Stockholm Syndrome Goes Paris: Violent Bus Ride – The Victim Speaks
From the desk of Tiberge on Mon, 2009-04-13 08:30
After the tremendous outpouring of comments and furious reactions relevant to the attack in the Parisian night bus (known as the "Noctilien"), readers will find the following testimony by the victim himself to be either politically correct to a shocking degree, or a refreshingly honest statement from a 19-year-old student who does not want to make a mountain out of a molehill. At any rate, those were the two main reactions of Le Figaro's readers.
My own reaction is one of amazement at the level of indoctrination manifest in the remarks of the young man who took the bus that night, who was clearly beaten up by thugs, and who, without quite going so far as to say he is grateful to his attackers for what they did, comes so close that he might as well testify for the defense should the case ever go to court. Having skillfully mastered "official thought", he talks as if he would gladly testify for the prosecution in the case against the police officer who released the video.
Here is the interview he granted Le Figaro. You be the judge:
- What really happened in the Noctilien bus that night?
- I had spent the evening with friends and was returning home to the 17th arrondissement. I was alone when I got on the Noctilien bus at the Gare de l'Est. I turned by back on four young men. While one of them asked me for a cigarette, the other went through my pockets. When I turned around I saw one of them had my wallet. Instinctively, I tried to get it back. That's when the confrontation began...
- The beating they gave you, very violent, must have seemed interminable...
- From a spatial and temporal point of view, I cannot evaluate what I experienced. Looking at the video allowed me to anchor the attack in reality. I just remember that they pushed me to the back of the bus, and that I was knocked to the ground. In a second phase, I went back to the bus driver before being kicked and punched. As the video shows, other passengers were also molested, in particular a young man who tried to help me.
- And the driver who remained seated?
- I feel no anger towards him. It was very difficult for him to react. He did what he could, obeying the rules: he stopped the bus immediately and phoned for the police. They came very quickly and arrested two persons; then a few days later two alleged accomplices were arrested.
- Some Internet sites affirm that racial insults were hurled at you...
- Personally, I heard nothing of the sort. These remarks, if they were made, were the consequence of my attackers being drugged or drunk. Moreover, they were not all immigrants. The video of my attack appears to be stereotypical, in view of the fact that that night I was wearing "bourgeois" clothing, and I was face to face with four young people who were making lots of noise. In no event do I want to be regarded as the symbol of a certain social image who was attacked by foreigners. I did not take it like that. Furthermore, one of the assailants in an overcoat, shaven, had very white skin...
- What injuries did you suffer?
- Except for a hematoma to the eye and some bruises, no injuries were found. Two days after the attack, I consulted a psychiatrist at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris who told me that I appeared to have taken the whole thing well. Since then I've gone back to public transportation, even the Noctilien bus...
- This story came back to you like a boomerang via the Internet...
- Yes. On April 6, a friend told me that a video had been put online at Facebook. When I saw it, I was going to ask the person who had posted it to withdraw it. I didn't realize it would be broadcast on such a scale...
- This broadcasting of the video seems to have upset you as much as the attack.
- It's true that the situation is very difficult, very delicate. Many friends were shocked by the widespread circulation, which hurts me. To spread images on the Internet is very serious because it jeopardizes part of our legal principles. There was a serious amalgamation between the reality of the scene and its representation. This video was circulated at extremist sites and has been exploited by politicians. Now, I do not wish to be exploited. The subject is apt to generate radical ideas and I have no desire to encourage that. I had to get out of this reductive caricature. To be brutally at the center of a polemic of this magnitude is never pleasant. This hurts me greatly, since I had managed to overcome the event itself. I'm leaving Paris without hatred, in order to find some peace with my family.
The young man's statements are worthy of closer analysis. The school he is enrolled in in Paris – the famous and very "progressive" School of Political Science is also an issue, as is the possible influence of the school's president on the manner in which the young man answered the questions. Le Figaro's readers touch on these topics in their responses (there are already 689 of them). I will try to deal with these questions in later posts.
The question is: was he told what to say, did he instinctively know what to say, or does he really believe what he said? Also, if he is now under some kind of police protection, can he really talk against the government?
The circumstances of his departure from Paris aren't clear.
Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which the hostages have been placed.
Attack on Bus
Submitted by Taurus689 on Mon, 2009-05-11 06:10.
So sad is the fact that the victim was denied the means to defend himself. Where are the Bernhardt Goetz's of the world?
The same fate awaits all of Homo Albus here in Obamerica as well.
Enough With All The Babble
Submitted by Steve Atkinson on Tue, 2009-04-14 03:38.
Revenge is mine...so sayeth the Lord, our God.
However, in an instance such as this, revenge is mine also. It doesn't matter what precipitated the mugging of this young man, the fact is, hoodlums, or hooligans, or whatever they are to be called, struck a blow for the new PC reality.
In my neck of the woods, kick my friend's or my relative's butt, and you are damned sure to get the equivalent in spades. Moreso, when hideous, and depraved acts arise out of absolutely no justifiable circumstances.
To hell with the psycho-babble, and the recalcitrant victim as well. Sure, he demonstrated a nauseating forgiveness, but he also demonstrates an equally revolting naivte.
What it boils down to is, right is right, and wrong is assuredly wrong, and no two of each may equal one of the other.
@ Tiberge and marcfrans
Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Tue, 2009-04-14 00:57.
