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Home » Hostages and nightmare

Hostages and nightmare

The New Neo Posted on by

A nightmare is different than an anxiety dream, although the latter is bad enough. But whereas an anxiety dream makes a person feel uneasy, a nightmare transports the dreamer into a world of pure evil in which the sleeper feels a much deeper sense of dread and dislocation. It is a relief to wake up and realize it’s only a dream. But the nightmare reveals our deepest fears and the vulnerability that comes with being human.

Fairy tales are powerful because they often deal with nightmare scenarios that are then overcome. The hero meets the witch or ogre or troll or wild animal that wishes to kidnap or eat or kill, and the plucky little boy or girl has to call on cleverness, goodness, kindly spirit animals, fairy godmothers, or other benign forces that exist as well in the universe of the dream and manage to help the child counteract the evil.

The child knows, or senses, that vulnerability. Something might lurk under the bed or in the closet, something might come to get the child and snatch him or her away from the comfort and protection of home. But fortunately that happens very rarely.

And yet it happens. The Israeli children kidnapped on October 7 are examples of the horror of a nightmare come true. This also is true for any kidnapped child (or adult, actually), some of whom have become quite well-known. Elizabeth Smart, for example. Those three girls in Cleveland, Ohio – remember? – kept in captivity for about 10 years by the sadistic Ariel Castro. Steven Stayner. And many more.

All of those kidnap victims I just mentioned were sexually abused. You may or may not be familiar with the details, and yet that was a prominent part of what happened to them. Some managed to heal quite well after they were freed, and some did much less well.

Yet another kidnapped sexual abuse victim was Patty Hearst, whom I’ve written about previously in this post. Many people are unaware of that aspect of her kidnapping, perhaps because she was a bit older (19) when it happened and probably because she seemed to voluntarily join her kidnappers in their crimes later on. But she was tortured first: blindfolded, kept in a closet for weeks, and raped.

Now that almost all of the Israeli children Hamas kidnapped have come home, their stories are coming out. And it’s clear that they have experienced extremely serious trauma, on par with nightmare. Here is a discussion of some of what happened:

These children – and their families – were suddenly plunged into a truly nightmare world. I mean that in the literal sense, although of course they were awake and not asleep. Their real world because nightmarish. The protection and love on which children rely had disappeared, except for the slightly luckier ones who were with family or people they knew and loved. But they were all – including those adults – completely at the mercy of evil people. And as Patty Hearst herself said much later on (in a 2002 Larry King interview):

You know how when people have been held hostage, one of the first questions they get asked is, how were you treated? And the answer is almost always I was treated, you know, pretty well. And by that, they usually mean they weren’t killed.

I am very glad the children are back. I assume it will take most of them a long time to heal and attain a semblance of normalcy, but I also assume they never will be the same. But I hope they will – as Hemingway said – be strong at the broken places.

Comments

Hostages and nightmare — 28 Comments

  1. I honestly don’t know why the world allows the unthinkable only for the Jews com not trying to suck up. Doesn’t the world know it it can happen to them it can happen to you?

  2. The phrase “sexually abused” doesn’t seem remotely sufficient for some of these cases. Something like “extreme sexual slavery and torture” is closer to the mark.

    The cases of Jaycee Dugard and in particular, Colleen Stan and Cameron Hooker come to mind. There was a documentary of the latter (mostly her account plus supporting photos) that was quite beyond comprehension.

  3. Will the very small children forget? (I honestly don’t know.) For any child, or adult, old enough to remember, recovery will take a long time.

  6. Heartbreaking. So many people don’t take evil seriously thus paving the way for heinousness such as this.

  7. I make the choice to not hate. Hate makes you weak. Love is stronger than hate. When I see Muslims glorying in rape I feel righteous in my anger. I have sisters, Muslims. A mother.

  8. can one fill pity as well, maybe not so much in the West, but certainly in the Subcontinent, the Levant, and North Africa, the madrassa to shaheed pipeline is rather extensive,

  9. New Zealand All Blacks. Maori warriors. When I played rugby my team modeled ourselves on the New Zealand All Blacks. We wouldn’t always win. You would always get hurt.

