Life, the Universe and MA!

[Andy Murray]

I wonder if anyone else has ever felt belittled by practicing Martial Arts?

I mean, do you feel that the pursuit of violence and the control of it is a worthy objective for the species at the top of the foodchain?

I've come to realise just how much I abhor violence through MA. It solves nothing.

On the news today, a young woman walked into a restaurant and set off the bomb she had strapped to herself, killing several people, including two babies.
The reason?
Someone else had killed two members of her family.
So I suppose relatives of those who died while eating their meals will feel justified in killing yet more people.
Where does it end?

From hitting a child because we are frustrated by lack of a non violent solution, to invading weaker countries and acheiving objectives with superior firepower, the issue is the same.

We talk about the history of MA, and argue over the relative superiority of different styles and systems, but I feel many people are missing out on the simple lesson to be learned.

Violence is ugly, it acheives nothing except the creation of more violence. MA practice points this out to us.

If there is one lesson we should all take from MA practice, it's that violence should be avoided at all costs.

Sadly most people take the easy option.

Mankind has been fighting for survival for centuries.
We have had reason too.
Now we don't!
So we fight with ourselves, because we don't know what else to do.
Aren't we clever?

[Andrew Green]

I agree... except :D

There is a difference between fighting and playing. I hate fighting, but I love to play...

Martial arts are not inherently violent, although they can easily be applied in that way. Which is why all martial arts, be they modern or traditional, have some sort of "Code of conduct" to which practitioners are expected to uphold. Not just the martial arts, but all sports do this.

Unfortunately it seems sportsmanship is dissapearring and WWFmanship is taking over....

[Andy Murray]

Just like children, we learn when we play.

Essentially, there is little difference between a child and an adult, they are just stages of development for every individual.

So we can learn about violence when we play, indeed this is often where we first encounter it.

At some point, every individual should realise that violence solves nothing.

[cal_JJJ]

First, Mr. Murray I share your feelings on violance

Second, I get the distinct feeling that you are baiting people w/ this post. :)

Yes, MA arts is a persuit of violence and control of it, but something happens along the way and we find in the end no need to be violent to resolve most conflicts in our life. We wind up setting an example for non-violence. MA is full of paradoxes, yes?

Were any of the violent acts in your original post done by accomplished MA'ist?

Perhaps the way to peace is through the understanding & control of violence before you are put in a position of having violence control you.

Just some random thoughts that your post stirred up.
Take Care
DavidM

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by cal_JJJ


1/ First, Mr. Murray I share your feelings on violance

2/ Second, I get the distinct feeling that you are baiting people w/ this post. :)

3/ Yes, MA arts is a persuit of violence and control of it, but something happens along the way and we find in the end no need to be violent to resolve most conflicts in our life. We wind up setting an example for non-violence. MA is full of paradoxes, yes?

4/ Were any of the violent acts in your original post done by accomplished MA'ist?

5/ Perhaps the way to peace is through the understanding & control of violence before you are put in a position of having violence control you.

6/ Just some random thoughts that your post stirred up.
Take Care
DavidM

1/ Andy is fine.

2/ Not at all, just sharing thoughts that came to me.

3/ I hope so.

4/ You refer to the news article? No, but the posts about Life, tha Universe and MA.

5/ Perhaps.

6/ Glad to be of service DavidM.

[cal_JJJ]

Okay Mr. Murray, Andy it is.

Do you feel that violence on planet Earth is increasing or decreasing? Life here has always been a very violent and bloody subject, but I think WWII was a turning point for humanity. The problem to me is that the media feeds us every detail of every violent act committed in our areas of intrest, so that it appears to be as violent as ever. Thanks to the popular media, it is easy to become depressed.

[Kat]

Agreed,volience is to best avoided for eveyones benefit.

But training of MA doesn't have to be about volience,I feel the longer people train the more it becomes about self reflection and understanding themselves and confronting ego/desires to prove themselves against others.

I posted this before but many people see learning and life as a way to Prove their own competence based on Performance,while others seek to Improve their competence usually in cooperation with others.

[morphus]

Andy - i have been sharing your thoughts on violence for some time which has become a conflict within me.

I post a lot less than i used to because to argue my point of view has become somewhat futile...

Can't think how to finish this post:(

[Cain]

Gee your so sad Andy :(

Just don't strap a bomb to your waist and fly over to Inda. ;)

MA for most people is not violence or hitting other people - they just want to have some fun, keep fit etc just like a badminton class or any sport like Andrew said.

I am sorry about that incident....IMO, a big IMO - That woman was crazy, if she had half the brains of a normal person she would'nt have done what she did, how the hell did she get hold of a bomb anyway????

And why go to a restaurant and kill yet more people??? She could have done better things helping kids instead of blowing them out of the sky!!!

Not everyone takes violence in MA seriously, my freind who did MA for six months [the bugger quit!] found sparring to be damn fun, but when we witnessed a brawl at a bus stop he was shocked at how much blood they drew and to what lengths they could go to hit each other.

The violence comes not from MA but from phsychopaths like that woman, sorry I know she lost her family but that is'nt a reason to go out and kill infants!!!

|Cain|

[Kat]

CalJJJ
I would have to say I respectfully disagree,You may feel that the media is to blame but its seems to be like saying that prositutes are immoral rather then the users.Ofcause I may have opened a big can of wroms here,as I don't know your feelings on the subject.

[WhiteWizard]

Violence is ugly and should not be condoned however i feel a lot of people use MA to help stop violence.

Some people use it to stop violent situations from happening in the first place.

Others use it to stop situations before they get out of hand.

