11 - Riot, Brutality, and the Soul of a Nation

One of my most haunting memories from the past few weeks of abuse, protest, and violence is the scene from Buffalo. A squad of police under order to clear the streets pushed an elderly white man to the cement sidewalk, where he lay inert with blood clearly running from his head. One policeman hesitated, turned as if to help, but was commanded to keep moving and left the man with a slight backward glance. The elderly man was a well-known human rights advocate in the city. He later died in hospital. The officers were later censured but threatened to resign from the squad (not the police force) if charges were laid. They said they were just following orders. I believe no charges were laid. 

Aside from the obvious injustice, and equally obvious comparisons to the rationalization of abusive power (i.e. I was only following orders), I keep thinking about that one hesitant policeman. What was he thinking? How was he feeling? Compassion? Responsibility? Guilt? What made him turn away and keep moving? Was it orders? Peer pressure? Recollection of duty? Fear? Perhaps more importantly, what did he remember, think, and feel the next day? Sorrow? Regret? Satisfaction? Internal conflict? 

We know that many military veteran return from war suffering from PTSD. The trauma is not just about what they observed others do, but about what they themselves did as well. Social violence has a way exponentially accelerating the cycle of victim/victimizer as people spontaneously revenge themselves on others. A soldier or policeman sees their best friend injured or killed, and immediately reacts with more violence toward those perceived responsible. Trauma fractures the souls of both victim and victimizer. 

I think back on the policeman in the midst of the riot. When the soul is fractured by trauma one temporarily emotionally detaches from ones body, the physical actions. You do bad things with no conscience … perhaps even with the temporary satisfaction of revenge. Indeed, the trauma of that moment opens a door through which all the personal traumas of past moments are projected into the present moment. The man the policeman knocked down could just as well have been the image of his father or some bully from a long-forgotten playground. All the revenge, all the hate, all the anger that accumulates in the soul suddenly bursts forth. 

What is true for the policeman is true for the rioter. The accumulation of hurts erupts in a desire to hurt. The destruction of the soul … like the Krakatoa volcanic eruption that split an island asunder and sent tsunamis to destroy innocent bystanders on distant beaches … leads to the destruction of a neighborhood, a city, or an entire country. I riot is a more contained violence than a war, and therefore even more shocking and traumatizing. In a war there may be some emotional preparation, but a riot happens suddenly and does not allow any emotional preparation. The aftermath of regret, despair, and self-hatred, however, is the same. 

In the traumatized soul there is a pent-up potential for violence that is greater than a nuclear bomb, and, if released, just as indiscriminately destructive. At the time, the individual (policeman or rioter) brain is fractured or physically rewired. It happens so quickly in a riot that the wrenching tear is even more painful and leaves and even more jagged wound. It often leaves the individual (policeman or rioter) with a total or selective amnesia. One remembers only what the fractured soul can emotionally handle, and the most painful, regretful, or guilty memories are repressed. This is why the stories of what happened can be so widely different. It is not that the individual policeman or rioter is trying to cover up events. They cannot face the events and still live with themselves. That is to say, they cannot face the truth and keep their emotional balance, their very sanity, at the same time. 

My thoughts return to that policeman in Buffalo … the one with the fractured soul. The family of the man who was pushed to the pavement and died actually has a better chance at recovery and wholeness than the policeman. They can grieve. The policeman cannot allow himself to grieve. Ultimately, the family has the chance to heal the soul since the still have the capacity to forgive the policeman (hard as that might be), for true inner peace can only be achieved through forgiveness. The policeman has a more difficult challenge. His soul can only be healed if he can forgive himself. And I think that is the hardest thing anyone must face. 

If a riot is an eruption of fractured souls … a kind of volcanic eruption which may or may not have been anticipated by social scientists and politicians observing the smoke, earth tremors, and flight of birds … then it becomes clear that nothing less than the soul of the nation is at stake. Insofar as policemen are symbols of order and civilized behavior, the brutality of some policeman (and failure of accountability among other policeman) reveals that the soul of a nation is fractured. The rational social responsibility of one side of the brain has become detached from the irrational fight/flight mechanism of self-preservation of the other side of the brain. The result is emotion without reason, and reason without emotion. Riots create chaos today; rationalization avoids responsibility tomorrow. 

Just as a traumatized individual deceives himself or herself that the pain didn’t really happen and they can resume a normal life, so also, once the riots have temporarily ended, the nation deceives itself into thinking that normality is restored. Yet the signs of the fractured soul are still apparent. The “normality” of the individual is undermined by chronic anxiety and depression, along with exaggerated self-absorption and frequent dissociation from unpleasant reminders. The “normality” of the nation is undermined by chronic distrust and political negativity, along with exaggerated radical individualism and escapist obsessions. 

Is there a “balm in Gilead” that can save the “sin sick soul” of a nation?