As sequelas psicológicas e físicas resultantes das acções repressivas
A problemática ligada aos traumas provocados pelas acções repressivas dos agentes e dos corpos policiais a mando do aparelho de Estado e dos interesses dominantes tem vindo a ganhar importância crescente nas respectivas áreas científicas.
O caso mais recente e mais conhecido foi o da Ponte Aubonne, em 2003 na Suiça, onde a polícia cortou as cordas onde estavam suspensos dois activistas que pretendiam assim protestar contra a realização da cimeira do G-8 em Evian, e em que, na sequência do acto irresponsável da polícia, aqueles activistas quase que iam perdendo a vida.
Estes acontecimentos chamaram mais uma vez a atenção para o impacto dos traumas físicos e psicológicos dos activistas que venham a ser vítimas daqueles actos repressivos.
Recorde-se que em 2003 na Cimeira do G-8 em Evian ( França), um grupo de activistas bloqueou os delegados dos diferentes países ao provocar um engarrafamento em plena auto-estrada. Dois desses activistas, o inglês Martin Shaw e a alemã Gesine Wenzel, suspenderam-se com cordas de escalada na ponte de Aubonne em plena auto-estrada. Outros companheiros ficaram encarregados de proteger a corda, e outros ainda de gravar a acção de protesto. Foi então que a polícia de forma totalmente irresponsável decidiu fazer circular o trânsito e não contente com isso, foi ao ponto de cortar simplesmente as cordas sob que estavam suspensos aqueles activistas.
Martin Shaw caiu de uma altura de 23 metros de altura, enquanto Gesine foi salva in extremis por outra activista conseguiu segurar a corda cortada pela polícia. Martin sofreu graves traumatismos na coluna o que lhe trouxe sequelas que o impedem de desenvolver o trabalho que normalmente desenvolvia, e Gesine acabou por lhe ser diagnosticada stress pós-traumático.
No passado dia 6 de Setembro o Tribunal de Apelação suíço rejeitou o recurso que aqueles dois activistas interpuseram no tribunal do cantão suíço contra os polícias Claude Poget ( encarregado máximo daquela operação policial) e Michael Deis ( o polícia que cortou a corda) mostrando, a quem ainda duvidasse ,em que medida o valor da vida dos cidadãos ( neste caso, daqueles dois activistas) não era tão importante face a outros valores….
Estes acontecimentos chamaram a atenção mais uma vez para os efeitos da repressão e mostraram como o medo e a intimidação são os instrumentos privilegiados pelos poderosos para se imporem. Mais do que isso, mostram a necessidade de tratamento e acompanhamento das sequelas físicas e psicológicas que porventura tiverem provocado nos activistas intervenientes nas acções que são objecto da violência repressiva.
Daí a importância cada vez maior da aprendizagem de técnicas de preparação psicológica face a actos violentos de repressão que possam atingir-nos a nós próprios como aos companheiros próximos e que irão sentir necessidade de apoio, para o que nos devemos estar preparados. Intervenções adequadas e no tempo próprio poderão evitar traumas maiores e sequelas prolongadas.
Martin e Gesine, vitimas da repressão policial, têm vindo a criar, desde então, vários colectivos em diversos países, vocacionados para abordarem a relação entre a repressão e os traumas, e as maneiras destes serem convenientemente tratados
Antecipar-se ao trauma
Os traumas são causados pela instalação de um grande stress dentro do nosso cérebro. Desencadeia-o normalmente um acontecimento inesperado que leva o indivíduo a confrontar-se com uma iminente ameaça de morte ou de danos irreversíveis, o que provoca sentimentos de angústia e impotência difíceis de se controlar. As vítimas podem ser os implicados directos ou então testemunhas de acontecimentos. O stress provoca um subida de tensão na pessoa, demasiadamente violenta, que provoca uma situação em que a pessoa perde o auto-controle e se regista um estilhaçamento da personalidade. Sintomas de trauma poderão ser o desejo de fugir, ataques de pânico, sentimentos de cobardia, reacções corporais como tremores, problemas respiratórios, insónias, tendências a experimentar flash-backs, perdas de concentração e de memória, auto-medicação, recurso a drogas, tendência ao isolamento, sentimento de vazio e falta de entusiasmo ou, pelo contrário, hiper-excitação que leva mesmo a provocar dores físicas, e finalmente, dissociação, isto é, projecção num outro «eu» que também tenha passado por uma experiência de sofrimento.