Many people use MA as a means to control or let go of aggression so that they are less likely to be involved in violence.

Of course there will always be exceptions who use the tools that we learn for the wrong purpose but i think in the majority MA helps people do many posotive things when taught correctly.

Violence would exist in the world with or without MA IMO its human nature.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by White Wizard



Many people use MA as a means to control or let go of aggression so that they are less likely to be involved in violence.

Violence would exist in the world with or without MA IMO its human nature.

So what you are saying is.
We are violent, it's the way we are?
MA is just a vent to expel excess agression?

Human nature needs to change!

That's what I was trying to get across.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by Kat

I posted this before but many people see learning and life as a way to Prove their own competence based on Performance,while others seek to Improve their competence usually in cooperation with others.

Ah, let me know if you ever work out which I'm doing Kat.
I don't know myself anymore.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by morphus
Andy - i have been sharing your thoughts on violence for some time which has become a conflict within me.

I post a lot less than i used to because to argue my point of view has become somewhat futile...

Can't think how to finish this post:(

Words are words.

If one person in the world reads one word you have written and is influenced by it, then it's worth it.

Say what you genuinely believe and leave the futile to their futility.

[Jack]

I agree with the writer's post. It is easy to react to violence with violence. All that we do by this is continue the circle of hatred. Look at the world now, two years after 9/11, after the swift retribution by the Americans. Terrorism is still rife, people are still eager to punch and scream and drop bombs, violence and hate still exists. After many thousands of years, isn't it time we all resolved to work for peace? I suppose this struggle of peace and war may continue forever more, but I fear that with the tools of war we have these days, we may very well destroy ourselves with such misguided destructive power.

I hope as martial artists, as human beings, that we can work to water the seeds of understanding and peace in our own hearts and our family's and friends' hearts. We cannot perform miracles on a national scale, but we can try to help spark understanding to those around us. If we show a good attitude to those around us, it may rub off on them, and that will pass on to others, and so on, and so on.

Jack

[Jack]

Human nature will always include seeds of violence and anger, as it also contains seeds of goodwill and joy. It is largely a matter of our surroundings and upbringings as to which of these seeds get watered. Unfortunately, unless the entire world becomes educated in this, and has the volition to practice goodwill, the young will adopt the bad habits and violent ways of their elders. This is why bringing understanding to human beings all over the world is so important, so as to have some positive impact on those growing up in the world so that they can see decent ways of dealing with problems.

Jack

[morphus]

Andy - Say what you genuinely believe and leave the futile to their futility.

Thankyou Andy, you may have just brought me back to life - Glad it wasn't a kiss of life:)

[shortstick]

"Training in the martial arts teaches how not to fight" my 1st sifu always said. I did not really understand that at age 15.
I cannot pretend to understand, the saddness, hate, hoplessness, and anger that that women must have felt to do what she did......for me living the life I live, in the country I live...well I just cannot relate. I like to imagine that if put in her place, walking in her shoes I would not make the choice she did.
"Our training is the endless persuit of self knowledge, and understanding of the world unseen" Another one from my 1st sifu.
I always liked that one. I like to think that the training I have done all the years has helped me evolve into a better person. In that way helping me move away from violence.

[Em-em]

Yin Yang people, without violence, how can we know the existence of peace?

[cal_JJJ]

[Kat] I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming the media. It's just ppl are bombarded w/ so much information now and alot of ppl allow themselfs to be led astray. Violence has gone down alot in the region where I live in the last 25yrs., yet I often here from locals how scary things are because of all the violence. I assume this is due to watching too much news because muggings are rare, homicides are few & usually isolated to the druggies, and a crime spree here usaully involve a few consecutive nights of petty vandalism.
I think that it is becoming easier to be negative and depressed which makes ever more important to find the positives and be a positive influance where ever you can.

[booksie_girl]

I think that violence is less than it was in the past, as the "fighting for honour" thread commented, people no longer get killed over a slight of someone's honour. The problem is, that with modern technology, the violence that does occur has the potential to be far more destructive.

[tai-gip]

Andy ...... you have re-affirmed my faith in people....
i guess i was kinda letting go ....

Thanks.!!!! :)

And i think violence is growing but it is something we can all work towards reducing by having a more peaceful outlook on life

[Kat]

CallJJJ
I Understand,I sort of thought you where paying out on the media a bit then(Freelance Photographer here)
Agreed knowledge and information is easyily accessed these days,thats good and sort of scary,how are people going to dominate others if they can't keep them in the dark!!!:o

Andy
The Human Mind ya gotto love it.....You can be both but I find most people including myself prefer to buost their own self esteem by proving themselves over others which doesn't nescesarily mean they have improved anything about themselves at all.

[cal_JJJ]

[ Tai-gip ] Why do you think "violence is growing"? Just wondering.

Gang violence is tame compaired to gangs of a century ago and earlier, post US civil war, etc. We aren't carpet bombing whole countries in wars anymore, but using smart bombs to min. civilian losses. We don't kill every man, women, & child in battles to prevent revenge anymore. etc.,etc.

Some types of violence will never go away, but is it growing or is the perception of violence within our life time growing?

[tai-gip]

Well for one thing Cal... tv programnes and movies keep lowering the ratings on what is violence/gore as people become habituated to violence its become an expected part of life ..

the crime rate for murder/rape/violent crimes keeps increasing...

you have all these people learning martial arts who will severly damage an attacker in the name of self defense .

and as prev mentioned we are becoming more and more used to seeing this violence portrayed on the news ..when you see a commentary about a duck or something you know its been a quite night

a friend of mine got stabbed three times last week down near the yarra ...the night before same thing to someone else.. the weekend before some stabbed to death .....

there seems to be more and more weirdos about ... the news makes people afraid when they are afraid they turn to anger and violence as a defense this makes others do the same and so on and so on

have you ever been standing in a que patiently waiting but not that patiently then when someone angrly but eloquently voices this anger it raises in you and the other people waiting..?

