This week, we primarily focused on an exempt from Judith Butler’s novel “Frames of War”, in which Butler talks about different perspectives and thoughts on the War on Terror. A key idea that Butler wanted to convey was seeing things in different “frames”, and how the same event or occurrence can be interpret differently. Some of these ideas include views of a society as a whole and the global view on humanity.
Butler makes a lot of reference to the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and how they are given inhumane treatment whilst detained against their will without prosecution. A key quote that we analyzed in class today was “the body is a social phenomenon” on page 33. “The body” refers to the body of those wrongfully tortured in Guantanamo Bay and how their physical can have a social representation; these individual not only represent themselves, but also the collective society they come from. In a sense, the torturing of these victims is transcended to the societies they’re from, a collective suffrage. This relates closely to our studies on Obasan and how the treatment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II is an collective memory for all Japanese-Canadians of future generations. So these torture incidents, in some ways, reflect how the US government and some Americans view the Islamic culture and religion, as non-human radicals who conducted atrocities such as 9/11.
Another important idea that arisen from the essay and our discussion is our commonality amongst all people, our humanity. Dr. Luger gave examples of how many soldiers are trained to not see their enemies as humans so they can kill without hesitation. We discussed about how despite each of us being a person of different race, religion, nationality and culture, we are all people on the same planet. And yet these torturing activities conducted by the US government clearly violated even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a UN declaration signed and recognized by all states. I would also like to argue that even in warfare, there should be humanity and respect amongst all sides. After Germany had first used chemical weapons in WWI, a global consensus was reached of not using chemical weapons ever again because of its devastating effects it caused. We also created the ideas of honor and chivalry, so that when conflicts are imminent or required, people would fight fairly and with pride.
To conclude, it is crucial for all of us to be able to see from more than one frame, to see from more than one perspective. One man’s traitor, is another man’s patriot. One man’s terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter. And whilst seeing different perspectives, remember that no matter who it is, he/she is another human being as well.
