerakanthipillai-shanmugarajahs-affidavit-description-of-conditionsin-the-vanni-pocket-in-refutation-of-channel-four/

Thangavelu, Velupillai 2013 “LTTE Cadres Who Surrendered To The Army: Where Are They?” Colombo Telegraph, 18 August 2013, http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ltte-cadres-who-surrendered-to-the-army-where-are-they/.

Times 2011 “TIMES Aerial Images, NFZ Last Redoubt, 23 May 2009,” http://www.flickr.com/ photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626922360092/

UTHR 2009a A Marred Victory and a Defeat Pregnant with Meaning, Special Report No. 32. http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport32.htm

UTHR 2009b Let Them Speak: Truth about Sri Lanka’s Victims of War. Special Report No. 34, http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/Special%20rep34/Uthr-sp.rp34.htm.

Video Image [GSL] 2014 “A balanced insight into the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict – “Common Differences” (HD),” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L8QfZw0XUo.

Vidura 2009 “The Great Escapes,” Sunday Leader, 17 May 2009.

You Tube Video [GSL] 2013 “The Last Phase,” http://www.youtube.com/embed/RQmn4ubPy5A.

Weiss, Gordon 2012 “New Evidence — The Death of Colonel Ramesh,” 21 March 2012, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/newevidencethe-death-of-colonel-ramesh-warning-disturbing-images/

[White Flag] 2014 5 years On: The White Flag Incident, http://white-flags.org/

Yatawara, Dhaneshi 2009 “Entrapped Civilians seek salvation in Force,” Sunday Observer, 17 May 2009, http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2009/05/17/fea05.asp