As I watched the world's news coverage of the George Floyd Protests, which I want to note here is a series of now international protests against the violence done to Black, African-American, and African human beings around the world. I cross-referenced the narratives official news sources gave me with the videos, prose, poetry, speeches, and lyrics published by protestors on social media platforms; namely Instagram and Twitter. And, as I watched video after video of protestors running from exploding canisters of Tear Gas, I grew increasingly interested in the authority with which nations have to use Tear Gas, or Riot Control Agents, on their citizens. My research lead me to the finding that the categorization of Tear Gas as a domestic technology is a fallacy that nations across the globe created two centuries ago and have continued to perpetuate to sidestep the ambiguous rules of domestic attrition. Subsequently, that finding lead me to the realization that:
I want to be clear about a few points right away.
There is a long-held standard in the course of human events for international conventions to dictate what types of munitions have too cruel an impact on the human body for nations to use in times of war. Chemical-Biological-Radiological (CBR) Warfare has, since the Strasbourg Agreement in 1675 barred the use of poison, after Leonardo da Vinci filled shells with arsenic and sulfur. This ban was first internationally ratified at the Hague International Peace Conference in 1899, when article 23a added a line on 'poisoned weapons and projectiles filled with poison gas'. That line was then replicated in the 1907 Hague Convention transcripts. The ambiguity of where the boundary between domestic and military conflict lies and what is and is not humane has helped create the landscape of chemical warfare that we have today. The beginnings of what we know to be tear gas and its affects on human beings:In 1871, Graebe synthesized a chemical strain called 1-chloreacetphenone, or CN--colloquially referred to today as Mace. This chemical compound is similar to that which was first used (either xylyl bromide or ethyl bromoacetate) by French forces in the First World War. It has a poor water soluble rating, 5.3 vapor density, and 35 intolerable concentration level (Gupta, 155-6). In 1928, Carson and Stoughton synthesized a less toxic chemical compound called ortho-chlorobenzylidene malonoitile, or CS--colloquially referred to today as Tear Gas. This strain is widely used by United States Armed Forces in basic training and police forces around the world to disperse protestations. This compound is not water soluble and can only dissolve with the aid of an organic solvent, it has 6.5 vapor density rating and a 5 intolerable concentration level (Gupta, 155-6). Today, there are a lot of chemical compounds that fit under the umbrella term of Tear Gas; those compounds consist of lachrymatory agents which, when vaporized, attack multiple sites of the body simultaneously. The vaporized chemicals operate as a moisture-like substance once it reaches any given surface, sticking and covering everything it comes in contact with. Once they enter the bloodstream of the individual these agents disrupt some of the antiviral defenses the human body has built up making the individual, in the long term, more susceptible to fall ill to respiratory illnesses. While there is rumor that this type of gas was used as early as 1912 by a Parisian police force while trying to subdue a group of robbers known as the Motor Bandits; I was unable to find verifiable evidence to support such a claim. The picture below is a screen shot from the London Illustrated News which recounts the siege of the Motor Bandits by the Parisian police force which is often the cited first use of deploying tear gas. In the article, however, Lieutenant Fontan is said to use dynamite which he hid, trojan-horse-style in a carriage of hay. Under the cover of smoke and boom, Lieutenant Fontan and his forces moved in to apprehend the disorientated Motor Bandits who were sheltering in a garage. I will admit that while this case does not expressly use tear gas; the tactic of using smoke to discombobulate and asphyxiate a group of people so that law enforcement personal can more easily apprehend them is the very same tactic behind the deployment of tear gas. The first verifiable account of using a non-lethal asphyxiator chemical compound which enacts on the human body similar affects as Tear Gas comes during the First World War. In The Story of the Great War: History of the European War from Official Sources, Volume 5 the terms "tear-producing gas" and "asphyxiating shells" are first used (Reynolds, Churchill, Miller, 1916, 403). Not unlike today, the ethyl-bromacetate compound, was put into 26mm grenades releasing the toxic smoke once the grenade exploded. By December 1915 the fear of weaponized gases had spread across battalions of front-line soldiers like a virus. Captain E.E. Simeons writes, "When the 'gas alert' gongs were first sounded I suddenly remembered amongst other things which [flash] through one's mind at such a time, that Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt knelt down and prayed…this is exactly what I did." (Simeons, 1915). The insidiousness of gas attacks is that it takes away an individuals capacity to even attempt to defend themselves from it; they must breathe and thus it has entered their blood stream before they even realize it. Ian Kikuchi, a historian who works at the Imperial War Museum in London, says of gas attacks: "Gas, which moves like a vapour, brings to mind ghosts, phantoms and other things associated with death." (Kikuchi, Imperial War Museum). And, in one of the most infamous poems in the English language Wilfred Owen writes about what it felt like to be gassed:
It is for these reasons that the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1919 barred Austria from using, accepting an importation of, or developing "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all similar liquids, materials or devices" (Article 135 of Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, 1919). This precedent built off the backs of the previous three conventions I mentioned (Strasbourg Agreement and Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1904) and was later reiterated in the 1925 Geneva Convention, barring all undersigned from using gas as a weapon. It has been since replicated in every international conference dealing with the laws of acceptable weaponry.
