RubySoho
Winston
When Is A Monster Not A Monster?
May 13th 2008 01:43
...when he's a human being
This is the face of Joseph Fritzl, currently the most hated man in Austria and the notorious ‘incest cellar’ man who kept his own daughter locked up as a sex slave in the cellar of his house for 24 years.
From the age of 18 Elisabeth Fritzl existed for no other reason but to provide sexual favours to her father. She bore him seven children, three of whom lived in the cellar with her and until their release a few short weeks ago, had never seen daylight. The oldest one was 19 years old. 19 and had never meet a human being outside her immediate family, never seen the sun come up, never had a sleepover with her friends, never dipped her toes in the ocean, never been to the movies, never been kissed by a boy.
Understandably, in an attempt to comprehend the sheer magnitude of Joseph’s crimes, the world has dehumanised him. ‘Monster’, ‘animal’ and ‘devil’, are some of the words being used to describe him. In her post Incest Monster Terrified Prostitutes, Anne on The Female View stated “I will always think of him as a monster and not a man". Anne’s views mirror those of many others. I myself have previously referred to George Bush as 'a monster'. But why is it that we give people who commit such crimes these names in an effort to dehumanise them, when in fact, their actions are all too human?
The fact is the humans have a long and sordid history of murdering, torturing, raping, exploiting and generally fucking each other over. We have devised the most intricate methods of causing unimaginable and prolonged pain to each other. For an engrossing if truly disturbing read see Horrorphile Bryn’s post The Exquisite and Delicate Art of Torture. From the Brazen Bull of ancient Rome to the medieval garrotte favoured by the Inquisitors to the weatherboarding and sensory deprivation currently in use at Guantanamo Bay (and by a so-called civilised western democracy no less).
And then there are the state-run mass murders and acts of genocide. Over 9 million killed by the Holocaust. Concurrently, Stalin’s pogroms resulted in the death of 20 million of his fellow Russians. The Killing Fields of Cambodia, America’s 'Secret War' in Laos, the plight of the Kurds in Saddam’s Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Kenya…on and on and on it goes.
It wasn’t monsters or animals or the devil himself who killed those people. It was their fellow human beings. All in the name of power and hatred. As I write this the Burmese government is still refusing to allow aid into its cyclone ravaged state, preferring to allow its stricken population to die of starvation and disease then admit they need the help of foreigners. In Gaza, the humanitarian crisis continues, with the closure of a power plant forcing its 1.5 million inhabitants to live in the dark, even as its neighbour Israel celebrates her 60th anniversary in lavish style. The death toll in Iraq now exceeds 650 000 and then there are the tens of thousands maimed and the millions displaced.
All the victims of the actions of other human beings. I am always amused when I hear the phrases “it’s inhumane” and “that’s just not human!” I happen to find such atrocities all too human actually. We live in a world where children are sold into sex slavery, where poor people are duped into risking their lives to act as international drug runners, where a woman is raped every two minutes in the United States alone (US Dept of Justice statistics), where 2% of the population control 98% of the wealth, where the rights of workers are being depleted rather than strengthened as time marches on. Whatever happened to “every generation should live better than the last”?
Human beings can be nasty creatures and no alien, no predator, no zombie, no werewolf can come even close to perpetrating the horrors and injustices that humans inflict on each other every minute of everyday of every year. One of the moments of my school experience that I remember most clearly was when my favourite teacher, Mr Pappasava (one of those rare and brilliant teachers who can simultaneously entertain and impart lasting knowledge on his pupils), told us that if you were look over the history of the human race since records began, the amount of time that there hasn’t being a war raging somewhere in the world comes to less than two years. Less than 2 years out of over 6000.
The Fritzl story prompted me do some research on other people who had been held captive in similar circumstances and this is some of what my search yielded:
Natascha Kampusch: Austrian girl kidnapped off the street at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and kept in a small (5sq. metres) cellar under his garage. Initially confined to this small space at all times, Kampusch was eventually allowed into other parts of the house and yard when her captor was not at work. Kampusch escaped when she was vacuuming Priklopil’s car in his yard and he took a phone call. She saw a small window of opportunity for freedom, left the vacuum cleaner on and ran for her life. Priklopil committed suicide upon her escape.
Maria K: Mentally challenged Austrian woman locked in a wooden chest by her parents for nine years.
The Linz sisters: Austrian (again!), girls locked in a cellar by their mentally impaired mother.