[cal_JJJ]

[Tai-gip] Thanks for answering that, I was just curious. Obviousely things are a lot worse in your reality than in mine.

"Dont inhibit yourself you choose what to make real in your reality.
And of course what to make not real." :)

[tai-gip]

what dont you wathc the news ?

[Greg-VT]

Violence is'nt growing Tai.

Today is no more Violent then any other time in history.

[cal_JJJ]

No, I don't watch the news. I here enough of it from most everyone i encounter. Why get a double or triple dose of negative?

[Cain]

On the contrary I think violence is decreasing, in the old days people used to cut off arms and heads for stealing...and of course the infamous chinese nipple torture ;)

Maybe we have a chance to diminish it completely......ah damn! I am dreaming agin :(

Let's face it, it's never going to happen...

|Cain|

[Greg-VT]

Hmm, It's part of nature. Unfortunatly. We just have to live with it, lessoning it as much as we can.

[booksie_girl]

Originally posted by tai-gip
the crime rate for murder/rape/violent crimes keeps increasing...


I don't think murder/rape rates are rising, I think that they are just becoming more publicised, and especially with rape, people are more able to come out with it, where before, it would have been reported far less.

And modern soldiers aren't exactly allowed to rape an pillage.


you have all these people learning martial arts who will severly damage an attacker in the name of self defense .

But people don't tend to have their heads cut off by a sword in the name of self defense.


a friend of mine got stabbed three times last week down near the yarra ...the night before same thing to someone else.. the weekend before some stabbed to death .....

I'm sorry about your friend, but don't let the act of the minority embitter you towards people in general.

[Bon]

Originally posted by Andy Murray
So what you are saying is.
We are violent, it's the way we are?
MA is just a vent to expel excess agression?

Human nature needs to change!

That's what I was trying to get across.

I'll play devil's advocate. :)

Human nature is very competitve... perhaps that's why we're at the top of the food chain, through our desire we've brought about creation and innovation allowing us to be at the top.

If you think about it, we're constantly competing in all areas of life, from the guy who says he has what you have + x, to social backstabbing, spreading of rumours, etc. Getting into University is a competition, you're ranked against everyone else... well, at least in Australia it is.

So, what's so bad about violence in the respect it's direct and not behind someone's back? Talking about 2 people who enter into a fight willingly. Coming from behind, or when the person is unaware, etc. is a different story.

I most certainly do agree that human nature needs to change. But, the guys who do martial like me so that they act more socially accpetable in public if you like... are they really so bad for doing what years of instinct has told them to do? At least they're not harming anyone by doing so unlike the girls that go around gossiping behind others' back.

[Andy Murray]

Let's look at it another way;

Let's say reaching the top of the food chain is like acheiving the coveted Black Belt. What's next?

The violence I'm referring to is abuse of power. I mentioned striking a child for want of a better solution, or invading a weaker country for the same reason.

Ironically Bon, I just looked at your signature;

"There are always two choices, two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy."

[Bon]

I think I fail to see with your black belt analogy... I don't see the part of what's next? You keep on going and getting better, you don't stop because black belt is not the end, it's the beginning. Or is this the point I've missed?

Re: violence, Sun Tzu said to crush your enemy completely and totally so they can never have the chance to recover and ruin you.

Re: my sig, some people will have a different interpreation of 'easy' won't they? We'll put two different people in the same scenario, a fight. Honour, pride and ego at stake like with most fights... You've got a man who has the skills of Geoff Thompson, you've got a man who's never been in a fight before in his life. To the guy who has the skills of GT, it'd be easy to knock this guy out and walk away. For the other man, it'd be easier for him to walk away from the fight. I apologise if this is off tangent slightly.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by Bon
I think I fail to see with your black belt analogy... I don't see the part of what's next? You keep on going and getting better, you don't stop because black belt is not the end, it's the beginning. Or is this the point I've missed?



It's the start of the point you might have missed.

Many people seem to find that their outlook changes at BB. The analogy I was trying to sketch is that humanity needs to make that change too.

We're like little boys squabbling over 'who's ball it is', using little of the wealth and resources available to enrich the lives of those around us, let alone those who need them most.

Sun Tzu has a lot to answer for!

[Bon]

Hmm, Andy..

I think it's only natural for us to want to be the best, to have the most, etc. e.g. people will say don't settle for mediocrity in your life. Therefore, if you want to be 10lbs less, lose 10lbs starting from today! Why is it any different in any other aspect of our lives? Losing the 10lbs is a battle with ourselves and partially our environment, other aspects are a battle against other people. A lot of people think we're above other animals because we're humans, but I still think we're animals.. not something supreme because we're at the top of the food chain. Let's put it this way, the far majority of peope will act like animals and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (maybe all you traditionalists should join us modernists? :P j/k )... if you don't, you're only going to get walked over as I've painfully learnt. Hell, even my so called 'best' friends are competing with me academically despite me not having my heart in it.