What modernity's militant tactics to subdue protests feel like:While the deployment of weaponized asphyxiator gasses has been for 345 years now banned from use in war that ban has never been translated into the realm of domestic security. And, between the years 2013 to 2018 during the Syrian Civil War, chemical attacks of nerve and chlorine gasses resurfaced on the battlefield leading three United Nations (France, United States, United Kingdom) to look into this breach of contract. So, perhaps these internationally recognized laws barring the use of poison gasses on any battlefield have been faulty from the start. Tear Gas, or Riot Control Agents, have been used by police forces all over the world to disperse crowds of civilian protestors. In fact, it has become standard operating procedure for government officials to release canisters of noxious gas into an unarmed, largely peaceably assembled group of civilians (read: human beings) in order to suppress their natural given rights to express intrapersonal opinions. Governments have, since the dawn of democracy and republics, seem to continually forget that their role in society to protect, foster, and serve the populous. No where in that statement does it allow for the suppression of their populous. On August 9, 2014, Mike Brown was murdered by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The following day aggrieved community members assembled at the site on which Mr. Brown died to attend a candlelight vigil. On August 11, police deploy tear gas canisters and fire rubber bullets into a crowd of those who had gathered to protest racially motivated police brutality and call for legal action to be taken against Mr. Wilson. On August 18, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon issues a state of emergency and calls the National Guard to intervene, he states, "The people of Ferguson want their streets to be free of intimidation and fear, it looked a little bit more like a war zone and that's not acceptable." (Nixon, 2014). If that sentence seems contradictory, that is because it is woefully ridiculous. The sentence makes clear which 'people of Ferguson' Nixon wants to be free of fear and it is certainly not the protestors. If Nixon was concerned for the wellbeing of the protestors then the logical move is surely not to shoot them with rubber bullets, gas them, or weaponize the United States military against the people they are sworn to protect. This sequence of events would become know as the 2014 Ferguson Protests. The same sequence of events is now being repeated with the 2020 George Floyd Protests. Tory Russell, a reporter who was covering the Ferguson Protests in 2014, wrote about what it felt like to be gassed. In his quote there is a clear echo of the voices of the First World War soldiers who had, a century prior, endured the same experience during a war that is now known for its horrific use of military technology. Russell writes:
The shift from a weapon of war to a keeping-the-peace tactic:To be very clear, historically, tear gas and any similar chemical compound that results in the asphyxiation of a human being--however temporary--was created as a weapon of war and first deployed in a time of war. It was then, immediately following its first use in war, banned from any future use in warfare. If the argument against this statement is "That only applies to Mustard Gas, or gasses that kill individuals. Tear Gas does not kill anyone." Well, that is just an incorrect statement according to the very clear diction found in the free-publicly accessible 2005 Chemical Weapons Convention transcript. Article 13 reads, in full: "Nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as in any way limiting or detracting from the obligations assumed by any State under the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, signed at London, Moscow and Washington on 10 April 1972." (Article 13, CWC, 2005).