Carol Smith (not her real name): Also known as ‘The Girl in the Box’. 20-year-old hitchhiker picked up by Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice in Oregon in 1977. Carol was imprisoned as a sex slave for seven years and slept in a coffin underneath the couple’s bed.
Tanya Nicole Kach: American teenager abducted by Thomas John Hose, her school’s security guard and kept locked up on the top floor of his house for ten years. Her captor’s parents lived on the bottom floor of the house and were unaware that their son had his very own sex slave living with him.
Steven Stayner: Seven-year-old boy kidnapped by serial paedophile Kenneth Parnell in 1972. Kept as a sex slave for seven years in a cabin near Yosemite National Park.
The gut wrenching truth of the matter is that right now, even as you read this, there are humans been held against their will, there are people been tortured and raped. There are people preparing to board aeroplanes with millions of dollars of heroine strapped to their bodies, there are people been exploited, there are children been molested, there are people been abused.
Perhaps the Fritzl case has captured the imagination of the public more than others due to the relationship of the victims and perpetrator. But we are kidding ourselves if we say this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often. That humans don’t usually treat each other in this way.
It happens all the time. The question is why? And how do we deal with it?
Ruby
References:
Sex Slaves: The crime library
American Rape Statistics
Yahoo Answers: Austrians locked in cellars
Lancet Study: Mortality after 2003 invasion of Iraq
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Comment by samaritan
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Even though humanes are capable of doing some pretty awful stuff, I like to think that it still is out of the norm. Most normal people would be horrified at these people's actions.
I also think that even though wars and atrocities are pretty common, there's something deep inside of us that knows that's not the way that humans should be acting. That's why we call certain acts inhumane. It acts against what we think norman human behaviour should be like.
Samaritan.
Comment by RubySoho
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Oh, I know there is much good in the world and the world ia also filled with wonderful people but I really think we are our own worst enemy. True.
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Comment by postmoderncritic
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I don't believe that anybody is beyond help. I believe firtzl could come to mourn for his behaviour and become a better person. Calling him a monster diminishes his chances of doing so. It's going to be hard enough for him already to make his way into a more peaceful existence. What he needs is respect, and the acknowledgement of his humanity.
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Comment by RubySoho
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Comment by RubySoho
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PMC- I don't know if I could give Fritzl any respect, in light of his serious crimes, but I do know that he is still human regardless. To be honest with you, I don't know that he could ever mourn for his behaviour- he had 24 years to change his mind. I pity him sure but I don't know the best way to deal with his case- I really don't. I'm just glad I don't have that job. Either he goes to jail or he goes into psychiatric care. Either way, it won't give his daughter her 24 years back nor will it prevent all those other similar crimes from occurring. Humans are screwed. We just are.
Hi Peter the wonderful - I guess one of the points I was trying to make is that we can't get rid of such people. They are in us and amongst us. And there are way too many of them. Besides which, sometimes it's the government that is the problem.
Comment by postmoderncritic
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i don't think humans are screwed - I think everyone has the ability to work out their problems, no matter how deeply rooted. I believe in people because I have seen people do extraordinary things. They're capable of anything, bad and good. Don't forget that for every vile thing that is done there is also a wonderous one.
Comment by RubySoho
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Yes, I agree, humans are capable of good and bad. But when we catagorise people who do wrong as "monsters" and "devils", we are giving the human race too much credit- its humans who are doing this to themselves after all, I think it's just time we acknowledged that. But I do hope he comes to terms with his own demons.
Comment by Lilla
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I am glad someone has finally posted on this man and his activities ... what surprised me was - the other day - a few people I know were talking about it and they all agreed that he was "getting off" by pleading insanity?
I mean, 'Der, surely what he has done cannot be considered sane?'
Personally, what appalls me the most about the way "we deal with it" is that under Austrian law he can only be charged with rape and get a maximum of 14 years, unless they can make the murder, with intent charge, "stick" for the grandchild that died and was stuffed into the incinterator.
Gosh, I think I am going to be sick again.
Lilla ...
Comment by Morgan Bell
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how old was she when she was locked up?
didnt she have a mother or any other relatives?
wasnt there a birth record and an expectation she would be enrolled in school?
how does a person slip through the cracks like that?
Comment by RubySoho
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I'm with you, the guy cannot possibly be all there. It's funny when people think pleading insanity is like "getting off" as its usually much harder to get out of an institution than out of jail.
But how can he only be charged with rape? Don't they have a law against false imprisonment? 14 years? That's 18 years less than she got...
Morgan- He lied and told everyone she ran off and joined a cult. Even forced her to write letters begging her mother not to look for her. She was 18 when locked up but he had been raping her since she was 11. Her mother lived in the house upstairs along with her numerous brothers and sisters. I don't know why they all believed his story so readily. Nor do I know how he could have spent so much time in the cellar without anyone, ever, ever, wondering what he was really doing down there. I really don't know...
Comment by Winston
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Very interesting post, Ruby.
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Comment by Mountain Fog
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QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
frankly, a lot of what people say about this bizarre situation, and yes there are just too many other situations that are similar to Fritzl case, really shows people have a need to understand, a need to deal with the problems, a need to distance themselves from the horror of his actions, and a need for a solution.
With so much of it in history, and continuing ad infinitum, (into the future no doubt), it leads me to be stronger in my long held conviction that these sorts of people are mentally disabled, and they need proper treatment and appropriate hospitalisation, that both secures them away from the public, and treats them in a humane way, in order to effect a properly extensive, exhaustive and effective treatment programme that, hopefully, will bring many to a normal mind set, thus eliminating the threat of re-occurrance once they are released.
Ordinary crimminal gaols and the simple and ineffective 'treatment' system we currently use obviously does not work well for a lot of these types of people.
I think therapy should be ongoing, after release, they must join a therapy group which they must attend every week, failure to do so results in immediate arrest.
This system at least will do two things, start to put a properly funded psychological programme into place to study the mind sets that lead to these terrible acts, and therefore lead to prevention programmes that identify early on who is at risk of committing these acts, and giving them effective preventative treatment.
As it stands, we might as well shoot everyone, for we gaol them, let them be brutalised, release them to jobless and relationship ostracision and more organized and targeted torment by agencies and then, all too often, they re-offend, or look like they might, so are arrested on suspicion for being in the wrong place.
This does not solve the problem, it does not give a future resolve to find a cure.
As you say, this behaviour has been with mankind since we crawled out of a swamp and started wearing loin cloths and bashing women over the head with clubs to gain their 'affections'...
It is time we smartened up, and get interested in finding solutions, rather than appease the blood thirsty with punishments, which for the most part, do nothing.
Let's find ways to cure and rid the world of these pernicious problems I say!
cheers
fog
Comment by RubySoho
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Hi fog, thanks for the compliment and your very well articiulated response. I agree wholeheartedly, simply locking such people away in a criminal jail does nothing to decrease these types of crimes - or their tendency to be repeated.
I'm glad people responded to so well to this post- i was a little worried everyone would start calling me names ..the world is also full of intelligent, thoughtful people too...yay!
Comment by postmoderncritic
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I think there is another victim, and that's Fritzl himself.
Comment by RubySoho
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emotional and (very likely mental) problems of their father...he is the victim of the demons inside his head. I am not going to give in to any base desire to condemn him and ask for his head on a platter....but there is no way I could ever feel the amount of compassions and sheer heartbreak that I feel for those that were locked away from the world to satisfy his own own desires. He needs help, I know that. I pity him, but I can't say I empathise with him- does that make sense?
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One may argue a case for mental illness. This man is not ill. This crime was carefully conceived, planned in advance and carried out with a degree of calculation over an extended period of time that would not be possible unless he was not only sane but highly intelligent. How else do you think he pulled it off for so long?
No this man is not a monster he is a man; one capable of feeling no compassion at all for his victims. There is no amount of psychotherapy bullshit that is going to make this man want to atone for his actions. The man has no capacity for guilt and you cannot teach a person to feel guilt or remorse. You either have it in you or you don't.
And as much as I don't like going on personal attacks, I'm sure you are a very nice well meaning empathic person PMC but unfortunately it's people with your do-gooder philosophy, that everyone can be 'fixed', that are the very reason that paedophiles do short gaol terms, have some therapy and are released and go on to hurt other children. Statistically the recidivism rate is incredibly high. Even when castrated many paedophiles admit that their desires do not go away. It is a part of who they are. Whether you like it or not, there will always be a section of the human race that are capable of terrible things. Some don't want to be 'fixed' and some can't be. Therefore they should be removed from society completely.
Would you have had Hitler undergo counselling for the atrocities he committed had he been captured and undergone trial? Do you feel that he should have been given a chance to atone?
Sorry the whole "he deserves respect" comment made me see red. Why should anyone show respect to someone that has shown no respect for the freedom, dignity and right to not be beaten, raped and terrorised of his his victims.
Ruby, this was a very well written post.