Anteciparmo-nos aos traumas através de visualizações e «jogos de papéis» poderão ter uma função preventiva no desencadeamento dos traumas. É muito importante falarmos destes assuntos, verbalizarmos os nossos sofrimentos, e até escrever o que sentimos e tivemos que passar, fazê-lo periodicamente a fim de podermos avaliar a evolução dos danos, até que tudo esteja superado. O meio e o apoio que se receber é de crucial importância. Tanto mais que os danos sofridos devem sempre ser vistos como danos colectivos e nunca como de carácter individual. As pessoas afectadas não devem perder qualquer tipo de vínculo social com o seu meio. Quem com elas se relacionar devem saber escutá-las e evitar o estabelecimento de comparações banais, nem muito menos fazer qualquer tipo de culpabilização. Qualquer profissional que venha em sua ajuda deverá manter alguma relação de simpatia ou tolerância para com a acção das vítimas.
(o texto é uma adptação livre do artigo sobre a mesma matéria publicado pelo jornal Diagonal, na sua última edição)
Mais info:
www.activist-trauma.net
www.aubonnebridge.net
fotos - http://www.aubonnebridge.net/down.php
The Aubonne Photostory -
http://www.aubonnebridge.net/slideshowen/index.html
O trauma resultante de actos violentos de repressão (em inglês):
We have seen that when we suffer a traumatic political experience such as the disappearance of a loved one, torture or fear, we need to integrate it into our lives. You can't put brackets around parts of your own life experiences. A person who has been tortured may try to forget it, or to live as if nothing had happened. But it's not possible: we need to integrate these experiences into our political projects and our lives.
O trauma resultante de actos violentos de repressão (em inglês):
We have seen that when we suffer a traumatic political experience such as the disappearance of a loved one, torture or fear, we need to integrate it into our lives. You can't put brackets around parts of your own life experiences. A person who has been tortured may try to forget it, or to live as if nothing had happened. But it's not possible: we need to integrate these experiences into our political projects and our lives.
Often external circumstances make this integration more difficult. Perhaps the family doesn't have space to talk about it; or repression forces us to flee and gives us no time to stop and face what has happened. Other times the attempts that a person or group has made to face the experience have not been fruitful, so the experience is denied, or conversely, becomes completely overwhelming.
So, we find ourselves with three possible responses to dealing with trauma of a political nature. We have called these responses "normality", "impossibility" and "reintegration".
Normality is characterised by the attempt to deny and repress the effects of the experience, and as a result, the experience itself. This type of attitude often leads to what we have called the "privatisation of pain"; that is to say that the experience is lived in an isolated way, with no space, alone or with others, to deal with the experience. The pain stays inside and it is very difficult to get it out and to share it with others.
Often the oppressive social context and the need to continue the struggle mean that the person the person thinks that it is better to try and forget what has happened, deny its impact, and keep moving forward.
They create blocks in their consciousness and in their relations with others, doing whatever possible to hide the combination of experiences and feelings produced by what happened.
Nonetheless, when the damage done is considerable, there is little point in trying to deny the experience and live a pretend normality. Denying and repressing feelings uses an immense amount of energy and over time the person has less and less energy for the task of rebuilding themselves and giving meaning to the experience.
It is a vicious circle, each denial demands more denials (to oneself and others) and each attempt to repress the feelings uses more and more energy.
This attitude of making yourself be strong is normal, and it can be very useful in some situations, for example when responding to immediate threats. Under torture a person needs to keep their defences up. After an attack much energy is needed to respond to the events, denounce what has happened, etc... However, over time this need to be strong becomes a problem.
There are various defence mechanisms that can be used to deny or repress an experience. These defence mechanisms are not ,in themselves, a bad thing. They are the attempts a person makes to keep going in a social environment that it is often repressive and closed. Nevertheless, over time these defence mechanisms consume a lot of energy. Instead of helping a person to keep going, in the long run they become a problem that weakens them.
Many of these mechanisms lead to isolation and avoidance; such as not wanting to relate to other young people because they remind you of murdered companions, not wanting to receive news as it revives past experiences, etc. This behaviour makes intimate relationships and social ties more difficult, and these things are vital to rebuilding lives and political projects.
Individual responses:Denial: nothing happened...Pretence: acting as if nothing happened.Actively covering up: e.g. inventing a past that has nothing to do with what happened.Distorted Rationalisation: I can't be afraid, i must be strong and forget what I feel.Avoidance: avoiding being around people or in certain situations.Repressing feelings.Not thinking about it.
It is not only individuals that use these defence mechanisms. Families and groups can also use them. A group may respond in this way to experience they have had as a group or to things that have happened to individuals within that group (for example a compañero captures and torured)[some of these group defence mechanisms can be found on the next page]
Forms of group responseLife goes on: not stopping for a minute, as a way of avoiding a "dangerous" conversation and eliminating space to think...The reign of silence: situations in which a topic is not talked about because teh group members prefer to avoid it (for example the disappearance of a family member). I kind of mutual "agreement" is reached to not talk about it.Pretending: Acting as is nothing had happened, although in private all the group members are aware of the situation.Delegating a memebr of the group as the "weak" one, or the only person affected. ("we're fine, it's Jose that's having a bad time...")
These mechanisms are attempts on behalf of the group to maintain a "pretended normality": to act as though nothing had happened. Over time these mechanisms make the group's structure more rigid. As relations within the group become more rigid it becomes harder to approach problems.
The rigidity of the group also brings an increase in tensions within the group which is often unspoken, but makes people snap at things that in other circumstances would be of little importance.
Impossibility is the situation where a person finds an experience so overwhelming that they feel they will never be able to move on. ("there's nothing I can do... they've broken me..") The person finds themself weakened by the conviction that it is impossible to assimilate it and rebuild thier life.
Often this situation arises after many failed attempts to move on. It is possible that the person has not been able to find the space to talk about it and they feel the are "broken".
Other times the attempts to approach the experience have been made when the person was very low and had little energy for the task. This produces the conviction that it is impossible. The person feels they are in a hole with no way of getting out.[on the next page we list some frequent situations]
Sometimes an entire family or group lives a situation of impossibility. They may find themselves "stuck", thinking always of what happened, those who absent, etc... living and overwhelming past. This means that they can't move forward in the present or project into the future, and they find themselves tied to the experience.
The third possible approach, which we have called reintegration, supposes a restructuring of a person or group's life and identity, taking into account the experience (torture, disappearances, persecution, etc.) and not denying it.
It is generally more effective to confront an experience and what it means to a person or their family and friends, than to pretend that nothing has happened. To make this kind of integration work it helps to share feelings with others; evaluate the current situation, project into the future, and perhaps look at what the experience has created.
One of the prerequisites for reintegration is to accept that the experience really happened and to understand its nature.
The second issue is "resocialising" the experience (understanding it, sharing and participating). This makes it possible to:Intergrate the experience and give it meaningOvercome victimisationRecover life and social action
The reintegration we are talking about is not, therefore, just an individual process. It is a group, family and collective process: a process of support.
Through the course of this book we talk about community in a broad sense, as an institution, a place where people live together, work together etc. Nevertheless, now we want to emphasise the community as a group of people who share their experiences and have a sense of mutlual solidarity. In this sense the community has an affectionate dimension, based on human relationships of mutual understandng and support.
The support that can make reintegration of the experience possible is based on rebuilding relations in the community. This support can be social (not leaving anyone alone...), material (improving the quality of life), emotional (making space to share intimate feelings), and political (an encounter with a deeply human and ideological sense).
