Beers & Books CCLVXXX – John Hume

Difference is of the essence of humanity.
Difference is an accident of birth and should therefore
never be the source of hatred or conflict.
The answer to difference is to respect it.
Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace:
respect for diversity.

John Hume (18 January 1937 – 3 August 2020)

Playground

Derry, Bogside, July 1985

What man is learning from the past

"The five techniques consisted of hooding, sleep deprivation, white noise, a starvation diet, and standing for hours spreadeagled against a wall, 'leaning on their fingertips like the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle. The only sound that filled the room was a high-pitched throb, which the detainees liken to an air compressor. The noise literally drove them out of the minds.' These techniques were accompanied by continual harrassment, blows, insults, questioning. This treatment usually went on for six or seven days. [...] I spoke to a psychiatrist who had the thankless task of trying to rehabilitate some of the interrogation victims (at the behest of [...]), and he told me that they were 'broken men', most of whom did not survive into their fifties. [...]

After they arrested me, I was thrown into a lorry where I got a kicking. Then I was taken to another barracks where I got another kicking. They took me up in a helicopter and told me they were going to throw me out. I thought we were hundreds of feet up, but were only up a few feet. They sat Alsatians on me. My thigh was all torn, and they made me run in bare feet over broken glass.

H[...] was then subjected to the 'five techniques'. [...] "

*

Passage taken from a report about torture in - Guantanamo? No.
- Abu Ghraib? No.
- Kadyrovs private torture 'apartment'? No.
- Prisons in China, Nigeria, Syria, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam? No.
- Iran? No.
- Argentina (1976-1983)? No.
- Chile (1973-1990)? No.

- No, I am quoting from pages 126/127 of Tim Pat Coogan's The Troubles - Irelands Ordeal 1966-1995 and the Search for Peace, published by Hutchinson, 1995.

Why?

Just to assure that man is able to learn from the past / history - at least what depends doing to others what they would not wish to be done to themselves.