The July 19th segment of Democracy Now (available free on the web) examines an amazing new film titled, "The Act of Killing," and includes a lengthy interview with the director.
Having an interest in trauma, not only as a therapist working with individuals, but also regarding how trauma impacts entire groups of people and entire societies, I find the theme of this film very compelling. It is a look at the men who conducted the genocide of between a half million to 2.5 million people in Indonesia in the mid-1960's, and who have considered themselves justified in doing so, and seen themselves as "heroes," as well as being seen in this light by mainstream Indonesian society.
The film deals with dozens of these men who were involved in the film through accepting the directors offer to recreate on film, reenactments of the genocide. Only the trailer and brief excerpts are shown on Democracy Now's show today, but the film is about to open in NY and then nationally.
The director discusses the impact of these reenactments on some of the men, who actually used their own family members, wives and children, to play the parts of the villagers they killed "in real life" decades ago.
The impact on some of the men, through doing this, reminded me of work I did many years ago as an MSW internship working with adult male sex offenders, in which, by listening repeatedly to the audio of their child victim's interview with child protection, and group therapy feedback, defenses were broken down, and victim empathy developed in men who otherwise were well defended in denying the pain and suffering they had caused by their actions.
Why is this important? Having worked in the field for almost 40 years now, it is quite clear that those of us who do 1:1 counseling are simply taking the wounded off the battle field and then sending them back out into a highly traumatized and traumatizing culture in which war and all manner of violence are part of "normal" life.
This film, from what I could gather through the clips and interview with the director, shines a bright clear light on how our violence and militarism, no matter how we justify it, no matter how well defended we are to deny the reality of the suffering others, impacts us in deep and profound ways, and therefore impacts our families, our communities, our nation and our world.
The fields of neurobiology and epigenetics only amplify the need for us to consider how our history of "normalized" war and violence in Western culture have literally "shaped" our understanding and our conception of, "WHAT" we think human nature actually is. Make the time to watch today's episode of Democracy Now and be inspired by our capacity as humans to look into the deepest darkness, and somehow find light and the possibility of insight, change and healing. Highly recommended.
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