It may be technically cloaked under the obscurity of a non-lethal policing agent; but make no mistake those words have no meaning. Tear Gas has always been and will always be a chemical weapon. Simultaneously, as it was banned in war, this weapon made a nefarious transition into the domestic world.The fact that it is still in use today simply means that every police force of the world is acting in opposition to the international agreements their nation's signed. Where are those delegates of the United Nations who sent forces into Syria in 2013 to investigate the illegal use of chemical weaponry now? The mass development of tear gas compounds were legitimized under the premise that it provides a more humane alternative to shooting. It is potentially the best instance wherein we see an uneasy traverse between the boundaries of military and domestic action occur. Tear Gas is also potentially the only weapon of war that did not have to be altered from its original military format to fit into an apparatus of security. Other riot control agents include rubber bullets, stun-guns, flash-bangs, and the use of pressurized water. These also stem from tactics of war and military technology, however their original form was altered to suit the context of being used against an unarmed public. The principle of killing that is present in times of war is shifted to the principle of maiming or temporarily disabling. This is often the crux of nearly every argument for the continued use of these 'keeping-the-peace' tactics. As Julian Amery once asked, "Could we not all agree that it is better to cry than die?" (British Commons Debates, April 1, 1965). Amery's question, however, does not address the hypocrisy that has followed Tear Gas since its first deployment. If this form of chemical weaponry is barred from use in times of war, why is its use allowed in domestic contexts? If recent studies have shown that the adverse effects of Tear Gas actually last longer than the typical 'thirty minutes' of initial asphyxiation, then is it still humane? Why are nations discussing the suppression of their people, so casually, as if they are not the human beings that elected them into their positions of power to serve them? The tensions these questions arise is expressed in the preamble of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention transcript, which reads, that the convention dealt with "the category of instruments of international law that prohibit weapons deemed particularly abhorrent. As soon as the First World War was over, chemical and bacteriological methods of warfare were condemned by public opinion, and in the 1925 Geneva Protocol they were prohibited." The original language of that 1925 Geneva Protocol reads: "Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or any other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world; …To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations; Declare: That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this prohibition." No where else is the hypocrisy of using Tear Gas made as crystal clear as it is here because essentially these two statements have said:
The United States has a long history of suppressing public opinion, even though doing so is constitutionally illegal. That is not a political opinion, that is a historically recorded fact supported by thousands of citable primary source evidence. The US Bill of Rights reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (Article 1, Bill of Rights, ratified 1791). If that is not all encompassing than the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights added in the 9th amendment to cover the remaining inalienable rights they may not have thought of, it reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." (Article 9, Bill of Rights, ratified 1791). The United State have militant forces that exist to "protect and serve" the citizens of each states' numerous congressional districts. Those militant forces have tools they deploy under the premise of maintaining an apparatus of security. Those tools are, if it was not self-evident given the topic of this post, supposedly non-lethal alternatives to weapons of war. The chief tool that is most often deployed first are canisters of Tear Gas. Recent studies challenge the premise of Tear Gas only causing temporary acute discomfort. For instance, in 2014, the United States Army released a study done on the recruits that had been exposed to Tear Gas during training (Military Medicine, Volume 179, Issue 7, July 2014, 793–798). The study found that the exposed recruits were more likely to contract and fall ill to a respiratory illness or develop chronic bronchitis. Another article published the same year studied 93 individuals who had been exposed to the three most common strains Tear Gas used by police forces (CN, CS, OC). 23 of the individuals showed that pulmonary function deterioration and respiratory discomforts persisted up to 10 months. (Arbark, The Scientific World Journal, 2014). That is because Tear Gas affects the mucus membranes in the human body and deactivates some of the antiviral defenses the human body has when the toxic smoke is inhaled. In May 2020, Sarah Grossman died as a result of being gassed at a George Floyd Protest in Ohio. The deployed Tear Gas triggered an asthmatic response that resulted in her ultimate asphyxiation two days later. There have been several instances where Tear Gas grenades have struck protestors in the face and resulted in permanent disfigurement and ultimately death. While the claim that Tear Gas does not cause immediate death like bullets do; there is an equal claim that the use of force against a public that cannot deploy the same scale force negates any suggestion that Tear Gassing unarmed civilians is a humane option. The brutality of what occurs following the release of the noxious gasses asks: Is there truly no non-violent alternative to dispersing a crowd of unarmed protestors? What does it say about a nation if they deploy violent tactics against their citizens in order to suppress a mass outcry of public opinion? Recent events, namely the George Floyd Protests, have once again cracked open the fallacy of legally using Tear Gas on an unarmed public in a domestic non-military setting. Here is the real-life scenario that has occurred over the past two weeks.
This scenario important because words and the reactions to those uttered words have immense power.
