In Guantanamo Bay and secret US prisons, music is used as a form of psychological torture on the prisoners within. Songs ranging from Metallica's Enter Sandman to the theme song to Barney are played at deafening levels, all day every day. This practice is perceived as a lighter form of torture, and therefore okay to use. The damage on the mind is much more severe, as one prisoner describes the feeling of losing his sanity as monumentally more horrific than any physical torture he had experienced. Compare this practice to the events in Death and the Maiden, in which Roberto put Paulina under similar psychological torture while he raped her.
zero dB is an initiative set up by Reprieve to educate people about music torture and stop this practice. You can learn and read more about this issue on zero dB's website.
I think this is an interesting comparison to Death and The Maiden. The attachment of music to torture is present in both situations. For Paulina, she says that her torturer put on the music to ease her suffering, but at these prisons it is a punishment in itself to listen to the music. Also, it is interesting how the man noted the strength of the mental torture in comparison to physical torture, explaining further Paulina's attachment to the piece "Death and the Maiden."
ReplyDeleteThis post made me realize that I didn't know much about various forms of torture, so I spent the past half hour or so reading about them.
ReplyDeleteWhile everything I just read made me cringe, I can see how sound torture can be extremely psychologically damaging not only during the actual torture but for years after as well. Paulina went to an orchestra at the end of the play and had to sit through the same song she was tortured to; the same thing could happen here -- someone who was tortured to Metallica's Enter Sandman and was released can't live their life without being concerned that they will hear that song when they're in their car, at the mall, etc etc.
The part that scares me most is that because it is not as clearly damaging a form of torture as physical harm, it slips under the radar for the most part. The consequences of this type of abuse could haunt the victim for the rest of his or her life. Torture is damaging no matter what form it takes, physical or psychological.
ReplyDeleteIt is also ineffective as a tool to get information. Victims of torture will say anything to relieve their suffering, whether it's true or made up. So why is our nation doing this to our prisoners, if not in the interest of national security?