Suchergebnisse

This paper is concerned with how Aimé Césaire in Une tempête d'après de Shakespeare proceeds along the colonizer/colonized lines of Shakespeare's composition. The difference between the two playwrights, however, is that Shakespeare was problematizing the colonizer/colonized relationship for his strictly English (i.e. colonizer) audience, while Césaire was writing for both the colonizers and the colonized. And though there are differences in the way the playwrights thought out the problem of master-slave relations, there is a striking similarity in how they expounded this relationship of Magician-Duke and Monster-Slave. Only the slave who desires freedom resists the master. It is this very relationship of resistance that must be discussed. Because Césaire was unabashedly Hegelian in his thinking, and because Shakespeare's understanding of the master/slave relationship was Hegelian avant la lettre, the study takes a Hegelian line of thought as its core, specifically Alexandre Kojève's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (most notably, chapter 1). Central to this reading is the fact that in order to become free the slave must engage the master in mortal combat. But having the slave die would symbolize the perpetual oppression and death of all colonized peoples, and so neither author allows Caliban to die. In order to highlight today's postcolonial reality, Césaire extends this theme further: by not killing Caliban, and by remaining on the island, Prospero admits that his own being is defined by the Other, his slave.

Torture has been illegal in most of Europe and the United States for over a century but persisted in other parts of the world. The changing geopolitical landscape has led to its resurgence in recent years. The public rejection of traditional forms of torture that rely on the infliction of physical pain has paradoxically increased the reliance on psychological methods of torture. This critical commentary aims to define and characterize psychological torture (PT) while exploring practical, legal, ethical and therapeutic implications relevant to clinicians and policymakers. Psychological torture comes in a range of forms. It is being increasingly justified and adopted by legitimate authorities in the name of national security. The emphasis on the avoidance of physical pain leads to the assumption that PT does not produce the levels of suffering and harm that are associated with physically violent forms of torture. This same assumption has allowed for the implication of mental health professionals in theorizing and providing legitimacy for the actions of perpetrators. Psychological torture is still poorly defined with limited understanding of its long-term psychiatric impact on those who are subjected to it. The role of mental health professionals in preventing or addressing psychological torture remains ambiguous and needs to be reinforced.

The experiences of irregular combatants and the psychosocial impact of their participation in violent conflict are poorly understood in comparison to the body of research available on military veterans in developed countries. The Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) was an archetypal intra-national armed conflict, involving thousands of civilians turned fighters. Fifteen former fighters were interviewed about their active involvement in the war. The qualitative analysis reveals a persistent psychosocial burden decades later. Former paramilitary fighters have needs that overlap only partially with those of regular veterans. Further research on this population would be beneficial to global peacebuilding efforts and conflict prevention.