Victimized Twice 3 of 4

Victimized Twice:

Part 3 of 4:  Tule Lake; Stockholm Syndrome

Many of the workshops in the 2009 Tule Lake Pilgrimage were highly emotional and very informative, not just about what had happened during the forced removal and illegal incarceration nearly seventy years before, but as to how these traumas were still affecting people, families, and communities today.  During one break-out session, I sat and listened to several elderly Japanese Americans tell their stories.  Suddenly two middle-aged Japanese Americans were yelling at each other.  One of the gentlemen was a leader in the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) and the other was from a family whose members had been out-spoken draft-resisters during the incarceration.  Yes, the Japanese American soldiers who served with valor during WWII while their families were in concentration camps deserved lauding and recognition.  And these soldiers’ actions provided numerous examples of how and why Japanese American were “full-fledged” American.  But the point is, this is America-- where people are innocent until proved guilty.  In 1942, the federal government declared all Japanese Americans guilty of being unworthy of American citizenship with no other evidence than a racist distaste for the Japanese.  It took as much courage to fight for the rights of yourself and your family in a concentration camp as it did to fight in the battlefield.  There is nothing more American than the right to protest, dissent, and practice civil disobedience when faced with institutionalized injustices.

Why did the JACL and other hyper-loyal elements of the Japanese American community buy into the federal government racist bullshit? There is a very disturbing undertone here that no one has ever had the courage to look at.  I suspect that the position taken by the JACL and by many people who went through the American concentration camp experience (and even for some of those watching the trauma from outside) can only be describe as the result of Stockholm syndrome victimization.  The Stockholm syndrome plays a key component of this narrative and deserves a closer look: 

From Wikipedia-

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. The FBI Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.” One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they no longer become a threat.

Inferred in the definition above, but not clearly stated in the concept is that the Stockholm syndrome produces a degree of self-hatred on the part of the victim.  This self-hatred is very clear in some of the absurd stands the JACL took in the 1940’s (like suggesting Japanese Americans should be allowed to take the role of suicide troops for the American military).  This stance clearly shows an “identification” of the victims (the Japanese Americans) with their “captors” (the racist-elements of the American government). This “identification” reflects and reiterates position the federal government posited at that time by describing Japanese Americans as not quite qualified for American citizenship by nature of their ethnic origin.  Let’s not mince words here or buy-into the US government rhetoric.  One-hundred and ten thousand people of Japanese ancestry, both American citizens and resident aliens were institutionally victimized, abused, and held hostage by the US federal government during WWII.  Nowhere was this crime more egregious than at Tule Lake.

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

Informal Interpretation Sites of Conscience 3

Informal Interpretation at Sites of Conscience 

            Part 3 of 4:  The Pitfalls of Belief System and Forgiveness 

People attracted to positions as interpreters at Sites of Conscience usually possess strong personal convictions about justice and injustice in addition to a passion for human rights.  Specifically, interpreters tend to have an emotional connection to the primary injustices associated with the designation of the site.  These personal beliefs can manifest as the third pitfall for interpreters.  The challenge for informal interpretation at Sites of Conscience is for the interpreter not to allow personal convictions and emotional needs to impair the visitors’ need to make their own emotional and intellectual connections with the site. 

Cultural norms and paradigms change over time.  Sites of Conscience can function as a spearhead for change.  Sites of Conscience elucidate injustices that were historically justified, institutionalized, and/or concealed. It is crucial to the mission of these sites to present the full range of impacts of these injustices on the groups affected by the injustices.  It is also crucial to the mission of Site of Conscience to illuminate the fallacies inherent in the enactment and rationalization of the injustice.  Bringing injustices to light and presenting the falsehoods of the reasoning that created the injustice are the tools that lead to changing cultural paradigms and can help heal people and nations.  Strong convictions about human rights can lead to demonizing the perpetrators of the injustice.  Interpreters at Sites of Conscience must find the balance between providing critique for the motivations and rationalizations of injustices without criticizing and marginalizing the perpetrators of the injustice.  Sites of Consciousness do not exist to punish people who perpetrated the injustice.  Interpreters at these sites must strive to avoid the pitfall of judging the past and of criticizing those people today who still find it difficult to accept that their culture is changing and who may be personally experiencing the paroxysms associated with shifting paradigms.   

Forgiveness presents the final pitfall for interpreters at Sites of Conscience.  Although forgiveness may play a prominent role in the process of healing, it is not a requisite requirement for the process.  The capacity of a visitor to a Site of Conscience to forgive the systems, institutions, and persons that perpetrated an injustice is predicated the unique, emotional and psychological composition of the individual.  In many cases, forgiveness may be antithetical to justice and to holding persons, systems, and institutions accountable for their actions and policies.  As Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said in 2010, “Forgiveness cannot happen in a vacuum.  There cannot be real forgiveness without justice.”  Indeed, many of the Sites of Conscience would not exist today if victims of the injustice simply forgave the policies, persons, and institutions that perpetrated the injustice.  It was the demand for justice from these victims that led to an acknowledgement of the injustice and started the processes to bring social awareness to these injustices.  For an interpreter at a Site of Consciousness, it is important to remember that forgiveness is an individual and personal choice.

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA