Sister Clare Condon - Sanctioned Violence: What does it do to our society and relationships?

I acknowledge the Gadagal People of the Aora nation on whose land we meet.  I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

I come here today as an ordinary citizen.  I am not an academic, nor a lawyer.  I am simply a concerned citizen.

There are many nuances to the meaning of the word violence.  It is about violating another; abusing and damaging; often about the abuse of power. It is associated with vehemence of expression.  Violence is meant to inflict injury by intimidation, dominance and power or from fear, anger and a lack of trust.

Philosophers have sought to explain the underlying causes of violent behaviour,  individual, group or national behaviour.  They ask: Is violence innate to our human nature or does it emerge from learned behaviour? Or, does it evolve from cultural patterns of societal behaviour?

Thomas Hobbes related violence to power;  the seeking of absolute power. Machiavelli saw violence as a part of revenge.  It is safer to be feared than loved.  Martin Luther King saw the societal implications of violence as leading to a descending spiral.  He proposed that violence multiplies evil not diminishes it.  Are we not seeing evidence of this across parts of the world at present?

Some would argue that violence is a form of dissociation, that it results from the opposite of interconnectedness,  that it results from separation and loss. So can violence emerge from the structural inequalities in society?

We could spend our whole time here debating the philosophical, sociological and psychological reasons for the outbreak of violence.  But violence itself raises fundamental social, political, moral and religious questions for us citizens.

In the past week, we have read about or heard of the following events:
• Queensland study:  one woman is killed every week by her partner
• Young Australian men joining terrorist groups;
• Man shot in Leichhardt on Monday night

Some violent acts, depending on where and how they were perpetrated, are regarded as criminal.  However, others are sanctioned by society, even applauded and cheered.  Some are blatant.  Others are covert and subtle.  Some are justified by cultural norms, by the blind eye or the deaf ear.  They happen behind closed doors.  Others are justified by official permission and approval or even by public opinion.

I wish to highlight just four areas of sanctioned violence because it seems to me they are relevant and have an impact on who we are in our society today.

• Australia's Response to Asylum Seekers and Refugees
• Sanctioned Violence in Sport
• Domestic Violence the hidden nightmare for many women
• Media Violence - an impact on Human Behaviour?

Often, violence is portrayed as the necessary outcome of responding to the enemy.  Currently, in the Australian community the government is justifying the use of violence  to stop smuggling of asylum seekers. This approach has bipartisan support.

Unfortunately, this inhumane approach has been driven by public opinion generated by the politics of fear of the other, of the stranger.  The nature of this violence is hidden from the public's eye by secrecy and by holding people in detention in remote areas of Australia or offshore deals with developing countries, such as Nauru and Manus Island of PNG.

The mantra Stop the Boats  demonises desperate people fleeing violence and persecution in their countries of origin.   It is emotive language which attempts to justify government  policy in a subtle but no less sanctioned form of violence towards humans.  In letters from government justifying its behaviour, these people seeking refuge have been called illegal maritime arrivals.  They have had their identity as human beings expunged. 

Such demonisation sanitizes the reality for the Australian public.  As a consequence our societal and racial relationships are diminished and subtly eroded.  We can begin to believe that some humans are more worthy than others.  We can begin to believe that such actions are justified and normal, when in fact the government of the nation is engaged in sanctioned violence.  For example, to date no one has been held accountable for the death of Rezra Berati at Manus Island on 17 February, 2014.  On Christmas Island women have been placed on suicide watch, for exhibiting extreme signs of depression and self harm. Others have reported verbal abuse and mockery by processing staff.

In commenting on the Australian Government's detention of asylum seekers on a custom boat for nearly a month, Nitin Pai a foreign policy expert and director of the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore commented: I am sympathetic to Australia's need to prevent illegal immigration but this is a moral and legal sleight of hand.   In his article in the Sydney Morning Herald, John Garnaut argues that, in this instance, the assessment of policy by the Australian government in negotiation with another government, namely India was done on the basis of the implications for economic trade between the nations rather than the moral requirements or the human rights of the asylum seekers. Subsequently, these people have been sent to Nauru in a covert secret overnight removal, with no process to determine even their status.

Children are been held in detention centres. Last reported numbers were that there are137 children on Christmas Island without the provision of their basic human rights and the dignity due to them. There were 37 children of the 157 people on the customs boat on the ocean for some weeks and apparently now in detention on Nauru.  The consequences of such detention is a violation with the potential for significant long term mental health issues, as evidenced in the submissions of Dr Peter Young and Professor Elizabeth Elliot at the AHRC Inquiry into Children in Detention.   These children are exposed to brutal, negative and neglectful modelling.  The consequences of such detention is likely to breed  a dissociative reality for these children, leading as suggested by Martin Luther King to a spiral of hatred and evil within their own experiences of life. This detention is in direct violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document which Australia ratified in 1990. (It includes in its statement:

Children should not be detained unlawfully or arbitrarily,  CRC art 37 (b) and Children should only be detained as a measure of last resort, and for the shortest appropriate period of time. CRC art 37 (b)  Children in detention should be treated with humanity and respect. CRC art 37 (b.)

As citizens, we must ask: What behaviour do we propose for the future human development and relationships for these innocent children? So is society encouraged to be vindictive, self serving, aggressive in all its relationships with anyone who is identified as a stranger, rather than a society which is welcoming, other centred, and compassionate, respecting the dignity of the other in those relationships.  In one response that I received from government it stated that it would not be involved in misguided compassion.  True compassion is a strong virtue.  It is the antithesis of violence. There is nothing weak and soft about a well guided compassionate response.

Walter Schulz, a German philosopher argues that compassion becomes an ethical authority of great significance; in fact it is the only authority and counter force to cruelty, which depersonalises the other and degrades him or her to a simple object of destructive desire.  Compassion is the very final possibility for saving the human person in his or her naked existence in the face of the direct negation of this existence.

Sanctioned Violence in Sport

If this scene had been depicted in downtown George Street or outside this building here, police would have been called and criminal charges would have been instituted. And all of us would have said: rightly so.

Sport is a basic feature of Australian life and culture. It has an essential role to play in a healthy society.  Violence on the playing field and amongst spectators not only sets a bad example to impressionable young people it is destructive of basic civil relationships. Put simply, an unruly crowd can mar a family outing on a weekend afternoon.  It can also instil fear and anxiety especially in children.

There has been little recent research done on quantifying the level of violence on and off the field in Australian sport.  Violence on the field can be viewed as the sacred cow. There are significant vested interests to subvert any attempt to study the area in a serious manner.  Recent inquiries into the use of performance enhancing drugs in a variety of sports is a sign of the degree of personal violation that takes place to achieve certain results in the so called elite classes of sport.

But this photo depicts a game of footie and has been taken from a Sydney newspaper..  Don't get me wrong! I enjoy most sports and as a child was taken to the rugby league on most Sunday afternoons.  I am not targeting rugby league.  What I say is relevant to other codes of contact sports. However, it seems to me that violence has increased. I suspect that the introduction of high monetary stakes as well as sports betting has influenced this increase in violence in contact sports. I find it curious, that the ARL has sought to improve the insurance scheme for its injured players, rather than seeking to reduce the impact of violence on the field.  Why? Is it because rugby league is a billion dollar industry now, not a sport?  The injury to Alex McKinnon the Newcastle player was a tragic event. But I ask: how was it an accident, when what led to it was a violation of the basic rules of the game?  Do the normal expectations of civil behaviour cease once the players step onto the field?  Does the constant replay of those moments of violence and thuggery seek to justify them as acceptable behaviour?

Often, direct acts of violence are promoted by commentators and officials. There is a growing gladiatorial image, a macho image being promoted which sets a very low standard for role modelling to young men and boys. One is not a real man unless one is like these highly paid macho stars.  Such images are often supported by alcohol and drug induced violence off the field. Some sports are actually sponsored by the producers of alcohol. There are examples of fractured relationships with partners and examples of AVO's being sought from sports stars, who have been presented as role models to children.

Is it not time for some extensive research on the facts and some community discussion on the type of role modelling that sport ought to be portraying to the youth of this nation and what kind of relationships, society might expect to support and sustain for an advanced civil democratic society?

Domestic Violence the hidden nightmare for many women

You might think it odd, that I have placed violence in sport before one of the most hidden and often justified or sanctioned violence of the household - Domestic Violence.  Domestic Violence impacts mostly on women and children. It is often hidden, excused and justified from a male perspective. The macho image often promoted by sport can become the macho image for some men in their day to day behaviour. Are they connected or not?

Statistics taken from The Nature and Extent of Sexual Assault and  Abuse in Australia, by Cindy Tarczon and Antonia Quadara in 2012,  indicate:

• 17% of women aged 18 years and over have experienced sexual assault since the age of 15

• The relationship of women to the sexual assault perpetrator is at 87.7%. 
• Only 1 in 7 who experienced violence from an intimate partner indicated, that they had reported the most recent incident to police.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics -  Personal Safety Survey, reported in 2006  noted that:

• 1 in 5 women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.
• It is estimated that 1 in 3 women will be sexually abused before the age of 16.

• Women with an intellectual disability are 90% more likely to be subjected to a sexual assault than women in the general population. 

In Australia, 90% of Aboriginal women and 82% of non-Aboriginal women in prison have been sexually abused at some point in their lives.

In 2011, The National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children estimated the cost of domestic violence to the Australian Community to be around $13.6 billion per annum.

The Child Protection Australia Report 2012-13 of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare  reported the following:

Between 2010/11 and 2012/13 there was a 29% increase in the number of children who were subjects of substantiations of sexual abuse, thereby reversing previous downward trends.  Most substantiations were from areas of lowest socioeconomic status.

In a small refuge for women and children in Melbourne conducted by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan each year close to 500 women and children seek shelter, the vast majority as a result of domestic violence.

These statistics are chilling. Domestic violence often leads to homelessness, further  abuse of children, significant health issues for both the woman and her children, ongoing economic hardship, unemployment and social, psychological and family isolation.  Thus the capacity for building strong, healthy and mutual relationships in the future is undermined and damaged severely. Many women have had to live in situations of corrosive control where fear stops them from breaking out of destructive relationships and seeking a level of basic human freedom.

Sanctioned violence towards women and children is not only physical violence but often emotional and psychological abuse, which renders them unable to live a productive and sustainably healthy life into the future.

As written by Hannah Piterman Adjunct Professor at Monash University, and I quote extensively here:

It is the ubiquity of ordinary sexism that creates the circumstances for violence against women and sees it as the leading cause of death and disability in Australian women aged 15 to 44.  In Australia a woman is murdered every week at the hands of her partner or ex.  Worldwide, 35% of women experience either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

The normalisation of pervasive sexism is the slippery slope that sees violence against women excused and sanctioned.  It occurs by an insidious erosion of their dignity as whole human beings subliminally rendering them as part objects of secondary and inferior status.

I need here also to address the sexual abuse of children within the context of Institutions, and the response of institutions which is the focus of the current Royal Commission.  My own church, the Catholic Church is the subject of much criticism for past practices in which it has seemingly placed the reputation of the church ahead of its responsibility to children.  It again highlights the power differential that has existed and has allowed such clergy sexual abuse to remain hidden and sanctioned by the highest levels of authority.  Abuse by those held in some degree of esteem and trust within the community is a betrayal of such trust and as we have seen, has a long term destructive impact on survivors. This sanctioned violation of young people has damaged the trust and the faith of numerous young people.  The church has a long and hard road ahead to rebuild its credibility and trust.

Media Violence - an impact on Human Behaviour?

There would be some who would say the jury is still out. Conflict is what makes a good story!  Violence has always been a part of the movie world, but now movie violence, TV violence and Electronic Games have become the norm.  They are louder, more vicious and bloodier. Some USA research suggests that by the time a child is 18, he/she has watched some 200,000  acts of violence.

The Australian Psychological Society in 2013 updated its report: Media Representations and Responsibilities: Psychological Perspectives.   It notes that there have been hundreds of reports with diverse views on the impact of media violence particular on children.  However, it confidently states that from the vast literature, there is reasonable consensus on some critical issues, such as -  the long exposure of children  to violence portrayed in the mass media leads to long term aggressive behaviour.  Whether there is such a detrimental effect depends on the social context that is whether the violence is watched with a discerning adult who can assist the child in critiquing the experience.  Crimes by youth and people with a mental illness are more likely to be over reported and dramatised in the media.  And finally, I quote: it is common for the media to present simplistic Uni-dimensional analysis of conflict, where ethnic difference is in itself given as a cause of the conflict.

There are certainly other examples of sanctioned violence that we could consider.  There is the growing militarism across the world, the proliferation of arms sales, the urgent concern for the environment degradation taking place.

My concern is the impact sanctioned violence has on society and on ordinary day to day relationships.  I believe some of the consequences can be corrosive and long term. Where violence is sanctioned and regarded as acceptable and routine, then societal norms are being set in place for the future. Such acts become embedded into the cultural fabric of the society.  If it is acceptable for a government to treat strangers in a cruel and demeaning manner, then it becomes acceptable for the citizen to treat the stranger in a similar manner. If it is acceptable to use excessive violence on a sports field, then why not off the field in school yards.  If it is acceptable to exercise excessive violence in the private space at home, then why not on the streets.  If it is acceptable to spend hours watching real or virtual violence on a screen, why not activate the same violence in ordinary relationships.  The cultural myth making processes of the society  begin to re-enforce violence as a survival mechanism in daily life.  Violent responses to problem solving  begin to over-ride other more civilised, humane and compassionate responses to such problems.  A society can be plunged into  the myth of the survival of the fittest, where the powerful snuff out the aspirations of the weak; where might is right.  My congregation of religious women follows a fifth century rule of St Benedict, a way of life which helped to civilise Europe after generations of wars.  Benedict's dictum for his followers was that all should be structured so that the strong have something to strive for and that the weak have nothing to run from.

Kenan Malik in his recent book: The quest for a Moral Compass- A Global History of Ethics, writes:

If everyone were to believe that truthfulness is bad and torture good, that would damage all our lives in a fundamental way.  There would be a tear in the very fabric of society.  Moral questions may not have objective answers but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need.  To bring reason to bear upon social relations, to define a rational answer to a moral question, requires social engagement and collective action.  

In those areas of our society where violence is sanctioned, we citizens need to actively participate in social engagement and collective action.

We need to say no more, we can do much better. And I repeat:  Compassion is the very final possibility for saving the human person in his or her naked existence in the face of the direct negation of this existence.' 

Clare Condon – Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict