Book Reviews

Intimate Enemies: Violence pologists and others working in post-confl ict and Reconciliation in Peru situations well beyond the Andes. The global Kimberley Theidon, 2013, Philadelphia: discourse of ‘trauma’ underlay the TRC’s work University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN: and informed psychological interventions in 9780812244502, 488 pp., Hb. £49.00. Ayacucho as it has in so many other parts of the world; Theidon brings it into juxtaposi- Reviewed by David Orr tion with her informants’ embodied idioms of health and affl iction, and the signifi cance In the 1980s and early 1990s, Peru was con- they placed on forgett ing. In doing so, she vulsed by confl ict between the Maoist revo- adds to the scholarly literature challenging lutionary group Shining Path and the armed the cross-cultural appropriateness of trauma. forces. Nearly 70,000 people died, while the She explores how communities found ways lives of many more were severely disrupted. to reincorporate the arrepentidos, or ‘repentant The ravages of those years have been am- terrorists’, through such means as the sign- ply documented by the country’s Truth and ing of actas (quasi-legal agreements/declara- Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a massive tions), the use of evangelical discourse around project drawing on thousands of testimonies forgiveness, or conceptual frameworks that from those most aff ected. Yet, as Theidon emphasized their ‘re-humanization’. Yet while argues, such a large-scale undertaking neces- the considerable achievements made through sarily tends to impose its own logic on the such forms of social reincorporation are high- accounts gathered and to eff ace more ‘experi- lighted, the narratives of many individuals ence-near’ meanings. Intimate Enemies restores nevertheless show that their success is never to centre-stage the narratives of individuals absolute. Many community members still har- from the peasant communities of Ayacucho, bour signifi cant resentments, despite – or per- the region which suff ered the brunt of the vio- haps because of – the fact that reprisals are so lence, thereby enriching our understanding of scarce, and the book ponders the limits to the the themes discussed in the TRC’s report and acceptance that society can enforce without shedding new light on how practices of recon- more meaningful reparations. ciliation developed or faltered in its wake. Although she in no way neglects men, Thei- Theidon takes as her subject the commu- don gives most prominence to how women nity psychology and individual experiences experienced the confl ict and its aft ermath. This of villagers who survived the destruction only gender perspective is illuminating, showing to fi nd that they then faced the enormous how norms of motherhood, womanhood and challenge of reconstructing meaningful lives widowhood shaped female subjectivities in an together, frequently alongside those who had environment where widespread sexual violence perpetrated humiliation, torture, rape or kill- and bereavement aff ected families dramatically. ing against them or their loved ones. In the She questions in particular whether men’s dom- course of her discussion, she raises a number inance of the public decision-making processes of questions that will be of interest to anthro- around recognition of guilt, and hence recon-

Anthropology in Action, 20, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 58–60 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action ISSN 0967-201X (Print) ISSN 1752-2285 (Online) doi:10.3167/aia.2013.200207 Book Reviews | AiA ciliation, presents an almost insurmountable the heart of the dilemmas facing anthropolo- obstacle to acceptance for some of the women. gists in action today, meeting peoples living The book paints the timeline of the confl ict with insecurity and fear. Bizot, a former French only in broad strokes; readers seeking a his- colonial soldier in Algeria in the 1960s, was tory of Shining Path’s insurgence in Ayacucho studying Khmer Buddhism when he was must look elsewhere. The emphasis here is taken prisoner by the Khmer Rouge in Cam- fi rmly on what people have to say about what bodia in 1971 in their M13 camp on suspicion they lived through and its eff ects on them; of collaborating with the CIA. He was freed many of these stories are murky and partial, on orders of Khmer Rouge leader, ‘Brother as is only to be expected in the close aft ermath Number 1’, Saloth Sar (Pol Pot), and at the plea of such a vicious confl ict. Yet the att entively of his jailor, French educated, Chinese-Khmer described accumulation of ethnographic de- math teacher, Kang Kek Iew/Kaing Guek Eav tail ultimately turns this into a strength, as it (‘Duch’), four years his junior, and against reveals far more about what it is like to live the wishes of ‘Brother Number 4’ Ta Mok. It through the remaking of a social world under was Duch who later headed the famed French such conditions than a more ordered ‘objec- high school turned torture chamber in Phnom tive’ account could ever do. Theidon’s writing Penh, Tuol Sleng, now a museum. Duch was is evocative and accessible, but sensitive to identifi ed in 1990 when he was helping run the harrowing stories she describes. Intimate an orphanage camp for an American Christian Enemies will be of interest to anthropologists organization and quickly sought contact again and others working in post-confl ict areas or with Bizot, perhaps believing that Bizot would on community reconciliation, whether in Latin serve as an intermediary. Yet, it was Bizot’s America or elsewhere in the world. testimony, presented in this book, that helped lead to Duch’s conviction of crimes against David Orr is a Lecturer in the Department of humanity in 2010. Aft er more than U.S.$60 Social Work and Social Care at the University of million in expenses, Duch has been the single Sussex. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology convict at the Cambodian Khmer Rouge tri- from University College London, which focused on als begun in 2008 that sought to criminalize mental disorder among Quechua-speaking peas- the Khmer Rouge but none of the other actors ants in highland Peru. He is currently researching responsible for deaths in Cambodia (from client self-neglect as a challenge for health and so- French colonialism, American bombing caus- cial care professionals in the U.K. Email: D.Orr@ ing some 500,000 deaths, Vietnamese colonial- sussex.ac.uk ism, Chinese colonialism or others). This is a book that raises intriguing ques- tions. As an anthropologist, should Bizot take ‘sides’ and testify against his ‘informant’ or is Facing the Torturer there some moral duty even to mass murder- Francois Bizot, translated by Charlott e ers (who may be ‘criminally insane’ whether Mandell and Antoine Audouard, New York: or not the courts say so; and why in this case Alfred A. Knopf: 2012, Hb. U.S.$25.00, ix, did they not say so)? What role should he play 212 pp., ISBN: 978-0-207-2350-5. in trying to help heal confl ict or to expose the cultural conditions of colonialism and terror Reviewed by David Lempert from other countries (such as the French) that may have ‘created’ the Khmer Rouge? As an The sett ing in French anthropologist Francois anthropologist studying ‘Buddhism’ and rep- Bizot’s book, Facing the Torturer, puts us right at resenting French colonial institutions like the

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Ecole Francaise, as well as a former colonial ideologues (fanatics) and their violence in his soldier, what is his duty to fully refl ect on (our) culture then (or today). Along the way he his own biases? (Indeed, Bizot tells us that he tosses out, with litt le introspection, intriguing was already biased against the Khmer Rouge comments on culture, including his own par- and in favour of the colonial dictatorship. ticipation in cannibalism at a Khmer cremation He ‘hated’ the revolutionaries ‘right away’ (52), on the failure of the U.N. oversight, and because they ‘wanted to replace everything on the horrors of refugee camps under the I loved about Cambodia’, whatever that was Thai military (and their diff erence from those (22). Anthropologists are not supposed to of the Khmer Rouge, which he acknowledged ‘hate’ before fully explaining the full context, were run more eff ectively). but he did and does now. ‘No compromise was Bizot claims his purpose is to ‘shed light on to be considered: the guerillas were either ter- what we have in common’ with Duch, show- rorists or people of uncommon virtue: it was ing that he’s ‘just like the rest of us’ (19) but, all about which side you were on.’ (56)) instead, Bizot does what he criticizes, almost Should Bizot not have a responsibility to dutifully, aiding the courts in assuring retribu- speak out on the implications of imposed tion for the execution of his two assistants. He Western-style legal proceedings (that claim to paints Duch as a robotic ideologue and carica- have a purpose of rehabilitation/punishment, ture, who ‘lived between demons and corpses’ protection, and education but that here simply (32), fi lled with ‘moral degradation’ (28) and targeted a sick (psychopathic) old man whom ultimately in a ‘trap’ that ‘closed over him’ they called sane (!)) while addressing no other (160) in an organization of angry young men crimes and no other psychological needs of the requiring more and more violence to demon- country or victims? Should he not help create strate their obedience in a hierarchy of fear. understanding of motives of all sides that can He could try to help us understand the Khmer help us identify with all of the parties involved Rouge ‘other’ and put their behaviours in cul- and try to then act to rebuild Cambodian cul- tural and psychological context, but he refuses. ture? Should he have a duty to do so? Bizot is right that we need to understand the This book has great potential but it fails. It minds of torturers and tortured to truly recog- is fi lled with hype but no substance. Perhaps it nize ourselves in the ‘other’ and to try to then refl ects the failure of our profession to address heal our world. We live in a world fi lled with the real questions of our time. The writing traumatized peoples and are inclined to repeat style is stream of consciousness and dramatic these cycles of violence by sanitizing them but off ers almost no introspection other than and compartmentalizing them as part of pa- the author’s guilt feelings about viciously kill- triotism and loyalty so that they are justifi ed. ing his own dog, Sarah, in 1963; something he This should be the work of anthropologists in tries to link with Duch’s acts. At the same time, action, but Bizot fails. Far bett er are novelists, he says nothing about his activities in Algeria, biographers, journalists and fi lm-makers who France’s colonial legacy in Cambodia, or the take us inside the minds of the monsters who acts or mindsets of the Americans and others, are us. as if he wishes to sanitize that history (!). U.S. General William Westmoreland said he had to Dr. David Lempert, PhD, JD, MBA, ED (Hon) ‘destroy Indochina’s villages in order to save has spent most of the past decade in Southeast Asia them’. That sounds litt le diff erent from the where he currently heads a cultural heritage project justifi cations used by Duch, but Bizot makes on the Mekong. E-mail: [email protected] no comparisons to mindsets of government

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