(Published without title 8/23/08, page C4.)
My Lord Jesus Christ was tortured to death as an example to other criminals and rebels by the Roman empire, the only superpower of its day. Rome was "blessed by heaven” with wealth, military power, advanced technology, reason and enlightenment. Rome’s officials in Jerusalem saw Jesus as a threat to the peace and order Rome maintained through military might and economic power. One of thousands of Jews crucified as insurrectionists and criminals, his given name never entered the Roman history books. If Roman citizens ever thought of him after his arrest, most would have thought of him only an insurgent swept up by Rome’s valiant troops—another nameless insurgent in a backward land who tried to overthrow rational, orderly Roman rule.
Some persons swept up thus could indeed fit the role of terrorists—sicarii (dagger assassins), Zealots, and brigands robbing anyone they could to support themselves; others may have been victims of a neighbor’s enmity or grudge, or mistaken identity. Crucifixion was their common fate—a means of extended social degradation and torture as well as execution. Death came usually after a day or two—from physiological shock, blood loss, dehydration, exhaustion, and asphyxiation, for exhalation is impossible when hanging by the arms. If a victim cannot raise his body up by pulling with the arms or pushing with the feet, he can no longer breathe. Sometimes guards would delight in crucifying their victims in humiliating positions to further degrade them.
A few years ago, my fellow Christians saw pictures of captured Iraqi insurgents tortured at Abu Ghraib prison—naked men, bodies marked with blood and filth, hoods over their heads, arms extended. How many of my fellow Christians closed their hearts to the resemblance of those “terrorists” to their own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross? Was it not Jesus Christ who said, “Love your enemy,” and “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brothers, ye have done it unto me…”?“But only a few ‘bad apples’ did those kinds of things,” some fellow Christians said. Indeed the Secretary of Defense said so. But then it was revealed that he himself and others in the U.S. government gave license and encouragement to these kinds of activities, and the same torture techniques used upon American POWs in Korea were passed verbatim to guards at Guantanamo to use on prisoners there—despite American former POWs saying they had confessed to lies just to get the torture to stop.
When I was young I read 1984 and Darkness at Noon, about terrible imprisonment and tortures under totalitarian regimes, and I felt safe and relieved to be living in America. “That will never happen here; nothing will ever make my government do those things.” The child within me is screaming in outrage that my government has descended to such depths. Where are the screams from my fellow Christians? Don’t you remember Pastor Niemoller after Nazi Germany? “First they came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; … …and then, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up…”?
Sarah Malone is an ordained minister currently serving as a deacon at University Baptist & Brethren Church; she is a member of the Central Pennsylvania Torture Awareness Committee.
1 comment:
I really liked the articles on your blog. A couple of the points you made about the Iraqi detainees are ones that hit home with me. How can a Christian look at the outstretched arms of Ali, the detainee covered and standing on a chair and not be struck by what was done to Jesus by his jailers.
In late 2003 CPT gave a report of cases of abuse that we had documented to Paul Bremer and General Sanchez. This about 4 months before the Abu Grahib scandal broke. About 2 months after our report was delivered, the US military did a study and the Red Cross did an independant one that both confirmed what ours said. One important finding in all of these that never gets talked about was that the worst abuses took place in the 2-4 weeks between the time a person is detained and the time they are turned over to a prison.
After I returned home from Iraq I became the coordinator of CPT's Adopt A Detainee campaign to make people aware of the abuse. Like you said after the scandal broke all of the top level people were saying it was just a few bad soldiers. One of the points I tried then and still try to show people is that the lies about it fuels more anger than most people realize. Iraqi families and friends of the detainees were aware of the abuse from the beginning and couldn't understand why Americans would allow it to happen.They couldn't believe that people didn't know about it because of the high number of cases they (th Iraqis) knew about. By the time the denials of responsibility began the anger had festered all that time really exploded.
Not long after that I was back in Palestine/Israel. I was showing a group from the World Council of Churches around and while in Jerusalem I took them on a walk of the Stations of the Cross. Standing in the chapel that marks Jesus being beated and scourged I asked them about how they felt seeing the images of Ali. A couple of the people from the US started in with the line about "a few bad soldiers" and the people from other parts of the world immediately stopped them. We ended up spending a good bit of time in the chapel in prayer for all people who have been tortured and for the ones who did the torturing. We also prayed that God woulld shine light on the ones in the dark that were responsible.
Thanks for writing articles that shine light.
Rick
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