Beyond Rivalry - crime

Who Deserves What?

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:29:00 -0500

PD James' latest Dalgliesh crime novel, The Private Patient (2008), is set largely in Devon at a manor house-cum-plastic surgery center. Central themes seem to include worthiness and what we deserve, revenge, redemption, forgiveness, the inability to forgive.

When the book opens, the reader is in the mind of the soon-to-be murder victim, Rhoda, and after her death, at various times we're privy to the thoughts and feelings of a number of other characters, including suspects and police. Rhoda turns out to be a rather single-minded and self-focused woman whose actions have been at least partially responsible for others' pain and harm, and by allowing us the victim's pov at the start, I think James aids our ability to sympathise with her.

Speaking of her family of origin, Rhoda recalls:

"Those outbursts of violence, the impotent rage, the shame, had done for them all. The important things had been unsayable. And looking into her mother's face, she asked herself how could she begin now? She thought her mother was right. It couldn't have been easy for her father to find that five-pound note week after week. It had come with a few words, sometimes in shaky handwriting: With love from Father.…

The Bali Bombers, Mimesis and Me

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:50:00 -0500

I've been reading in recent weeks about the so-called Bali Bombers, three men -- two brothers (commonly called Amrozi and Mukhlas) and an Imam/computer technician -- who were tried and found to be instrumental in the killing of 202 people -- most of whom were foreign nationals, including 88 Australians -- -- at nightclubs in a tourist area on the Indonesian island of Bali [in green] in 2002, to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. (Bali is overwhelmingly Hindu, however.) Another 209 people were injured. (More at Wikipedia)

For their roles in the crime, their execution, which may occur by this weekend has now occured, will be by ritualised firing squad on another Indonesian island, off Java, the spot (or perhaps three separate spots) in the woods already decked out with chairs and crosses, after five years of legal appeals that apparently the bombers themselves had no interest in, as they have said throughout that they are ready and happy to die as martyrs, preferrably by beheading, in the Islamic way. They admit the crime and show no remorse but have apologised for killing Indonesian Muslims during the attacks.

Meanwhile, their family and other supporters are surging towards the…

Can We Doubt How Weird Humans Are?

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:35:35 -0500

Headline today:

Bombers get medical all-clear for death

Collective Violence - Examples - Part VIII

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:16:00 -0400

It's been six weeks since I last blogged about mob violence. I've been away most of that time, but no matter where we go or what we're doing, collective violence continues in many forms. Below are some of the latest incidents reported as mob violence or mob justice. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

August to the present (also December 2007, and in 1999): Violence against Christians continues in Orissa, on India's east coast, since the 23 Aug. assassination of a Hindu swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers: "Though Maoist insurgents took credit for the killing, Hindu extremists blamed Christians. They mounted mob attacks on churches, as well as homes and villages populated by Christians. More than 100 people reportedly have been beaten, hacked or burned to death since the mob violence began. It is estimated tens of thousands of Christians have fled their homes, many remaining in seclusion in forests and others in relief camps with police guards. ... Christians reportedly make up about 2.4 percent of the state's 36.7 million people." A BBC news report mentions the religious rivalry of the region: "Hindu groups have long accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to…

Remembrance of Things Past: Victims

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:22:00 -0400

At Overcoming Bias today, report of a study finding that "when we are reminded of when others have victimized us, we are less able to see that we victimize others."

Researchers reminded participants from the U.S. and Canada, and, separately, North American Jewish participants, of various attacks and atrocities, including, variously, the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi atrocities in Poland during World War II, a deadly terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, and the genocide in Cambodia.

All the groups were less likely to perceive "the distress the [Iraq] war has caused many Iraqis, and less likely to feel collective responsibility" when they were reminded of an attack in which they felt themselves to be victims.

For U.S. participants, reminders of both the 9/11 attacks and the attack on Pearl Harbor caused participants to feel less guilt or responsibility for the distress of Iraqis than when reminded of the tragedy in Poland. The Jewish volunteers, on the other hand, felt "reduced guilt and responsibility for Israeli actions that cause suffering among Palestinians when they are first reminded about the Holocaust, compared with when they are reminded about the genocide in Cambodia." Canadians showed no…

Collective Violence - Examples - Part VII

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:05:00 -0400

It's been almost a month since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues to continue. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

19 July, Croydon, London, UK, Policeman attacked by gang of children after issuing litter warning: "A police officer was kicked, beaten and bitten when he was attacked by a gang of children, some still in their school uniforms, when he asked a girl to pick up litter she had dropped." He was "pulled to the ground during the assault by the group of up to 30 children and adults in the incident. '[The girl] just threw litter on the floor and we asked if she could pick that up. ... As we walked away, she threw it at us. Then we went back to talk to her. They swarmed at the start.'" [S]everal older men and women joined the fracas." The parents of an arrested 15-year-old girl "complained that the start of her summer holiday had been disrupted." One inspector said, "'While we would never use the word "mob", which is an inflammatory word, we can confirm that witnesses have described their initial…

Life in These Sacrificial Unites States ?

