collective grieving and the wikileaks video

by: los anjalis

Tue Apr 06, 2010 at 23:34:24 PM PDT

Let me premise this post by stating that I am posting it here on Cure This because it relates to violence, human rights, grieving, mental health, forms of nonviolent resistance and collective healing. This week, an independent website called Wikileaks released a video they received from an anonymous source, from the view of a camera on the gun of a US Apache helicopter in Iraq, and featuring voices from the pilots of two US military helicopters. It was released on the Wikileaks site and a Wikileaks site called Collateral Murder.

Like La Macha said on VivirLatino, I must include a trigger warning. If you are a survivor of violence, this video could be extremely hard to watch and could trigger previous trauma.  For those of us who have not been survivors of extreme violence, this could also trigger very deep, dark, powerful feelings.  Here is the video:

I have so many thoughts about this video, so many sad and angry thoughts, and feelings about how we have all contributed to this attitude towards war and life.  And I agree with La Macha says -- "I feel it is a duty to watch it. To see what it is being done in your name. And take responsibility for it."

But after I watched it, I was overcome with a sense of deep -- almost paralyzing -- grief.  I felt positive that I was alone in this deep grief, but all over the US (and definitely all around the world), this video is sparking grief AND anger in many of us. Obviously, the anger that this video must incite in Iraqis and oppressed people everywhere is unimaginable.

My wonderful friend Heather Bowlan pointed me towards a Guernica Magazine interview with gender and nonviolence theorist Judith Butler. Butler's written a book recently called Frames of Life: When is Life Grievable?  Her thoughts on the matter give me some direction and calm me... a little... so I thought I'd share them. On grievable and ungrievable lives:

Judith Butler: All I really have to say about life is that for it to be regarded as valuable, it has to first be regarded as grievable. A life that is in some sense socially dead or already “lost” cannot be grieved when it is actually destroyed. And I think we can see that entire populations are regarded as negligible life by warring powers, and so when they are destroyed, there is no great sense that a heinous act and egregious loss have taken place.  My question is: how do we understand this nefarious distinction that gets set up between grievable and ungrievable lives? 

Guernica: What does the grief you call for consist of? How does it act upon us?

Judith Butler: If we were to start to grieve those against whom we wage war, we would have to stop. One saw this I think very keenly last year when Israel attacked Gaza. The population was considered in explicitly racist ways, and every life was considered an instrument of war. Thus, a unilateral attack on a trapped population became interpreted by those who waged war as an extended act of self-defense. It is clear that most people in the world rejected that construal of the situation, especially when they saw how many women and children were killed.

I grieve so deeply after seeing videos like this, and I grieved so deeply after seeing what happened in Haiti (or what has happened for decades) and what is ongoing in Gaza and what lives are indiscriminately sacrificed daily in Afghanistan.  The list goes on.  I am sure others do too.  We don’t know what to do with this grieving.  When it hits, it infiltrates every cell of our bodies, it influences our outlooks, our emotions, our ability to do productive work, our interactions with our families, and sometimes for a short period of time makes us wonder what we're doing in this world. Obviously, much of this emotion goes into making something happen -- whether it's dialoguing on anti-war efforts or donating to worthwhile organizations in Haiti or participating actively in a smart protest.  But often there's a feeling of paralysis that accompanies this grief for so very many of us.  Does it mean anything that we am crafting nonviolent resistance in some ways, or if we're educating others about these issues, or that we even think about them deeply?

Guernica: After millions of protesters around the world could do nothing to prevent the Iraq War, what do you think is the most effective form of protest? Disobedience? Or even thinking?

Judith Butler: Let us remember that Marx thought of thinking as a kind of practice. Thinking can take place in and as embodied action. It is not necessarily a quiet or passive activity. Civil disobedience can be an act of thinking, of mindfully opposing police force, for instance. I continue to believe in demonstrations, but I think they have to be sustained. We see the continuing power of this in Iran right now. The real question is why people thought with the election of Obama that there was no reason to still be on the street? It is true that many people on the left will never have the animus against Obama that they have against Bush. But maybe we need to protest policies instead of individuals. After all, it takes many people and institutions to sustain a war.

Something else I've always wondered is -- How much of the depression and paralyzing anxiety in our society is due to larger grievances about events around us, local or world events, and our inability to act, personally or collectively?  

And how DO we come together in situations like this, in what ways?  How do we grieve together, instead of personally?  How do we collectively heal when we individually feel like we have blood on our hands?

Guernica: Your account of nonviolence revolves around recognizing sociality and interconnection as well. Does it also rely on the kind of inner spiritual work that was so important, for instance, to Gandhi?

Judith Butler: I am not sure that the work is “inner” in the way that Gandhi described. But I do think that one has to remain vigilant in relation to one’s own aggression, to craft and direct it in ways that are effective. This work on the self, though, takes place through certain practices, and by noticing where one is, how angry one is, and even comporting oneself differently over time. I think this has to be a social practice, one that we undertake with others. That support and solidarity are crucial to maintaining it. Otherwise, we think we should become heroic individuals, and that takes us away from effective collective action.

Judith Butler: ...Perhaps the issue is to become less ferocious in our commitments, to question certain forms of blind enthusiasm, and to find forms of steadfastness that include reflective thought. Nonviolence is not so much about the suppression of feeling, but its transformation into forceful intelligence.

Nonviolence is about the transformation of feeling into forceful intelligence. I'm going to let that one sink in.  Thoughts?