If a few people lay down and stop being so competitive, not everyone else will just because me and you have. Everyone else is still competing and they just see it as less people to worry about. A nice idea, but how do you propose we change almost all of the world's population? Tell me Andy, when you go to the super market or go to buy something, do you not look for the best deal, or a better deal? If we take away competiveness, that means we could pay $10 for a carton of a milk because there's no one else in the market apart from the one producer and they can charge us that much for a carton of milk. A little extreme yes, but you get my point.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by Bon
Tell me Andy, when you go to the super market or go to buy something, do you not look for the best deal, or a better deal? If we take away competiveness, that means we could pay $10 for a carton of a milk because there's no one else in the market apart from the one producer and they can charge us that much for a carton of milk. A little extreme yes, but you get my point.

No, I marvel, that we haven't yet found a way of dispensing with money all together.

You're kind of answering your own question regarding competitiveness.

Do you strive to be the best you can be, or to be better than everyone else? They're not necessarily the same thing.

[Bon]

You're kind of answering your own question regarding competitiveness.

That's the part of human nature you don't like and suggested had to change...

Re: striving. Depends on the situation, sometimes I admit I simply aim to be better than someone/some people. With martial arts, I aim to be the best I can be. :)

[Andy Murray]

So if we all exerted 100% off our efforts into being the best that we could be, we would have 0% of effort to put into making others be the best we think they should be.

We've got enough on our plates living up to our own expectations, without trying to get others to live up to them.

Then there's this easy option, which is to use force.
Sometimes we use it on others, sometimes they use it on us.

[johndoch]

Chances are there will always be violence and war so long as people seek power. There will be people who will cause violence to get what they and others who wont.

Is it wrong to defend your rights with violence against aggression? I think it is ok so long as your conscience is in the right.

Can this be changed in our current situation, I severely doubt it. Look at places like Grozny in Checnya (sp), Sarajevo there are more. These places are or were warzones and the casualties still bear mental scars whether they have lost families loved ones etc. The victims of war can suffer from mental illness after the stress of war and could probably kill out of revenge. Does this give them diminished responsibility?

IMO Violence will be reduced if the major world powers stopped selling arms to shady factions all over the world. Look at africa and the middle east. Guns are everywhere as a result of the cold war.

ranting over

[pgm316]

Originally posted by Andy Murray

I mean, do you feel that the pursuit of violence and the control of it is a worthy objective for the species at the top of the foodchain?

I've come to realise just how much I abhor violence through MA. It solves nothing.

On the news today, a young woman walked into a restaurant and set off the bomb she had strapped to herself, killing several people, including two babies.
The reason?
Someone else had killed two members of her family.
So I suppose relatives of those who died while eating their meals will feel justified in killing yet more people.
Where does it end?

That really answers itself for me.

Apart from the enjoyment of learning MA's as a game and playing around; I learn it to get an advantage over the lunatics in society that threaten my safety.

In the same way we have a good army to either deter or deal with conflict.

[pgm316]

Originally posted by Andy Murray
No, I marvel, that we haven't yet found a way of dispensing with money all together.

You're kind of answering your own question regarding competitiveness.

Do you strive to be the best you can be, or to be better than everyone else? They're not necessarily the same thing.

Sounds a bit like communism to me! ;)

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by pgm316
Sounds a bit like communism to me! ;)

The problem with equality between men, is that some want to be more equal than others.

Were it not for this one base greed in the psyche, we'd be a longer lived, happier species.

[snailfist]

Regarding MAs specifically, i don't feel that there is a moral dilemma regarding our practising them. I certainly have no qualms. A lad who left our school a couple of years ago to go to manchester university was killed when a man came up to him and punched him because he was a "scouser" (person from the city of liverpool with the according unique accent if you aren't from the UK). Had he known even my limited degree of martial arts training he would probably still be alive today- it was the fall that killed him rather than the punch. To my mind a block and an appropriate degree of retaliation would have been the lesser of two evils as they would have saved a human life. The pursuit of violence is never to be encouraged- why most decent MA training centres on avoiding it. But pursuing violence should not be confused with being ready for it should it pursue you, and living to not fight (hopefully) another day allows us to continue what are (to use Andy's terms) more worthy objectives for the species at the top of the food chain.

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by snailfist
Regarding MAs specifically, i don't feel that there is a moral dilemma regarding our practising them. I certainly have no qualms.

Would you say you have always felt this way, or come to this understanding over a period of time?

Would it be fair to say there are people with varying attitudes towards the justification of violence out there, or even on this site itself maybe?

[snailfist]

I have always felt that a reasonable degree of violence is acceptable in self defence. an MA is ideally not about agression. It is rather like an understanding of nuclear physics- the power plant against the bomb. The science has the potential for both, and it is down to the practitioner to exercise his knowledge responsibly.

I know that on my first class my instructor saying that he would tolerate no thugs in his club and telling us that there were people out there who did misapply the knowledge that they learned in their MA.
I would say that it is certainly the case that people have varying attitudes towards violence. I know that some religious beliefs forbid violence under *any* circumstances, even in self-defence, while that man who killed the lad from my school saw violence as an acceptable way of asserting a prejudice. i practice an MA because i subscribe to neither of these views, and take the opioinon that while it is wrong 99% of the time to attack a person, i would be morally justified in defending myself (provided that i did not kill my aggressor or cause permanent damage). I can't as a junior member really speak with any great knowledge of the other members of the site, but i have seen a small mumber of posts that would perhaps suggest that.

[Andy Murray]

Good so far.

We take moral high ground when we start justifying violence as 'something we would use as a last resort'.

Could more be done to prevent 'last resort' scenario's do you think.

Again, I must put forward the two examples I gave initially; That of resorting to striking a child, or overpowering an inferior country.

[cal_JJJ]

Andy:

"Again, I must put forward the two examples I gave initially; That of resorting to striking a child,........."

These are people w/ behavor problems. When is the best time to make a positive impact on someone's behavor?