Is there a legal claim that Tear Gas is being used illegally when deployed against protestors?:Simple answer: Yes. There has always been. There was when Governor Ronald Reagan issued a state of emergency ordered the National Guard to disperse those assembled at People's Park in Oakland, in 1969. There was when Governor Nixon ordered the National Guard to Ferguson in 2014 and there is now. When the US military engages in a domestic conflict and Tear Gas is deployed, the President of the United States publicly and legally acts in opposition to the objectives and aims of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention "to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons." And, was in breach of contract according to Article I(5) “Each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare.” The creates a legal foundation to approach the topic of reforming the use of Tear Gas in domestic conflicts. Coupled with the two hundred year precedent established in 1675 that bans the use of poisoned weaponry in times of war which was upheld by the 2005 Chemical Warfare Convention. As well as the First and Ninth Amendment of the US Bill of Rights which allows for the right to protest and protects all other inalienable rights; the use of Tear Gas ought to be recognized by the US Supreme Court as an illegal substance to use on any public regardless of if that public is in a domestic or military setting. Three cities, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Charlotte, have already began the process of defunding the police budget and specifically cited a potential ban on purchasing Tear Gas. In Minneapolis, the city council voted 9-9 to dismantle their entire police force. In Charlotte, Councilman Braxton Winston issued a motion on June 8, 2020 that would free up the $103,000 which the police department in 2019 was spent on chemical agents. The motion, which passed by a 9-2 vote, is a response to the use of Tear Gas on protestors by the Charlotte police department on June 2, 2020. The mayor, Vi Lyles said of the act, "Last night was one of those times that none of us can be proud of — that none of us would want to see happen in our city." (Lyles, 2020). In Seattle, Kshama Sawant a city council member was maced and gassed while attending at protest, this attack came after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued a 30-day ban on the use of Tear Gas. Another city council member Teresa Mosqueda as said she is committed to reducing Seattle Police Department's $409 million budget. They meet next Monday and could potentially vote to ban the use of Tear Gas. As Mosqueda expresses here, "How much have we spent on tear gas, rubber bullets jailing people" (Mosqueda, 2020). Thus, while there are a very lengthy list of laws and executive orders that legitimized the use of Tear Gas over the years, there is evidence to suggest that this may no longer be relevant. Section 10.3.2.1 of the United States Navy Handbook is one such law that shows the types of loopholes the United States has created in order to use Tear Gas. It reads: "Under Executive Order 11850 [1975], "Renunciation of certain uses in war of chemical herbicides and riot control agents", the United States renounced the first use of riot control agents in armed conflict except in defensive military modes to save lives, in situations such as:
The United States considers that the prohibition on the use of RCAs as a “method of warfare” applies in international and internal armed conflict." (Section 10.3.2.1, Navy Handbook, 2005). In April 2003, in a press conference with the US Department of Defense, the Special Assistant to the Army JAG issued this statement: "The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of riot-control agents as a method of warfare. It’s not a precisely defined term. The United States has an executive order that suggests that riot-control agents can be used for defensive purposes to save lives. That’s a very long-standing executive order. It gives a few examples in there. One is combat search and rescue. The others are rioting prisoners of war. A third example is, if in fact an enemy placed civilians in front of it, to advance on your lines. There is a very careful process for the decision as to whether or not riot control agents may be used on the battlefield, requiring presidential authorization, which may be delegated to the combatant commander. But it’s not something that we do lightly." Even given these two sources, I maintain the argument for the illegality of Tear Gas based on it being an unaltered chemical weapon of war. Just because there is a long history of the United States building Tear Gas loophole-clauses into military handbooks and federally recognized laws, there is an equally long history in the United States to overturn laws that the public agrees is an infringement on their intrapersonal rights to freedom, liberty, and justice. In fact, this is the foundation of the entire creation of the United States. Since, there is a long-held track record of United States police departments abusing the use of Tear Gas on protestors they deem "violent"; in this instance, the precedent Special Assistant to the Army created by stating: 'it's not something we do lightly.' Rings false. If there is a traceable pattern where one can see the use of Tear Gas being overwhelmingly deployed against protestors who are advocating for the socio-civil rights of minorities, than there is evidence to suggest corruption and racism in the chain of authority that allows for those riot control agents to be deployed. When corruption and racism is evidenced in the chain of authority than the chain of authority must be reevaluated and dismantled. That three cities in the United States have agreed to no longer purchase Tear Gas and thus consequently not deploy Tear Gas on its citizens; shows that the time of Tear Gas' legality in the United State may be coming to an end. People across the world are asking: Why are police departments using a chemical weapon that is banned in war on a group of individuals that are unarmed and peacefully protesting? Is it really true that Tear Gas has only temporary adverse effects on the human bodies it comes in contact with? And when people begin to ask these questions they begin to form phrases like: When in the course of human events it becomes self-evident that governing powers charged with the protecting its people access to liberty, freedom, and justice are instead abusing their authority and suppressing its people. It becomes necessary to abolish all avenues that allow for the abuse of power. Or, When in the course of human events it becomes self-evident that the entire world's governing powers are abusing the authority they have over their people. It becomes necessary for a global protest to persist until all avenues that allow for the continued injustice and infringement on human being's natural rights are abolished. Further Reading/Cited Works:
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Dear Mr. Garcetti,
I would like to remind you of two fundamental truths set forth in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence and ratified in 1788 with the United States Constitution which you, as an individual endowed with a position of power in this country, have sworn to uphold. Recently, when showing your continued support for Chief Michael Moore, you said, "Justice is never given, it is earned.” That is fundamentally incorrect according to the United States Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” I would like to highlight the word ‘establish’ as it means to initiate something, or to set up something upon a firm permanent basis (Merriam-Webster). In this instance, the ‘something’ that is set up is indeed justice. What is fought for is justice, note, that does not necessitate that action earns the justice. It is quite the opposite Sir, one takes action when the established justice is nullified. In other words, injustice is a catalyst and action, the “earning” you spoke of, is the result which strives to remind those that stray from the ideals of the United States: that this country, from its inception, ordained that Justice and ‘the Blessings of Liberty’ were natural rights which every human being possesses upon brith. As the Declaration of Independence upholds, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thus, there is in fact no ‘giving’ and certainly no ‘earning’ of justice. There is only an external force that impinges on the natural rights of all human beings to have unimpeded access to equal justice and equitable opportunities to pursue their intrapersonal understandings of liberty and happiness. The Pledge of Allegiance further strengthens, "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” That pledge is predicated on the ability of the nation to provide and protect every human beings liberty and justice. And make no mistake, these protestors, they are human beings. I watched you speak often about the numbers of those lost to the Coronavirus. I listened with respect as you reiterated multiple times that those numbers are humans with families. I have not once heard you refer to the protestors as anything other than protestors. Mr. Garcetti, they are human beings with families. Please remove Chief Moore from his position of power because he has shown to be undeserving of it. I would like to be clear about this point, there is no shame in making a mistake. There is, however, a lack of respectability in the moral character of an individual who cannot apologize for their mistake. And please be aware, Mr. Moore did not apologize, he said, “I misspoke when making a statement about those engaging in violent acts following the murder of George Floyd.” Mr. Moore is paid $300,000+ annually; my father and mother’s income was $24,000 that means that both my parents did not even make 10% of the income Mr. Moore makes. That price disparity is appalling when I consider the type of moral character of the individual who does not understand two fundamental truths established at the very inception of this country. I watched him say to me, "We didn't have protests last night. We had criminal acts. We didn't have people mourning the death of this man, George Floyd. We had people capitalizing. His death is on their hands, as much as it is those officers. I know that’s a strong statement.” He not only said this, he defended it immediately after saying it when he should have apologized. Instead, he walked away from the podium, you spoke, answered a question and then Mr. Moore returned. What was the first thing he said? He said, “I misspoke.” Please tell me you see the difference between “I misspoke” and “I am sorry." A Concerned LA County Resident The genre of Rap refracts Ancient modes of narration, oration, and storytelling. With its roots tracing back to the Griots of West Africa, the form and content of Rap has also taken from the Rhapsodes of Ancient Greece, the Orators of Ancient Rome, the Storytellers of Native American tribes (perhaps most similar are the Cahuilla Bird Singers), and even aspects of Medieval Theatre. Kendrick, Cole, Montana of 300, Joyner, YBN Cordae of the newer generation and Tupac, NWA, Jay-Z, Dre, Wu-Tang, Snoop Dogg, The Game, Eminem of the older generation used their talents as master storytellers to fight against systematic racism in the United States.
Essentially, Rap speaks, conveys, relates; stories. That is a very defining characteristic that sets Rap apart from other forms of communicating stories. Historians and writers recount or relay a story which presupposes a distance from the story itself. Rap is interpersonal dialogues and intrapersonal experiences being performed through spoken word lyricism that flows to match the pace of music. Founded in the tradition of West African Griots who traveled and told tales of their history, this format of performative narration has counterparts in probably every world culture we have, the Greek rhapsodes, the court musicians of the 1700s, the medieval jesters, the Roman orators, the Native Peoples storytellers, the Japanese Rakugo and countless others. The Griots and Native Peoples were considered to be the keepers of their community's sociocultural memory .
Rap has this capacity to pull influences from every single one of these things. Like the rhapsodes of Ancient Greece rap artists today, relate a story to a group of people assembled to listen. When Cicero spoke to the Roman Senate against Catiline, he enraptured the entire floor. When Dido charged Aeneas in Book 2-3 of the Aeneid to sing, the melancholy of the Trojan War all wept. The above photo is a screen shot of a Youtube video which inspired a 3 part documentary called "Why We Fight" which offers one of the most incredible looks into the anatomy of war. I warn, it is a long documentary with each video approximately 1-2 hours, but absolutely one of the best I've seen. If you want to watch just the Youtube video, it is available at the bottom of this blog post.
This post is an informal thought experiment which seeks to unpack the words "War has its own laws." Uttered by a German WWII Veteran who had served with the Wehrmacht, this was his response to a woman who questioned the ethics of Germany's involvement in WWII. Often separated from the S.S. forces, the Wehrmacht in German history were the old fashioned army which somehow managed to remain relatively unscathed by the taint of Hitler's S.S. troops. In essence, the Wehrmacht fought the spread of communism. The S.S. troops murdered the Jewish people The clip ends with the woman's stunned silence. I often get asked why I study war. How someone with such a bleeding heart can hold such a fascination for one of the most horrifying aspects of humanity. It is because the phrase "War has its own laws." is somehow so TRUE. My brain doesn't understand how it is possible that killing during war is acceptable but punishable by death in peace time. A truly great example of this is the french novel Captain Conan. Written after the First World War it follows the life of veteran who, unable to separate killing during war from killing in peace time, is convicted of murder and imprisoned. The novel asks this fundamental question: Why is killing O.K. during war but prohibited in peacetime? My brain needs to know. Why do humans have to rationalize war. Why do we feel the need to valorize it? While in the 1970s the U.S. saw a shift in the valorization of war with the anti-war movement against the Vietnam War. The actions of those who had called the returning Vietnam veterans "baby killers" are today seen as dishonorable. Thus, suggesting a reversal back to a valorous soldier who is at the same time somehow morally flawed. The anti-solder or soldat sans gloire, finds it first origins in the aftermath of the First World War, but when prodded the figure of a morally flawed soldier is present in even the most iconic soldier the world has known: Achilles. So, this was me today, sitting at my local Starbucks frantically flipping through my severely abused copy of Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker's "14-18: Retrouver la Guerre" looking like an over-caffeinated-mildly-psychotic-grad-student attempting to find a particular idea (which likened small village commemoration sculptures [see above image: Kathe Kollowitz's "The Mourning Parents"] to a 'middle ground' area where the individual and national coexisted). An idea that I SWORE I remember reading last year in 14-18. Of course, because well: I'm Anna, it turned out that this idea was actually in Stéphane Tison's book "Comment Sortir de la Guerre *insert gif of woman smacking head repeatedly on desk here*. In my defense though, THEY have the very same first name and THEIR ideas parallel each other, so like, ugh, who is really to blame here?! ... Probably my less than spectacular text organization skills *stares at mounds of paper and books derisively*. But, alas, I digress.
Out of this terrible hour long frenzy came an idea for pop-up exhibit commemorating the Great War. As we slowly approach the centenary of the Great War's close, contemporary commemoration practices move towards looking at the War's aftermath and lasting legacy (*cough* my research area *cough*). In doing so I find myself wondering how nation's will approach this. Looking back on the NUMEROUS, and I do mean NUMEROUS, commemoratory spectales, events, and momuments, that were held in August 2014; I do not doubt November 2018 will see an equal blossoming of commemoratory events marking the end of the War. Where from 2014-Present commemoratory events have centered on the actions of those who participated in the Great War, I begin to think that the commemorations of 2018 will feature how Europe pulled themselves back together through the cultural advents made in the 1920s. The question I kept mulling over was: how will organizations address the need to commemorate the historical players of the Great War as well as their public duty to present factual information about the War in the most immersive way possible. Reflecting on the idea of the Great War as a severed point in history. Yet, remembering that no period is devoid of the societal era that surrounds it, I conceived of a circular room to match the continual flow of history through time (s/o to Graham Smith's Waterland). The question that is on my brain tonight was inspired by a Comparative Literature Seminar I attended at King's College London. Delivered by Caroline Laurent and entitled "Remembering Through Imagination and Connections: The Case of Sequential Art on the Cambodian Genocide" her presentation dealt with how the 1.5 generation (that being the children who were too young to remember or process the trauma they endured) reconstruct memories of genocide and mass killings. In the discussion that followed in the Q&A's she used the word "evolution" to describe how the ways in which it is contemporarily accepted to express, speak of, or write about the particular trauma of genocide and mass killings. My curiosity lies within this discussion. (**Keep in mind this is just an informal thought experiment and not meant to be comprehensive. It is most assuredly lacking.**) To restructure a phrase -- as well as the sentiments and theoretically postulations that give weight to it -- from Stéphane Tison; I asked myself:
There is no direct translation of this phrase; though Google, WordReference, and TranslateBabylon will give you many variations the closest approximation to the meaning which I -- and Tison as well -- ask this question lies in the translation of sortir as recover instead of exit. As for "le deuil" well that is a multifaceted term which roughly encapsulates grief, mourning, and bereavement; the entire process and all the connotations associated with each three of those english terms is contained within le deuil. If pressed, I think I mean something along the lines of: How do we recover from trauma and exit out of a period of bereavement; and to what extent is finding a 'closure' reliant on expressing the internal experience of rarified trauma within an external outlet? Additionally, who's "external" voice has the authority to justifiably validate that "internal" trauma satisfactorily? What gives authority to that voice and in what ways does this need to find validation and/or acknowledgement of the autocracy from an external force mangle the individual's duty to express instances of genocide they are personally linked to? The central question when investigated, as you can see from the above devolution of enquires, often gives way to several underlying questions all which manage to somehow exist within a contiguous space. The space, if conceptualized photographically appears in my head as something similar to how I envision the realm of Plato's Forms; blobulous and superfluid the amenable thoughts mold to and meld with one another interacting with each other. To what extent do humans have a duty to express, speak of, record, recall the experience and memory of the particular trauma that accompanies genocide and mass killings. In what ways can we see evidence of all forms of expression as failures to encapsulate the veritable emotional and physical suffering of the survivors. How often do we rely on a figure of the 'unreal' when recalling periods of trauma? How can this 'unreal' -- a figure that which can see, bare witness to, and report back on things that which 'we', members of reality, cannot comprehend properly -- within 'the real' reconcile our duty to express or speak on the unspeakable or unrepresentable; that is the genocide? Traces of the 'unreal' are almost overwhelmingly found within the majority of dialogues, speaking of these unspeakable acts. These moments where the 'unreal' is glimpsed occur when a distance of time elapses between when a survivor exits the initial experience of genocide, enters the immediate post-genocide life, consolidates the experiences into a memory, and then is able to reconstruct the memory of the experience by telling the story of it. I am suggesting here is that there seems to be a moment during the memory building process that filters experiences of trauma through a figure of the 'unreal'. Sometimes this figure is a ghost, a house, an object, a place, an animal; a something. The 'unreal' figure is able to contain that which seems impossible for the survivor to contain without aide of something that is an equally as unreachable as their experience is unspeakable. And yet, there is a duty to recall, to commemorate, to rarify in the minds of those who study history the actions of those who sought to systematically -- and often with the aide of governmental resources --exterminate an entire socio-cultural group of peoples. Pressing even further there seems to be unspoken and contextually contingent rules attached to how one goes about fulfilling this duty to give voice the this silence. The SHOAH:More often than not, nearly every expression of the experience of the Holocaust as told from a survivor is intentional. Nothing perhaps demonstrates this greater than the architectural design of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust which was created to make the experience of the Holocaust as real for the visitors as possible. To the point where as you move through the collections the tale of anti-semitism is told from the beginning of Jewish history building up to the Holocaust and as you walk through the museum you descend physically into the earth. The museum gets colder and the lights lower as you enter into the 'darkest' period in history and then reemerge to the digital tree of life which shows the recordings of the Shoah Foundation's oral interviews with Holocaust survivors. There is little to no fictionalization of recounting the story of a survivors experience of the Holocaust, meaning the genre of fiction was not, between the 1960-1990s, generally accepted as a form that which can contain a veritable expression of the experience of the Holocaust. Dramatizations via cinema and theatre are allowed, as is the use of poetic symbolism; however all of which falls under the category of nonfiction. The overwhelming mode that which the Holocaust was talked about in the 1960-1990s was through memoirs. Following the immediate end of the Second World War there was a general acceptance of the 'failure of language'. The premise proclaimed that language could not express the horrors of Auschwitz nor that of Hiroshima. The effort to give words to the silence of the Holocaust came in earnest during the height of the Holocaust deniers of the '70-90s. To name a few occurrences: Arthur R. Butz published The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry in '76, the Institute of Historical Review promised $50,000 to anyone who could produce evidence that Jewish people were gassed in Auschwitz in 1980, eight years later the Leutcher Report is published, so on and so forth, there were numerous instances where people suggested that the Holocaust either was a "myth" or the horrors of it had been "exaggerated". In response the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, which was the first survivor-founded museum (1961) held Survivor talks, Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, and others published their memoirs, other survivors began attending college courses dedicated to getting a PhD in Holocaust studies, David Irving was tried and convicted for denying the Holocaust's historicity, etc. It was because of these tumultuous years of fighting against the dissemination of Holocaust denier materials that talking about the Holocaust in any way from the position of expressing the experience of the trauma of it was often confined to the genre of nonfiction. This is not the case for other genocides. There are now historical-fictional novels that recount periods of mass-killing and other war-traumas. "L'année du lièvre" a series by Tian tells the story of how his parents fled the Cambodian Genocide with him still as a child. Additionally, "cent