Just went and saw a documentary about the death penalty in Texas. I knew it would be full on, and I wasn't sure if I was completely up for it. It was about a Presbyterian minister who became the deathhouse chaplain. He witnessed 96 state murders - more than witnessed, actually, because he spent the entire day with the person who was going to die. I guess he was an active participant, although unique because he was on neither the side of the convict nor the side of the state...walking that fine line in between. I guess he role was to be a ray of God-light within the stark, grotesque, scene of murder.
I think I've repressed a lot of the trauma that went with doing the death penalty work in New Orleans. I think that it all got a bit lost within the excitement of being in a new place, and the feelings of loneliness, incompetence and rejection that I felt while being there. And then, after my 3 months were up, I shot off to Mexico and then returned to do other extremely intense work. But amid all that swirling sediment there was a rock that was the death penalty - something so ugly that I could never bear to look at. It is easy to avoid looking at it - to focus on the legal arguments, to get caught up in other work, to chat to the inmates on the phone or in person but never actually look the awful reality of state murder in its face and allow that feel of violent illness to wash over and do its work. Even as I write to Clifford, these few years on, I never really believe that he's going to die. He'll be ok. The lawyers will do a good job and get him off. Clifford is in his cell for 23 hours a day, but I want to believe that maybe it's not so bad. I guess my coping mechanism is to create a reality that's not nearly as bad as the truth.
Des and I had a good debrief afterwards, and I was thinking about how there's a part of us all that is attracted to the death penalty, and a part of us that is repulsed. The desire for revenge seems core to human nature, and exists buried within even the most articulate anti-death penalty campaigner. At the same time, the prison wardens throw up during executions - even the spirits of those most accustomed to the inhumane treatment of the state are sickened by this socially-acceptable kind of murder. I guess it's the light and dark in all of us.
I have a bit of money right now, and I've been wondering where to put it. I think I might donate some money to Reprieve. I don't think that I'll go back - it's really not what I'm gifted at. But maybe if I can donate some money, it will go a little way to preventing the state from killing someone else.
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5 comments:
What's paradoxical about this is that especially murder (and violence in general) - state sanctioned or otherwise - is corrodes the life of the perpetrator as well as its active or passive participants is infinitely more than that of the victim. The death penalty (as well as war) poses a greater threat to public morality and safety than anything that these ‘criminals’ could do. Criminal action makes society detest violence. The death penalty and war makes society embrace violence.
I loved the whole line that the Chaplain walked. I love that in the end he was so repulsed by it all that he became an activist.
From my admitted little knowledge of psychology repressing trauma is fairly normal. In my own experience though it is important to at some time when you have the luxury of a safe space to vent it.
Do you think that in the repression, you hardened yourself such that you could keep going?
As for death penalty, asides from the moral angle it is more expensive and it doesn't work as a deterrent. I guess that only leaves revenge as a real motive for wanting it.
I wonder if even just those that professed to being Christians, would request that there be an element of grace to people who are convicted of crimes. I wonder about the power of restorative justice to cause true transformation in the "justice" systems.
Have you read, heard much about restorative justice? It rocks my small self centre universe.
David - Restorative justice...well, it's an idea that I'm attracted to, but have spent much more time thinking about the negative side of 'justice' as we do it than thinking of better alteratives! I've got a book at home that's called "Instead of Prisons" - put together by a group of people in the USA who are prison abolisionists. It goes through all different crimes and talks about better, constructive, communtity-based responses that might bring healing to the perpetrator, the victim and the wider community. I might pull it out and have a look. Feel free to borrow.
And yes, I'm sure repression is a tool that I use to keep going. Initially helpful, yet eventually unhelpful.
Haren - Thankyou for your insights! I had never thought of the death penalty in that light before, but I think you are completely right. State-sanctioned murder is exactly that - the state, and thus society, saying that violence and murder is ok. Which is so much worse than when it is perpetuated by an individual, because society is condemning of that kind of violence. As you say, the death penalty is a lot like war in that way. Have you seen Bowling of Columbine, the Michael Moore doco? He reckons there are so many firearm murders in the USA because people have violence modelled to them all the time in the form of war, which society says is ok. Thanks Haren, you've made me think...
That book sounds really good.
From a more Christian angle, Elaine Enns (Ched's wife) gave a series of talks about restorative justice at TEAR Conference this year. There is also plenty being done in Indigenous Communities in Australia.
Hey Andreana, your blog is refreshingly eclectic and well written. That's amazing that you did death penalty work - such an important issue that we're largely shaded from here in Australia. There's this terrible scene in the OTHER Truman Capote film (can't remember the title) of 2006 where the chaplain is chanting the Lord's prayer just as the prisoners are about to be murdered, and it just made me feel so angry that the church has been so aligned with the state and its murder for so long, when our founder was executed.
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