Where are youths taught not to hit unless attacked, not to let emotion dictate action, to remain calm in crises, be respectfull, etc.?

MA :)

[tai-gip]

Ok so what if this short time frame we call our lives is one step in the evolution of the being we are and we progress through lives learning the lessons we must as dose everyone else

[Andy Murray]

Originally posted by cal_JJJ

These are people w/ behavor problems. When is the best time to make a positive impact on someone's behavor?



Doh, early?

Bush and Blair have behaviour problems?

Where are youths taught not to hit unless attacked, not to let emotion dictate action, to remain calm in crises, be respectfull, etc.?

I'd so love to answer MA here!

[Andy Murray]

Shedding Light On a Symbol Of Iraqi Terror
Ex-Prisoners Describe Horrors, Call for Justice
By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, October 6,
2003; Page A01
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- Prisoners were brought to Iraq's most feared prison in
an ice-cream truck, a soft cone painted on its side. After sentencing at the
nearby Revolutionary Court, following a perfunctory trial, the prisoners
were hustled outside and loaded in the back.
"We were waddling like penguins because of the torture," recalled Ahmed
Mohammed Baqer Attar, a 41-year-old Baghdad physician. "And then we saw an
old ice-cream truck."
"It's hard to believe," he continued, a smoker's laugh rising from his
chest. "But everything was hard to believe."
On the short ride to the prison, a forbidding structure that sprawls over
280 acres about 20 miles west of Baghdad, the men who had just been
sentenced to death kissed those who had received jail terms and begged them
to get word of their fate to their families. "They were weeping and
trembling and they made us swear," said Karim Hassan Jabbar, 45, another
physician who spent nine years in the prison.
In the shuddering whispers of this formerly closed society, Abu Ghraib was
known as a colossal dungeon where the silent screams of its captives became
the symbol of state terror. Abu Ghraib was the Iraqi gulag.
Some of those in the ice-cream van, facing 20 years in this prison rather
than death, wondered if they were the unlucky ones. "I felt such agony, such
despair, it felt like a knife turning in my stomach," said Hakem Kharqani,
43, of the moment he crossed the prison's threshold in 1982. He had already
endured torture at the headquarters of the secret police in Baghdad,
including electric shock. He feared it would continue without end.
For thousands of political prisoners crudely executed by hanging in its
ghoulish death chamber, Abu Ghraib was the final station in an
excruciatingly brutal system. Thousands more who eluded the hangman were
forced to survive in overcrowded, putrescent, disease-infested cells where
the threat of violence, including beatings, torture and summary execution,
was ever-present.
Today, Abu Ghraib's political prisoners are giving witness to the apparatus
of repression under former president Saddam Hussein. The survivors are
providing detailed, firsthand testimony, one at a time, about the system's
capricious barbarism. A more complete historical accounting is likely to
take years. The prospect of trials, both for the country's onetime
leadership and its functionaries, remains distant.
Among survivors, there is a strong desire that the pain of Abu Ghraib not be
forgotten. They want a new legal system to exact retribution, and they want
the lessons of the past to be etched into memory as a guarantee of Iraq's
future freedom.
"The prisoners are Iraq's best teachers," said Kharqani.
Arrest and Torture

The secret police, dressed in civilian clothes, came for Kharqani at home.
It was just hours after an evening celebration at Baghdad's Alwiya club
where his civil engineering class marked its graduation. Upon his return
from the club, his family showered him with chocolates, an Iraqi tradition.
He was the first among seven children to get a university degree.
Away from the neighborhood, in the back of the vehicle, Kharqani was
blindfolded and handcuffed. He was taken to the headquarters of the
Directorate of General Security, where he was chained to a radiator in a
corridor outside interrogation rooms, a hood still over his head. He could
hear the screams and moans of prisoners undergoing questioning.
"They softened you up by forcing you to listen," said Attar, who was
arrested after he was summoned from a class on microorganisms to the deputy
dean's office at Kufa University. Two agents quietly led him away and then
drove him to Baghdad.
Occasionally, a passing guard whacked the shackled prisoners with a stick.
They flinched at footsteps, barely breathing in their shrouded darkness.
Some prisoners had already soiled their pants.
After several hours, the prisoners were brought into an interrogation room.
The questions began with the routine: name, age, occupation. Then, an offer
to confess now, and avoid the worst. Some prisoners, like Kharqani, had no
sense of the charges against them. Others, like Attar, understood that
admitting to membership in prohibited groups, such as the Shiite Dawa party,
meant death.
The word of an informer, the forced confession of a friend or, in some
cases, genuine intelligence led to the arrests. Islamic activists,
Communists and Kurds all shared the same fate.
Kharqani was the unwitting acquaintance of a student involved in an Islamic
opposition group accused of attacking Tariq Aziz, then deputy prime
minister, with a grenade as he opened a student conference. Attar moved in
religiously active student circles at his college in southern Iraq, near the
holy city of Najaf.
Abdul Hussein Faraj, 47, who was arrested in 1988, admits now that he was a
member of the banned Dawa party.
Once one member of a family was arrested, other relatives were exposed.
Kharqani's younger brother, Raheem, later disappeared, and his father died
within a day of being released from the General Security headquarters. The
family suspects he was poisoned.
In the interrogation room, the hoods were removed. The prisoners had their
hands tied behind their backs with cuffs and rope; Faraj's wrist is still
cross-hatched with scars from when he was bound. They were then hoisted by a
rope attached to a hook in the ceiling so they dangled above the ground, the
tendons in their shoulders tearing under the strain. The ball and socket in
the shoulders of some prisoners completely rotated, Attar said.
The prisoners were lashed with cables. Clips were attacked to their
earlobes, nipples and genitals and they were administered electric shocks.
When they passed out, as they almost invariably did, they were dragged back
to the corridor and cuffed again to the radiator, a dozen former prisoners
recalled in interviews.
This torture continued for several days, hours at a time, even after the
prisoners broke. Nearly all eventually signed forced confessions put in
front of them and stamped them with a single fingerprint, their hands lifted
to the paper by the guards because the prisoners no longer had the strength.
Prisoners who held out longer than expected were subject to further horrors.
Faraj saw his mother dragged in front of him. His mother's gown was roughly
lifted, exposing her bare legs and underwear as the police said they would
rape her. The humiliation, he said, was unbearable. Kharqani and two other
inmates were forced to watch three other prisoners killed with acid.
When the torture ended, the prisoners were bundled into one of a number of
fetid basement cells so crowded that prisoners created their own rotation
for lying down, sitting and standing. Newcomers were greeted with the only
gift in the power of the prisoners. "All the new prisoners were washed by
the others," said Attar. "You couldn't use your hands so they helped you
with the toilet," a hole in the ground. The cells were about nine feet by
six feet and each held between 35 and 40 prisoners, former inmates said.
For months, sometimes years, the prisoners said, nothing more happened.
Kharqani was arrested in December 1980 and brought to trial in July 1983.
They subsisted on small rations, thin soup and bread, sitting in their
underwear because of the hot, pungent air. In whispers, those who had
memorized the Koran recited it.
Eventually, they faced a trial before the Revolutionary Court, set up in
1968, when the Baath Party came to power, to try "spies, agents and enemies
of the people." On the morning of Attar's trial, the court was presided over
by Muslim Hadi Jubouri, who condemned the 45 prisoners assembled in front of
him as "criminal scum" when the proceeding began. The signed statements
obtained by the secret police lay before him.
That day 37 men were sentenced to death, five men to 20 years imprisonment
and three men to seven years. The whole proceeding lasted 20 minutes, Attar
said.
The Death House

Abu Ghraib's death house, shaped like an ankle-boot, is a modest building.
>From the main entrance, there are 10 tiny cells on the right, which held up
to 25 prisoners in each. Graffiti where prisoners scratched the passing days
are still on the wall, along with pleas to Allah. "God save me," reads one
inscription, "and I will pray 70,000 times."
But there was no hope; decisions of the Revolutionary Court could not be
appealed.
U.S. officials who are renovating Abu Ghraib, where 1,000 people have been
incarcerated since the occupation began, estimate that 30,000 people were
hanged there in the Hussein years. The total may be higher. Ahmed Abbas, a
statistician at the prison from 1999 to 2001, said he recorded about 2,500
executions a year of both criminal and political prisoners. The execution
rate in the prison was higher in the 1980s, when the government launched
oppressive campaigns against its perceived enemies in both the Shiite and
Kurdish communities, and again in 1991, when it put down revolts following
uprisings in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.
In the early 1980s, the hangman was known as Abu Widad, according to former
prisoners and guards. A tall muscular man, whom the prisoners called the
"sword," he carried on his hip a pistol engraved with Saddam's name.
Executions were scheduled for Wednesdays and Sundays, beginning in the early
evening and continuing for hours until, on some days, as many as 50 or 60
people had been hanged, said Kudhair Atwan Jabr, 46, an ambulance driver who
witnessed the killing and then removed the bodies from the chamber.
The smell of whiskey was always on Widad's breath, he said.
Prisoners were led bound from the cells to the building's dank lobby where a
committee, sitting at a table, read the death sentence. The execution
chamber lay just beyond. They were then walked up a ramp and placed on one
of two square trapdoors embedded in the floor. The doors split in the
middle.
A thick noose hung from a crescent-shaped piece of steel set in the roof
over each door. The U.S. occupation authority has the last two noose ropes
found at Abu Ghraib, U.S. soldiers at the prison said.
The noose was placed over each prisoner's neck and a green hood was put over
his head. A lever opened the two doors and the loud clang of them banging
open signaled to the prisoners still in the cells that an execution had
taken place.
Another hangman, known as Akeel, who served in the late 1980s, would
sometimes stand on the trapdoor with the prisoner, embrace and fall with the
condemned men to ensure they died quickly. "He always hugged the thin ones
and fell with them so it would be a mercy to them," said Jabr, who worked at
the prison from 1987 to 1991. The whereabouts of the executioners' are
unknown.
Sattar Latif Ridha was executed by hanging in Abu Ghraib on Jan. 30, 1982.
He was 18. Recently graduated from Kadhimiya high school, he was "a handsome
young man," according to his religion and Arabic teacher, Aldin Ahmed Morad.
Ridha was one of a group of religiously active students from the same
neighborhood picked up in the fall of 1981 and taken to the General Security
headquarters. He was minding a friend's store. And then he was gone. "Young
people like my brother tried to fight the regime," said Jamal Latif Ridha,
Sattar's older brother. "And Saddam destroyed them."
In April 1993, a political prisoner, Awda Hamdan, received word from his
family that his young son had died. Nearly hysterical with grief, Hamdan
shook his fist at one of the ubiquitous portraits of Saddam Hussein that
were hung or painted throughout Iraq's largest prison. Someone shouted,
"Don't do it," Kharqani recalled.
The picture fell, the glass in the frame shattering, and a brief, fearful
silence descended on the hallway where it had hung. Hamdan, about 28 years
old, quickly insisted it was an accident, but an orderly reported him to
security officers. He was savagely beaten with sticks and iron bars and
tossed in one of the solitary cells just inside his ward, known as K2,
Kharqani said.
Five days later, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, Saddam's maternal half-brother and
director of Iraq's General Security Directorate from 1991 to 1996, arrived
at the prison.
Hamdan was dragged out to the exercise yard and tied to a stake. A group of
prisoners, about 50 or 60 in all, were summoned from different wards in the
political section and ordered to sit on the dirt. Hamdan was shot repeatedly
by one of the bodyguards of Hassan. "Sabawi said it was a lesson," Kharqani
recalled.
A Treacherous Place

