FOR THE CHILDREN
By:John R. Van Eenwyk
There is an intriguing story in John Fowles's The Magus about the protagonist’s encounter with the former mayor of a local Greek village. When the Nazis had occupied the village during the Second World War, three guerilla fighters killed some of the soldiers. When in retaliation the Nazi commander ordered the mayor either to turn over the guerillas or the population of the village would be exterminated, the mayor complied. He was subsequently labeled a traitor by the villagers, forcing him to leave.
As the protagonist listens to his story, he learns that previous to the war, the guerilla fighters had been criminals, guilty of murder, rape, and theft. Only during the war did their criminality find a role that the public could support. The mayor poses the question: Had he been wrong in turning over criminals who had simply adapted their brutality to the need of them moment, a need that found popular support?
Fowles touches upon a disturbing element in the traumatizing of entire populations during war and other armed conflicts: traumatized people look to the most brutal among them to protect them from the most brutal among their oppressors. Thusly do populations traumatize and re-traumatize each other in endless conflict. We call this the "Cycle of Trauma."
Such was the case in Gaza in 1993. Young Israelis were refusing to serve in Gaza because they were being ordered to brutalize civilians in ways that reminded them of what the Nazis had done to their forebears.[1] Consequently, the Israeli Defense Force in Gaza consisted primarily of hardened career soldiers who had little use for any humanitarian values and who simply wanted to finish out their years of service. As I learned later, most had failed to advanced beyond the lowest levels of service. Consequently, their retirement pensions were contingent upon unquestioning adherence to official policy.
One afternoon around five pm, a psychologist from the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, a young Belgian man and I were sitting on the front lawn of the clinic. Although a high wall separated us from the street, we could hear the sounds of the ocean and of the children playing in the street outside.
Suddenly we heard the noise of a vehicle racing around the corner outside. As traffic on this street was unusual to the point of non-existent, I looked out the front gate to see what was going on. It was an Israeli Defense Force jeep. As the IDF routinely appeared at unexpected moments, I was not overly concerned. The only activity on the street consisted of young children playing games.
Three soldiers jumped from the jeep brandishing automatic weapons. By this time my two colleagues had joined me. We never imagined that anything would come of this. But then we saw the soldiers open fire on the children, massacring most of them. We were appalled. We were also too scared to yell out in protest. We simply watched in horror. But almost immediately, our horror turned to rage and frustration.
Our Palestinian colleagues ran to their vehicles, gathered up the wounded children (most were obviously dead), and drove to the Shifa hospital. As soldiers were stopping all vehicles at checkpoints, the wounded children had to be covered with blankets in order to sneak through. Palestinains were—and are—routinely denied access to hospitals.
Afterward, the Belgian man and I were outraged that any such event could possible take place, let alone be condoned. "Happens all the time," said my Gazan colleague. I couldn't believe it. Nothing like that would ever be tolerated, not even by the hardened career soldiers. No one kills children. No one.
Clearly, I was wrong. While there had been nothing I could have done to prevent the incident, I could certainly report it.
My Palestinian colleagues told me that were they ever to dare to report such an incident, they would immediately be arrested and charged with false accusation. Foreigners who visited Gaza had tried in the past, but had been completely ignored by the authorities. "It's futile," I was advised.
I ignored them. I am an American, my tax dollars flow to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars a year, my wife is Jewish, and we have relatives in Israel. Armed with my naïve presumptions, I marched to the local headquarters of the IDF. There, a very cordial officer heard my complaint.
"What was the license number of the jeep?" he asked. "There was no license plate. No IDF vehicle in Gaza has a license plate," I replied. "Okay, what were the names of the soldiers?" "They do not wear any identifying information," I answered. "What did they look like?" "They were fat and ugly," I responded.
That was obviously a mistake. But I couldn't help myself. I could see where this was going. I'd had enough experience with bureaucrats to recognize when I was being patronized. There would be no report. There would be no investigation. The incident would be ignored and, if necessary, denied.
"Okay," I said, trying to calm myself. "Certainly you can find out which of your vehicles was in that area at five pm." The officer answered that he would certainly look into it. Where could he contact me? "Marna House," I answered. "Thank you," he said. "I'll be in touch."
After hearing nothing for two days, I returned to the headquarters. The officer was not there. Another had taken his place. When I asked about the investigation, he looked mystified. There was no investigation that he knew about as there had been no incident reported. "Yes there has," I answered. "I filed one two days ago." He rose from his desk, ambled over to a file cabinet, pulled out a folder, looked through it, and said "No, there's nothing here."
It was just as I had feared. The Palestinians were correct. Nothing would happen. Nothing ever happens in situations like these. Impunity wins the day when the occupier makes the rules.
I've told this story many times, to anyone who will listen. I do all I can to keep the memory alive. Some who hear it are appalled, some outraged, some dismissive, some call me anti-semitic. But over the years, as I've traveled to Gaza, Sri Lanka, Croatia, Serbia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Philippines, Uganda, I've learned that no groups are monolithic.
Remember, soldiers were refusing to serve in Gaza. They openly protested what they were being ordered to do there. They continue to do so today.[2]
Why is there so little support for moderates in groups? Why do we spend so much of our rapidly dwindling resources on military equipment, much of which is used to brutalize civilians? Why, when the majority of the human race genuinely prefers to live in peace with one another, do we seem to end up empowering the most brutal among us?
Fear? Resentment? Profit? All of the above? Who benefits and who loses? The few and the many? Whatever the reasons for the kind of insanity I witnessed in Gaza (and in many places elsewhere, I might add), it must stop now. And we are the ones who must stop it.
How we'll do it has not revealed itself as yet. But there is one place where we can start. Whenever any individual or organization demonizes an entire group, we can be assured that we are being manipulated. "Why" is less important than "how." Nothing is simple. No individual or group is all bad. Our job is to locate the moderates and to engage them, to the exclusion of the extremes.
No more killing of children. No more killing anyone. No more believing that any group deserves more than any other.
We have all been traumatized. We all have reasons to seek revenge. However, one person's revenge is simply another's abuse. It's time to end the cycle.
The Rev. Dr. John R. Van Eenwyk received his PhD in religion and psychological studies from the University of Chicago. A clinical psychologist, he maintains a private practice in Jungian Analysis in Olympia, Washington. He is also an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and a Clinical Instructor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is the Clinical Director of the International Trauma Treatment Program (ITTP), which he founded in 1998 to provide training for counseling survivors of complex trauma, both where it is occurring and in Olympia, where ITTP provides three months of training to practitioners from abroad. The author of Archetypes and Strange Attractors: The Chaotic World of Symbols, he publishes widely and lectures internationally* on both Jungian psychology and the treatment of torture survivors.
*Bosnia, Canada, England, Costa Rica, Croatia, Gaza, India, The Netherlands, The Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Zimbabwe