Questions of Community

“When the traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides.” Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery

October 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed a better part of the Bay Area. 12,000 people were left homeless, aftershocks rocked the area for months. Communications were disrupted, fires broke out and looting occured. The best and worst of human actions can be taken from disaster areas. The community responded immediately. Not just in the immediate vicinity, but nationwide, people were coming to California to help survivors of the quake.

February 28, 1933 President Von Hindenburg signed an emergency decree, suspending articles of the Weimar Constitution guaranteeing personal liberties to the German populace. Approximately two months later, on April 1st, Hitler ordered a one day boycott of Jewish businesses.

The enemy had been found. A methodical, systematic campaign ensued demonizing the Jewish people. Germans were outraged and a campaign of terror was waged against the community. The rest is history.

A disaster of epic proportions--by human design.

The differences of community response to the examples above are an illustrating and illuminating paradox of the human community. We know tragedy and evil exist; but when these elements exist within our own community and we’re bystanders, there is denial, demonizing of the subjects or worse--the apathetic head turning.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Kurt Alder, German chemist

In Aftermath: Violence and The Remaking of the Self, philosopher Susan Brison discusses the rejection of victim memory within the community. The apathetic nature stems from “an active fear of empathizing with those whose terrifying fate forces us to acknowledge that we are not in control of our own.”

The lexicon of denial is familiar to victims. They are often prompted to “get over it” or to “move on.” Given arbitrary time limits on post-traumatic memories and recovery; or, in some cases blamed for their predicament. One familiar response to rape victims is, asking the victim what she was wearing at the time of the incident. Another would be how she managed to “get herself” into the situation.

Re-victimization occurs when a community takes the perpetrator’s side. It’s a moral wiggling on the part of health care providers, family members and law enforcement. They would prefer to remain on the fence--unencumbered by the victim’s needs. Perceived as weak, lacking intelligence and a drain on community resources, they are easily dismissed because they have been traumatized. There is a pecking order in every species and humans are no different. When a member of the community becomes vulnerable or is seen as a drain on resources, they become less important and may be subject to more abuse.

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When a victim reports a crime, one of the things that occur, is an erosion of the victim’s narrative. It’s a further fragmentation of her account by interjecting questions throughout her description of events. While a more useful approach might be to record her initial verbal responses in reporting; this seems to have escaped even the most diligent of the mental and public health professionals; as well as, law enforcement.

A great deal of the time, a victim will have her story challenged in the form of questions by health professionals or law enforcement. Interrogators, consciously or not, directing the interview, and thereby, directing her story; interruptions in the form of questions to get detail, that change the direction of the narrative. All of this wears away at her initial experience, causing her to doubt herself and the significance of the experience.

Well-meaning family and friends will make remarks akin to, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or, “this is going to make you stronger.” As if denying her innate strength before the attack or event or allowing the violence against her to become a positive and engendering guilt for her naturally angry reaction to it.

There are no positives stemming from violence against women. The strength victims and survivors garner are innate strengths already present. Her ability to bear trauma comes from her instinct to survive. Unfortunately, not all survive.

“It may be that the most debilitating post memories are those instilled by silence” says Brison. Communities want women to stop crying, talking and screaming. Shut up--it’s easier that way.

Placing pressure on those who have been traumatized to forget and “rejecting the testimonies of those who are forced by fate to remember.”

Attempting to limit traumatic memories doesn’t make them go away--but women do attempt to limit them. After enough abuse they do censor themselves and in the U.S. a women takes her life every 90 minutes.

According to the findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey (2000), intimate partner violence is endemic and a serious public health concern. Currently, 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by an intimate partner. According to the Uniform Crime Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 30% of women killed in the United States die at the hands of a husband or boyfriend.

Even after removing themselves from abusive situations, there are staggering numbers of women who face the harsh realities that the culture we live in doesn’t have much sympathy or resources for victims. Those arbitrary time limits on healing and recovery? Try the local domestic violence shelter. The longer lengths of stay equal a total of sixty days. Not much time to heal for a woman whose life has been torn from her; much less facing questions of finances and employment.

Communities are quite often, lacking in resources and appropriate responses to victims. Perhaps through education and outreach, those responses will change with time. According to some women, it does seem there has been a war waged against us. Albeit, an unspoken and unwarranted one--but war nonetheless.