mille journées de prières" by Loo Hui Phang tells the tale of how a boy learns that his father was killed during the Cambodian Genocide and processes this with the help of a dead canary. Both stories have instances where fiction or imagination is used to express the inexpressible or unknown. That notion that the imaginary, an 'unreal' could be used to express an instance of genocide lead me to wonder if the way we can talk about the experience of horrific traumas like genocide and/or mass-killings has evolved, and if so, what stage are we at now? Islamic State Forces Attack on Kobanî 2015 and "WONDERLAND":Contemporarily, the immediacy of the internet seems have evolved the way we discuss the trauma of mass killings. While there remains a duty to speak of trauma, a skepticism of language's adequacy to capture it, and desire to have time to process; there are now instances of immediate narration given to mass killings. It should be noted that mass killings generate a completely different type of trauma and I am in no way suggesting that a genocide is a mass killing because it is not. What I am curious of is what this example of a universal nonverbal language of trauma being conveyed without an elapse of time, without using the inadequate symbiotic-s of language or art, means for the future. What happens to our understanding of the horrors of war/mass-killing/genocide trauma when we see an immediate recounting of it? An example of where we are currently in the evolution of trauma expression can be found in "Wonderland". Muhammad is thirteen years old, he was born in Kobanî, a Syrian town that in 2015 was attacked by Islamic State forces. He and his family fled Kobanî to Derik, a town situated in the South-East of Turkey. In Derik, he met Erkan who asked Muhammad if he could recall the experience of witnessing the war. Muhammad is deaf and mute, unable to even begin to speak the unspeakable he uses his body to convey the experience of the fleeing from Kobanî to Derik with his family and the atrocities he witnessed along the way. In the picture above he acts out the throwing of a grenade. In this picture Muhammad is telling up that there was no water anywhere. Just before this still was captured he clutched and shook the water bottle -- still visible in the lower right-hand corner of the photograph. He then looked at the camera and in frustration threw the water bottle against the wall and motioned with hands 'nothing' or 'nowhere' or 'none'. Whichever word you'd like to subscribe to the action. In this still Muhammad recounts having to run. He moves his arms violently back and forth in a rapid piercing movement. His eyes dart from making eye contact with the camera-operator to somewhere off in the distance. In this photograph the viewer is able to see his eyes, looking off somewhere in the distance. The haunted, frightened look potentially marking it as Muhammad remembering the feeling of running from Kobanî. Muhammad here mimes the presence of soldiers and gunfire. His small body ricochets back and forth simulating a machine gun or a rapid firing automated rifle. Muhammad in this instance is embodying the Islamic State forces, recalling the memory of the invasion from the point-of-view (POV) of the invaders. He switches POVs like this often within the documentary. These two images side-by-side reveal that Muhammad is once again himself, he is prostrate, his hands before him in surrender. Then in the next photograph, his head is bowed in defeat and his hands are now tied behind his back. Kneeling, Muhammad, like all those he witnessed is captured. These actions directly followed the gun-fire retelling. together they demonstrate the violence that is done to both the victim and the perpetrator of the violence as in both instances Muhammads body accrues impact from the event. He goes directly from firing the machine gun to holding up is hands, to mimicking a bullet going through the back of his head, to again holding up his hands, to bowing down, to holding his hands behind his back.
The existence of "Wonderland" adds tension to how we record, recall, and remember war-inflicted trauma. It suggests the retention of the trauma can be held within both the body and the mind. It demonstrates that written or spoke language is not necessary to properly convey the event(s). It questions whether language is even effective, as watching the video of Muhammad struggle to contort his small frame into positions and movements that would accurately convey a lived experience is unmediated by the edits of written words, translations, or other medians of recall we are more familiar with. While there is documentary footage of liberated prisoners at Auschwitz and countless hours of oral interviews where one can bear witness to the inflictions of trauma on the body. There are dancers who contort their lithe forms into an expression of mass killing and war-grief as well. However, I cannot recall a moment before "Wonderland" where the an eyewitness to a mass-killing who was unable to speak, gave an account of an unspeakable act of trauma. I'm sure exactly what that means for the future of trauma studies and how we retell war-related traumas, mass killings, and genocides. But, I'm sure that it is changing something. Acknowledgements:
There are numerous people today doing vital work on tracing and retracing the ways in which trauma is approached. Particularly for the new generation of academics, I am grateful to the influence Hagop Mouradian's work has had on me in approaching questions of the generational transmission of the trauma-memory. Memory, Myth, and Legend: The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Great War in Modern Thought10/18/2017 I blame academia for this post. It is, unequivocally, the fault of scholars who taught me to always think critically. I warn you youngin's, the appropriation of this value will ruin your ability to passively watch even Christmas Adverts. #yourewelcome
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