The construction of Abu Ghraib, commissioned and designed in the 1950s, was
shelved until the mid-1960s, when conditions in Baghdad's Ottoman-era prison
forced the government to start the building. It was completed in 1969, just
after the Baathists seized power.
"A building or a place is not evil," said Abdul Kareem Hani, 75, who was
appointed minister of labor and social affairs in 1963 and ordered the
prison built. He ended up a prisoner in Abu Ghraib in the 1990s after
failing to report a plot against Hussein in which a friend was involved.
"The men who run it make it evil. Abu Ghraib was supposed to be a modern,
progressive institution."
Surrounded by nearly three miles of 20-foot-high, cinder-block wall and 24
watchtowers, Abu Ghraib was divided into five sections, each with its own
walled security perimeter: long-term criminal; short-term criminal; the
Arabs and foreigners section; the death house; and the political section,
which in the 1980s was subdivided into closed and open sections.
The prison had a 20-bed hospital, large exercise yards, agricultural land to
teach farming and numerous workshops, including one for sewing and
embroidery, as part of its original mandate to rehabilitate prisoners. Built
to house 1,500 inmates, the prison at times held 25,000 men within its
walls.
After the treatment prisoners had endured at the hands of the secret police
in Baghdad immediately following their arrest, including severe torture, the
conditions in Abu Ghraib, bizarrely, were something of a relief. "To be put
in a cell where you could breathe, where you could lie down on your back to
sleep, where you talk, it seemed like a mercy," said Abdul Kareem Shaneen,
46, who spent nine years in the prison.
But as the numbers swelled through the 1980s, medical problems, in
particular, began to proliferate in filthy, lice-infested cells. The numbers
in the political section grew so large that two warehouses were built to
hold the overflow, including army deserters who also had their ears cut off
as punishment.
"About 50 percent of the prisoners had tuberculosis," said Attar, the
physician. The prison authorities only occasionally provided medicine --
streptomycin -- which the prisoners who were physicians administered. "We
often used one needle over and over without hot water to sterilize," he
said.
The death of a 25-year-old prisoner from tuberculosis finally sparked a
revolt in 1988. The prisoner had been coughing blood for months and the
guards had ignored all pleas to get him medical help. He died in his cell,
and as the prison guards attempted to remove his body, his cell mates
attacked the guards, forcing them to retreat and seizing their keys. They
opened the other cell doors, although the 20-cell ward itself remained in
lockdown.
"It was mayhem," Attar recalled.
A delegation of officials from Baghdad decided to negotiate rather than
crush the small uprising, Attar said. They asked for a list of demands. In
return for promises of good behavior, the prisoners in the closed sections
were allowed family visits and care packages, including food, blankets and
mats; guards routinely extracted bribes for their safe delivery, prisoners
said.
Over the next few years, Arabic, philosophy and other classes began in the
cells. Attar taught a course on logic. Hani, the former labor minister,
taught English. Conditions became so lax during the Persian Gulf War that
some prisoners, including Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist, were
able to escape.
But the prison remained a treacherous place. The authorities maintained
informants to report on political activism. "You had to think of anyone you
didn't completely trust as an informant," said Hani, who was imprisoned in
Abu Ghraib from 1995 to 2001.
Prisoners found with radios, which were banned, or proscribed books, such as
those by leading Shiite clerics, were removed to one of the security offices
in each cellblock where they were tortured. One security officer, Falah
Aqula, was named by seven prisoners in separate interviews, as well as by
former guards, as the prison's principal torturer. Aqula fled as the war
ended.
The accounts of victims are supported by former prison guards. "There were
bad cases that we were forced to beat," said Jafir Sadr Mohammed, 56, a
former prison captain at Abu Ghraib. "Some of them you wanted to kill. If we
suspected something, we would take their confessions while we beat them and
then put them in solitary."
Hussein issued several amnesties, but each time they passed Kharqani by,
because he had been convicted under an espionage statute. "I thought I would
die in Abu Ghraib," he said.
But on Oct. 20, 2002, the prison loudspeaker announced, "We have happy news
for you." Names were called until the prison authorities simply let everyone
out. Kharqani emerged to a mob scene of news media cameras and frantic
relatives who had gathered by the thousands outside the prison gates.
His mother and sister were in the crowd, but he didn't see them. He and some
friends, all long-term prisoners, eventually found a taxi, and the driver
was so pleased for them, he gave them a tour of the city before dropping
them off in their different neighborhoods.
"There was so much I didn't remember," said Kharqani. "I didn't even know my
way home. I was like a child in the city."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[cal_JJJ]

Awfully grim Andy, I hope this all works out for the better for those ppl. Not to long ago most countries in the world had at least one hell-hole of that type, if not for that end, it is good to know that another one has gone by the wayside.

[pgm316]

Took me a while to read that post Andy, but its one of the most hard hitting things I've read for a long time.

It shows how cruel people can be when they have control over others, also how easily people can be brainwashed so when they do something so sadistic they are convinced it is the right thing just because their country has told them so.

What it shows more than anything else is how people like to have power over others.