    Google “best haka”

  11. I kind of get tired trying to think of a just punishment for these subhumans. As a matter of justice, there is nothing so horrid that they should be immune. But I can’t go there.
    At least, not theoretically. Given the chance….I don’t know.

    And when they do it to kids, it’s…exponentially worse, demanding even worse consequences, if such can be conceived.

  12. …trying to think of an adequately horrible punishment for the evildoers. Ideally a punishment which could improve, however slightly, the victims’ healing. And –note well– the victims are not only those directly injured. They include all decent people, whose world is shattered by such evil deeds. Society seeks vindication, a restoration of deep moral order.

    Something very Old Testament. Lex talionis may be barbaric, but it also comes from a highly conserved part of our psychological inheritance.

  13. You think of General Haliva, he came up through the paratroopers, so one would assume he had some common sense, then again that’s not alway true,

  14. Imagine the absolute worst thing imaginable. Times thousand You still haven’t imagined.

  18. Steve57:

    Please spare us the details.

    But I have already read a lot about atrocities in the past. The human imagination is, unfortunately, horrifically creative in that regard.

  20. You should know is I’ve looked death in the face. And I learned death taught me about life. Just how precious it is. I’m a killer. I’ve never taken a human life. I thank God every day for that.

  23. Continued…
    Key phrase from the first link:
    “…This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide…”

    Think about it: Parents can send their kids to learn in-depth about how to unequivocally support the brutal mass murder of people of ALL ages (including entire families), indiscriminate rape (including necrophilia), incinerating victims in their homes and cars, mutilation of bodies, taking hostages of kidnapped victims of all ages, physical and psychological torture—and much, much more!—all for only $50,000 a year (give or take—there are certainly scholarships for the disadvantaged and others who qualify!—Why, after all, should they be left out?)

    (On second thought, though, it would certainly make more financial sense to send their loved ones to city or state universities where they could learn basically the same syllabus for a lot less money…if, admittedly, without the prestige…so maybe it DOES make sense to pay those higher fees after all…)

    Whatever…. American parents should know that they have a range of options that suit their budget.

  24. I fear that the UN will further deny the horrors of October 7 because very few rape kits and other forensic protocols were done on the victims in situ. I can just hear the b******s at the UN: “You have no evidence of a crime!”

  25. Meanwhile, VP Harris has emerged (from wherever she’s been holed up) to preach to the converted:
    In what would seem to be a terrible waste of her singular talents and strengths, she has been dispatched by “Biden” to Dubai…
    “Kamala Harris’s Performative Scolding of Israel”—
    https://archive.is/ywJTe
    H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/12/06/kamala-harriss-performative-scolding-of-israel/

    (Surely, with her expertise and moral—not to mention communicative—clout, she should have been sent to the Israel-Gaza border instead….)

  28. But … but … why isn’t what BrooklynBoy said on December 6, 2023 at 8:28 am equally venal and horrendous and vile as what the 3 uni presidents contextualized?
    And maybe his phrasing is vile, but is what he said and what the uni P’s were supporting a violation of the 1st Amendment? His context is a blog discussion group or thread, with no opportunity to cause any of us to act physically in response to his comment. We can nod or shake our heads as we please, but I suppose he is still within the criteria of permissible free speech?

    Does a declaration of war, thereby identifying some group as “the enemy”, help overcome those criteria and allow “inciting language” to be used, say by a commander just prior to a military operation, when that would be forbidden in most civilian situations?

    I understand the courts to say context does matter (and there are some limits), so in that sense the Uni P’s may be correct, and the Rep’s are playing to emotion (probably honestly felt rather than just for the folks back home) but they are not recognizing the right to say bad things that in turn need to be countered by saying alternative good things. Accepting that can be tough (i.e., the Skokie-Nazi march, etc.).

    Isn’t that part of what makes our system “exceptional” and us “semi-exceptional” when we manage to adhere to that system?

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