Atrocity environments and human rights

1. Atrocity environments and human rights Prof. Angelina Godoy

2. Where we’ve been: a brief review • 1948: after Holocaust, world united around idea of “Never Again” • Many Latin American countries key protagonists in UDHR • Yet only decades later, it did happen again: once again, states set out to eliminate groups of people defined as enemies of the state, on a massive scale • Moreover, it’s still happening today

3. What should we learn from this? • Laws aren’t enough: • Only enforceable after abuses has happened (and even then, very rarely enforced) • Don’t seem to deter new abuses • Need to examine roots of human rights abuse in order to prevent it

4. Roots of abuses • We tend to focus on individual accountability • Our culture and legal system reinforce this notion • We like to imagine that human rights abuses are the work of extraordinarily evil people, and that the rest of us are not involved, particularly if we are unaware • Yet genocide and other abuses involve a socially recognizable pattern, are NOT the work of “loose cannons” or “bad apples”

5. Roots of abuses • Hannah Arendt: the banality of evil • Stanley Milgram experiments: • 65% of participants administered 450 volt shock (end of board) • No one refused to continue at less than 350 volts • No one checked on victim without permission first • Variations: • obedience did not change by gender • obedience reduced if physically close to subject • In groups, obedience increased if group obeyed, reduced if group disobeyed

6. Huggins et al (2002), Violence Workers • Study of Brazilian police torturers and murderers • Found that torturers were no different from ordinary population • No predisposition to violence, not inherently sadistic or cruel • Gradually molded into torturers by environment, both police institution and larger sociopolitical context

7. Huggins et al (2002), Violence Workers • Elements of the “atrocity environment” in authoritarian Brazil: • National Security Ideology • Constant fear and urgency • Violent training • Norms of violent masculinity • Insularity/secrecy • Victims dehumanized • Emphasis on blind obedience • Neutralizing personal accountability

8. Huggins et al (2002) • “Anyone could become a torturer or an executioner under a set of quite well-known conditions [called an ‘atrocity environment’.] Therefore, we must collectively strive to first expose these sociopolitical conditions wherever they appear and then to join others in denouncing and challenging them.” (p. 267)

9. John Conroy Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People (2000) • Torturers act out the will of the larger community in suppressing its foes • The community of citizens ignores, minimizes, and tolerates the torturer’s evil deeds • Torturers able to rationalize their acts by functioning in an environment that provides positive support, justification, and sanctions

10. Human Rights in Latin America • What are the implications of this research? • Are there atrocity environments in our midst today? • How do we prevent a repeat of the history we have just studied?