I work at having a better life for myself, whether that makes me more equal than others isn't an issue.

[snailfist]

Grim stuff indeed. As to the last resort issue, i think that some people just need to learn to walk away as a first resort- i think that it is a definite possibility that a lot of people who use violence as their last resort may only be aware of the one! (possibly two, after an exchange of abuse)

[timmeh!]

Is there an answer? I can't think of one apart from we're all a product of genetics, our upbringing (religion/parents/no parents etc.) and experiences along the way.
The best place to start logically would be with children, but what do you do with those that are adults and feel the need to kill, torturer and dictate?

[chi-hawk]

I agree to a certain point. I have studied ma since I was 5 now I'm 32 and I know as a warrior the battle is within.Also If not for my training both mentally and physically I wouldn't be strong enough to care for my familly cause of my choices when I was younger I have to ride a bike every where.So when I go to the store I ride with 100-150 dollars wprth of food on my back and stil have the energy to work and spend time with my kids.:Alien:

[killbill]

hatred is not a circle, it is a tree with infinite branches and seeds.
The use of controlled violence to halt harm of the innocent is what i believe in. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. That is my main problem with pacifists, their ideas only work in a system where everyone is a pacifist. Idealism never helped anyone, we need realistic solutions (come to think of it, thats my problem with hippies too)

[47Ronin]

Sorry to jump in so late.
I only fight if some one wants to fight me, I don't go around starting fights but I still feel the need to.
I hear many people say "talk out your differences" It is not possible always, because one person always has to feel bigger and if people hear that he talks or whatever they look down on him and try to walk over him.
It's like what Highlander always says, "In the end there can only be one" :D

[quartermaster]

tai-gip
"
have you ever been standing in a que patiently waiting but not that patiently then when someone angrly but eloquently voices this anger it raises in you and the other people waiting..?"

i think that with subtle eloquence and artistic wordplay this is one of the most entertaining affairs of the world today and indeed sometimes moving. but who now has a tongue so sharp and skillful in today's society?
Alas! there are but few

farewell

[nzric]

I'm reading a book at the moment about recent world history, it talks about the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-90's, about ten years ago. Around 800,000 people were killed in the space of six weeks as a result of ethnic battles between Hutus and Tutsi's. No, that's not a typo - 800,000. And that wasn't with bombs, it was with handguns, and hand-to-hand, with bricks and machetes.

The human race can go to levels that, unless you live it yourself, there is no way of possibly comprehending. I've spent some time in Kosovo and heard stories from people who were in Serb prison camps. I've also seen the way that violence breeds violence - kids are taught to hate people they may not have even met. My brother knew a guy from Belfast who's dad was in the IRA. The only English people the guy had seen, up to the age of about 18, were soldiers with balaclavas and machine guns. How do you teach kids about mutual respect and non-violence in that kind of situation?

BUT, while there's that side, I think it's possible to change. There's no use saying "we're now more/less violent than before" because history tells us it is as easy to go down in the civilisation level in the future than up (look at the first half of the 20th century).

I think the place of MA is to provide life skills - to be more able to protect your family, and so you're not stunned by violence. How many times to you hear about someone getting mugged/run over/raped in the street and people were too shocked/nervous to help? I think MA is about analysing the act of human violence, accepting that we do have a violent nature and that violence will always exist, but trying to figure out how to control and use that side of human nature in a more positive way (e.g. transfering it into health/exercise or using it to enforce the law/self defence).

[shunyadragon]

Humans are the only species that makes war on itself and destroys it own (environment) home.

[freespirit]

take a look at the sig on the bottom of my message, it say's that to really gain control (personal,spiritual control that leads us to love this reality that we are in) we must lose control (nuclear weapons, violence), i quite often say to people that to really evolve and survive our whole structure must change even human nature must change simply because if we as a race abolish all weapons in EVERY country then human nature say's we will still be violent alot lies in the way we interact we all know that America and Britain are trying to abolish terrorism to free the world apparantly but i dont see how they are going to do this without human nature changing.
The only slither of hope i spy is the human desire to love in the heart and i dont think that this race as we know it will survive on the Pentagon handing round bits of paper and acting accordingly even the armys in every single country in the world act out in the best interests of their own country the Americans have numerous organisations who's sole objective is to keep the 'reputaion' of America alive.
I know i am picking on the Americans alot it is just cos their are the reigning super power at the moment so i have no political preference at all i was offering observations so if you have been offendee i apologise.

[blaksun]

This is really mean:
Let 'em figure it out for themselves. Let them handle their OWN problems.
Indipendince.

I am SO n00b, I know that in time I will change my view of things.
Until then, I stick with what I said above.

[shunyadragon]

Originally posted by White Wizard
Violence is ugly and should not be condoned however i feel a lot of people use MA to help stop violence.

Some people use it to stop violent situations from happening in the first place.

Others use it to stop situations before they get out of hand.

Many people use MA as a means to control or let go of aggression so that they are less likely to be involved in violence.

Of course there will always be exceptions who use the tools that we learn for the wrong purpose but i think in the majority MA helps people do many posotive things when taught correctly.

Violence would exist in the world with or without MA IMO its human nature.

The original purpose of the Arts of the Way was lost when it became lost to Martial Arts.

The purpose of the Arts of the Way was to learn and practice the Arts to become enlightened, end seperation, and avoid conflict.

Martial Arts has evolved into a dominantely 'Martial' disapline focused on combat techniques, 'Self Defence', confrontation, competition and commercialization. Not only the spiritual Arts have been lost in the mudle, but the terminology and culture of eastern philosophy is lost.