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:10:00 -0400

Dark thoughts last week as I was in the shower listening (thanks, showerbug!) to an NPR story about how China expels, arrests, and uses force to keep a lid on dissidents, in order to keep the society stable, and thinking about Girard's contention that the U.S. has managed to keep society stable without hierarchies, through social mobility, the legal and judicial systems, technology, and being part of global free market economic competition, among perhaps other ways he doesn't mention. I thought about how the U.S. maintains its fragile stability and two things come immediately to mind. We don't: the U.S. murder rate is far higher than any European country. According to 2000 data, the U.S. ranked #24 on a list of murders per capita, behind Colombia, South Africa, Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, some other bits of the USSR, and Thailand, but well ahead of India, Azerbaijan, Romania, Hungary, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and all of Europe, which except for Finland (#30) and Portugal (#33) ranked from #40 to #58, out of 62. The 2004 data shows an increase in the murder rate in the U.S. to 5.5 homicides per 100,000 people, compared with 2 in Canada,…

Mob Violence, 'Fluid Morality' and Sociopathy

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:45:00 -0400

The NYT Magazine is running an article this weekend titled "Malwebolence," about internet 'trolls' who enjoy causing harm to others, either because it's just fun -- they speak of "the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium" while "you chat with friends and laugh" -- or perhaps because they have the notion that they are helping others learn how to handle explosives by blowing them up in their faces. One troll says his passion is 'pushing peoples' buttons' and he "frames his acts of trolling as ... sociological inquiries into human behavior." He also says: "'It's not that I do this because I hate them. I do this because I'm trying to save them.'" It seems fairly obvious through the article that this particular troll is trying to save himself, as well, though it may be too late: "'Am I the bad guy? Am I the big horrible person who shattered someone's life with some information? No! This is life. Welcome to life. Everyone goes through it. I've been through horrible stuff, too.' 'Like what?' I asked. Sexual abuse, [he] said." At age 5 he was molested by his grandfather [his mother confirms this] and three other relatives.

The article's author, Mattathias…

Human Brutality - Part of One Day

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:30:00 -0400

I realise lots of good things happened today, all over the world. But checking CNN headline news this evening, here's what I found:

Bus passenger beheaded seat mate, witness says, in Manitoba, Canada. More, including identity of killer and victim, but still no motive. (2 Aug update: It gets worse.)

Preacher killed wife, stuffed body in freezer, police say, near Mobile, Alabama. He did this in Nov. 2004, when his wife caught him abusing his daughter, and he hid his wife's body with the help of the teenaged daughter he had been abusing. He's apparently been preaching ever since. (His resemblance to E.T. is remarkable ...)

Killer 'photographed mutilated girlfriend', in Goiania, Brazil. He dismembered her, photographed her with his cell phone, and stuffed her torso into a suitcase. The girlfriend was going to "tell his parents he was a drug dealer addicted to cocaine." More.

Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says. Forty-one percent of women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military and twenty-nine percent report being raped during their military service.

As the Wicked Witch says, "What a world, what a world ..." -- but the witch was bemoaning the loss of her…

Collective Violence - Examples - Part VI

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:50:00 -0400

It's been yet another month-plus since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues to continue. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

As last time, I won't make the Girardian connections for each of these as I have in the past, because the connections are the same as always -- scapegoat is often someone from the margins (disabled, poor, stranger, female, old, young, from another caste or class or country, seen as privileged, etc. ), mob often forms spontaneously or grows larger as the scapegoating occurs due to accusatory mimesis, perpetrators easily justify the scapegoating as necessary and right, scapegoating's intention is to bring about peace in the community.

INCIDENTS

** 18 June 2008: Mozambique Africa: Four up for Mozambican's death: "Three men and a woman accused of stoning and burning a Mozambican to death at the weekend have briefly appeared in the Atteridgeville magistrate's court on a charge of murder." They "were arrested on Saturday after a mob attacked and killed Abraham Msimango (28). ... Police earlier said they believed the incident was not related to xenophobia, but was rather a case of mob…