Irony and the Use of Torture for the Preservation of Human Rights

By: Shoney Yakubjanov

The purpose of this synthesis essay is to use humor (in the form of memes) to highlight the irony in the use of torture by the government in the name of preserving human rights.

The IdeaWhatever the reason is torture should never be in the government’s arsenal of state enforcement. It deprives from the states responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens and is completely useless when used against foreign enemies of the state.

Throughout time individuals, organizations and states tried to rephrase the exact definition of torture. Some may even argue the definition of torture is relative.

For this work we’ll be using the official definition for torture as it is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary

Torture – the infliction of intense pain to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure

~ Merriam-Webster dictionary

Purposes of TortureState Protection From Ideologically Deviant Citizen

Totalitarian regimes often use torture on their own citizens that are acting against the regime or disagree with it

Purposes of TortureState Protection From Ideologically Deviant Citizen

Some notorious examples:• Joseph Stalin in Soviet Russia • Augusto Pinochet in Chile • Rafael Videla in Argentina• Francisco Franco in Spain• Saddam Hussein in Iraq

If you did not agree with the regime the government police would torture you until you do.

HOW IT WORKS:Marry Scarry

Elaine Scarry in her work “The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World “ describes that: Physical pain encountered during torture is indescribable by

language. Subjects feel extremely alienated as no one in the world can

understand how they feel Torture destroys the victim’s language and consequently the

victim’s world

In 1984 George Orwell gives a graphic account to exactly how this happens:The main character that once loved, cared and felt after weeks of extreme torture was turned into exactly what the government wanted him to be in order to preserve power:

a mindless drone, a walking puppet, a pure zombie.

HOW IT WORKS:George Orwell

“When the state itself beats and extorts, it can no longer be said to rest on foundations of morality and justice, but rather on force.”

~Mordecai Kremnitzer quoted in Marcy Strauss, Torture, New York Law School Law Review, 2004

George Orwell

With his book 1984 George Orwell highlights that coercive regimes work only for the benefit of the oppressors. According to Orwellianism the presence of torture is never for the benefit

of the state, it’s only for the benefit of the oppressing class

Characteristic of coercive or Orwellian regimes are:• Heavy government censorship and pro-state propaganda• Involuntary surveillance of citizens• Information fabrication • Torture and/or vaporization of opposition

Purposes of TortureInformation Extraction/Interrogation

Most notorious examples:• USA in its War on Terror• Vietcong during the Vietnamese War• Saudi Arabia and its everyday criminals• Guatemala during the Guatemalan Civil War

“ The use of such torture techniques appears motivated by a folk psychology that is demonstrably incorrect. Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or 'enhanced' interrogation.“

~Shane O’Mara, a neurobiologist at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience

HOW IT WORKS:IT DOESN’T!!!

• Torture produces invalid information– Under torture, the victim will say anything to stop the physical

agony

• Torture strengthens enemy forces– Al Qaeda uses evidence of US torturing inmates in its offshore

prisons for recruitment

• Torture negatively affects the states legitimacy and reputation

Torture should never be in the government’s arsenal of state enforcement

Torture to protect state from ideological deviancy is an indicator of oppression

Torture for information extraction is ineffective, strengthens enemy forces and takes away from the governments reputation and legitimacy

Work Cited• "The Tortured Brain." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 20

Sept. 2009. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/21/the-tortured-brain.html>.

• BBC News. BBC. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/ethics/wrong_1.shtml

• Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.

• Image on the side from: http://deaths-stock.deviantart.com/art/Stock-Nurmburg-Torture-Room-144089715

• Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel. New York, NY: Published by Signet Classic, 1977. Print• Memes created through quickmemes.com

©2012 memes by Shoney