Rex Bloomstein
Torturers, Part 2
Summary
Rex Bloomstein continues an exploration of the act of torture, as well as the role of the torturer. Part 2 of 2.
Rex Bloomstein
Rex Bloomstein has produced films on human rights, crime and punishment, and the Holocaust. He pioneered the modern prison documentary with films such as Lifers (1983) and Strangeways (1980), which won two British Academy Awards. As well as other television productions such as Auschwitz and the Allies, and his three-part history of anti-Semitism, The Longest Hatred, he produced KZ, described as one of the first post-modern Holocaust documentaries. Other feature documentaries include An Independent Mind (2008), on freedom of expression, This Prison Where I Live (2010), on imprisoned Burmese comedian, Zarganar, and The World of Jewish Humor (1990), which traces the evolution of Jewish humor from New York’s turn-of-the-century Lower East Side to the present.
What form of pressure, indeed? Well, I think interrogation mustn’t lead to physical and psychological abuse. There are interrogation techniques, you know, police use them all the time. There are limits, profound limits, as I’ve tried to explain all through this lecture. So they have to be, I mean, there are methods to get people to talk and I think, obviously, with terrorism it raises so many profound issues, but we cannot move to those areas where torture takes place. So the pressure that’s put on has to be legitimate, has to be within guidelines, has to be observed and scrutinized. That’s the key to it. Thank you.
I think there is. I’m sure there is evidence that a number of torturers, many torturers have abusive childhoods, as indeed many people convicted of criminal offences do, have abused childhoods. It is not an excuse, I’m afraid, it’s not a justification for such practices. Many people have difficult and abusive childhoods, but don’t go on to carry out those practices on other people. So in the end, it’s a choice, but it is part of our understanding, I think, of human violence, to know about people’s childhoods, to know about the situations they found themselves in that led them to become abused or to become used to violence, and then to use violence. I think this is a very important area, to our childhoods, our family relations, are crucial in who we are as human beings. And I think abused children often become abusers. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. But it is a choice, in the end, and it cannot be an excuse or justification, as I say, to carry out such practices ourselves.
Very unpleasant. It’s a very interesting point, that, isn’t it? Social media has such a potentially dark side. It’s led people, as we read every day, to suicide and tremendous unhappiness. Somehow, under the cloak of anonymity, people can unleash a lot of rage, and that rage can become very abusive, and cruel, and can lead to a huge amount of suffering. And I think it’s one of the great challenges of the web that somehow, we get to understand that, and control. I don’t know how you control such a thing, but it’s undoubtedly true that if you’re anonymous, you feel you can get away with things. That’s why scrutiny and accountability are so crucial and the web and social media has to develop along those lines. I think we’re seeing this debate all the time, and it’s a crucial one, because so many people, all of us seem now to use social media. So it’s like freedom of expression. There are limits, there are situations which we have to and cannot justify and have to control, have to stop. And that debate goes on all the time. It must go on all the time.