My intention is to provide you with a sense of what torture does to people. I begin with a word from Elena Miranda, a young Chilean woman who killed herself, after being tortured:
They know I exist but they don’t look at me
They know that I am but they don’t feel anything for me.
For me this sums up the experience of many of those we are hearing from these days. The response of the Peoples’ Commission is an attempt to see and to feel the experience of those who become invisible.
Mine is a voice out of the past, the past of Latin America in the 70’s and 80’s when the continent became an immense prison. Torture was (and still is) endemic to the justice system. My contribution today will focus on one aspect of the vast topic of torture that is of particular interest to this Commission. You are concerned about the deportation of refugee or immigrant claimants in Canada to countries where they may be subjected to torture. Such deportations are of course totally illegal through agreements in international law to which Canada is signatory. Others will no doubt explain that point. My contribution will be to draw your attention to the impact of that torture should it happen to anyone deported from Canada. Without a vivid sense of the impact torture has, it is impossible to adequately understand the meaning of these deportations.
My comments go back to a study of prisoners I undertook in the 1980’s in one prison in Peru, Chimbote, and on my subsequent participation in the First International Seminar on Torture in Latin America in 1985.
What is torture?
The physical methods used to torture, horrendous as they sometimes are, are only means to the real objective which is on the psychic level. Thus beatings, isolation, lack of sleep, electric shock, hangings and so on, while leading at times to serious medical conditions such as pulmonary, cardiac or renal failure, are only means to the psychic end: terrorization of the individual.
Torture then is a form of intentionally induced psychic trauma with short, medium and long term effects. It is a deliberate attempt by agents of the State to destroy the capacity of persons to think and act for themselves, to destroy their identity. The torturer becomes the substitute for that capacity. All this happens in order to extract information and to create a climate of terror for the individual but often also for the entire society.
What are the effects of torture?
The impact of torture on an individual, as a psychic event, as stress, as trauma, depends very much on the sophistication of the methods used and on the psychic structure of the individual. The trauma can leave the personality of the individual damaged, sometimes irreversibly so. To quote the poet César Vallejo:
There are blows that life sends
So powerful, I don’t know …
They open deep furrows
In the fiercest figure
And in the strongest back.
Given the incredible sophistication of torture methods used today, with the complicity of the medical and psychological profession, no one could resist a breakdown of personality in a truly “professional” process of torture – such as is obviously in use, for example, at Guantanamo Bay. Quite often today, little or no physical brutality is required or involved.
Please note that I will consistently avoid using the term “victim” to refer to those tortured (except when quoting) and I will also refuse to refer to the consequences as “illness.” The person tortured must continue to be seen as a full “subject” or “agent” and must be assisted, as needed, to recover that agency. Frequently the reactions to torture that we see as dysfunctional are not at all so given the context of torture. They are defence mechanisms that help protect the individual during a time of extreme stress.
In Trauma and Recovery, Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. explores the concept of “post-traumatic syndrome” and its aftermath in both domestic and political scenarios. This situation of torture as trauma, a specific form of stress, is extremely important. The tortured person may become clinically depressed, emotionally unstable, suicidal etc. But it is the dimension of stress that is critical.
In my study of individuals, some of whom were still in prison and some of whom had been released, there was everywhere evidence of difficulty in integrating into their overall psychic structure the treatment they had received at the hands of the police or military during interrogations. This was especially evident in the anguish with which they spoke of that period of their life and of the nightmares as well as waking dreams that continued to follow them. Some had lost all sense of meaning in their life. One man questioned whether it was worthwhile to continue living. Part of the core objective in torture, as I mentioned, is the breakdown of personality. This includes self-esteem. The loss of self-esteem in particular has enormous consequences over a long period.
Lewis Herman describes the breakdown provoked by torture in two stages. The first stage is reached when the victim relinquishes her inner autonomy, world view, moral principles, or connection with others for the sake of survival. There is a shutting down of feelings, thoughts, initiative and judgment.
This, she notes, is reversible. The second stage however is not: “when the victim loses the will to live.” Here there is the adoption of an “attitude of absolute passivity.” We saw this in the Nazi concentration camps when prisoners abandoned all attempts to eat, sleep or care for themselves. There is also a third, long-term impact, namely that of chronic stress syndrome. It is the permanent state of fear that the trauma will reoccur. Such persons are “continually hyper-vigilant, anxious and agitated.” Such reactions can be elicited by almost anything that the person connects in some way with the experiences during the period of torture.
However, torture does not always have the same effects. To quote again from the final document of the International Seminar:
As a traumatic limit experience, torture implies a psychic, physical and emotional cost whose final result will depend on the specific characteristics of the torture used and the victim’s resistance mechanisms, among which his or her political and social awareness play a dominant part.
My own study revealed that those who had strong self-esteem, a strong social and political culture, who were aware of the risks of their social and political engagements, who had a deeply-held set of personal values, were able to resist the impact of torture much more than those who lacked these qualities.
It should also be mentioned that the aftermath of torture takes its toll on family and friends as well. It is not uncommon that partners, children and families of the person tortured are unable to relate to the one who returns to their home and neighbourhood. The erratic behaviour and at times the violent outbursts can become unbearable for them. Families break up; the individuals can find themselves very isolated. Again, I quote from the International Seminar document:
The tortured person’s family is always affected. The abrupt loss of a member of the family group profoundly alters family ties, giving rise to feelings which threaten vital traits with their corresponding quota of pain, frustration and impotence. …
The effects of torture are eloquently expressed by José Agustín Goytizolo:
I remain forever
Confused and suspended in the air,
In the dust of hatred,
A sad cinder
That falls and falls
On the earth
Falling in my memory.
May this never happen again to anyone who has turned to Canada for refuge!
[Unfortunately it does happen!]
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