Let's be honest, if the psychiatrist who examined the young man can get it wrong, I suppose it's possible that we could be wrong as well, but I don't think so. However, if the young man's psychiatrist IS in error, it surely begs the question, how could that happen to what one assumes must be a highly qualified psychiatrist? Perhaps another equally highly qualified psychiatrist could help us all find the answer to that question. No, I don't think so either.
PS Does anybody know for sure that the young man in question is NOT Jewish?
RE: PTSD
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Mon, 2009-04-13 17:41.
Feel free to sign the "guestbook".
Given the effects of the PTSD that the victim has suffered, it is useless to consider his perception of the event in the socio-political context - at least for the present - be his comments lucid or indicative of serious neurological trauma.
I agree that the event has political significance due to the background of the victim and perpetrators, and the response of the French state and society-at-large. Nor is Tiberge incorrect in decrying the "indoctrination" that is by no means unique to the French state.
However, I will relentlessly oppose any socio-political extrapolation from the victim's comments, given the presence of PTSD (to an as yet undetermined degree). I will also ask that psychological defense/survival responses to trauma - be they proffered by God or derived via evolution - be kept in their proper context. Acceptance or lack thereof in this situation is wholly unrelated to the refusal of ideologues to submit to logic and reason. On the contrary, it is indicative of neurological flux, as the young man struggles to fit the event into a unified perspective. It is as wrenching for a carefree optimist to transform into a pessimistic survivalist as it is for the reverse to occur. The studies conducted on postwar concentration camp survivors indicate how out-of-place the latter mindset is in a safe and prosperous environment.
Youtube Rascals
Submitted by Armor on Mon, 2009-04-13 16:22.
Tiberge: "The question is: was he told what to say"
It must be a written interview. It sounds ridiculously like a statement prepared by some official spokesperson. I hope it doesn't reflect his real views at all. Maybe he just wants to be left alone by the media, or maybe he is afraid of damaging his career if he displeases the managers of his school.
Anyway, it won't change the important thing: he unwittingly gave a good illustration of the danger of being white in Europe, and we saw how Youtube immediately took down every copy of the video.
Had the victim been Jewish, and wearing a skull-cap, there would have been a completely different reaction from Youtube, the "anti-racist" organizations, the media, the politicians, the Church authorities...
The fact that the footage was leaked by a policeman would not have been a big issue. In fact, it would not have been necessary for him to do so. His higher-ups, the administration and the bus company would have told the media at once, and would have released parts of the video, instead of trying to hush the whole thing and later lodging a complaint against the policeman.
Had the victim been Jewish, the media would not have complained that footage of the aggression was used to promote a racist, far-right, anti-immigration agenda. No one would have warned that such a video could encourage Jewish racism or mistrust towards third-world immigrants. Instead, the media would have produced the video as evidence that European society needs more propaganda against antisemitism, even though the assailants were not European. The sanctions against the assailants would have been increased on account of racial hate laws that rarely apply when the victim is white. The media would have made a big deal about the verbal abuse recorded in the video (the victim was twice called "français de merde" = dirty Frenchman).
PTSD
Submitted by marcfrans on Mon, 2009-04-13 14:29.
Reading the Kapitein's latest posting, one can see that for some people "perception is reality" (his words elsewhere), i.e. there are people who can not distinguish between (often differing) perceptions and reality itself. Not even in abstract principle, let alone in reality.
The young man in question apparently is incapable of judging the unacceptable. That is the "indoctrination" at work and that Tiberge referred to. The Kapitein, with his psycho-babble, thinks that the young man is not willing to "accept" the unacceptable. Ideally, one should never (mentally) "accept" the unacceptable, but one should always retain the ability to judge the unacceptable and recognise reality. That is the ideal, and should be the goal. Indoctrination, that dehumanises, can undermine it in many people, including in this young man and in the Kapitein.
Prediction: I will now join Tiberge and Atlanticist to be placed on the list of the "ignorants", by a naive-leftist ideologue who prefers abstract theoretical supposition over empirical observation.
ignorants
Submitted by kappert on Mon, 2009-04-13 15:38.
With this latest disqualification, can we assume that marcfrans stands empirically alone?
@Tiberge and Atlanticist911
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Mon, 2009-04-13 13:32.
You are both ignorant of the psychological impact of such an attack i.e. PTSD. Crucially, so is the psychiatrist who examined him.
Having known several people who have suffered traumatic injury at the hands of others, and with some education in psychology, I can say with certainty that the young man was only attempting to minimize or neutralize the incident so as not to admit to himself the severity of the attack. To do so would permit the possibility that he could be assaulted by a group of strangers in a seemingly safe environment with the potential of long-term serious injury or even death.
His answers have little to do with any sort of socio-political indoctrination or Stockholm Syndrome. Even if he were previously of an anti-immigrant disposition, it would be difficult emotionally to even form a judgement on his attackers. Doing so again allows for accepting the unacceptable.
If this event has wide-ranging socio-political connotations it is for others to concern themselves with; the young man needs access to counselling, medicine and time.
Stockholm syndrome? aka L'attitude suicidaire
Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Mon, 2009-04-13 10:20.
This sounds more like Kappert syndrome to me. Look, we all know where this is probably heading, don't we?
i The prosecution of the policeman and HIS face plastered all over the internet...
ii Massive financial compensation package paid to the attackers due to the trauma they experienced at the hands of that 'rogue' cop.
iii Paris transport workers hit the streets in a show of solidarity with their traumatised fellow citizens, the attackers and the attacked.
iv Our 'hero', the 19-year-old student, has his name put forward for a special Nobel Peace Prize
v Our 'hero' writes a book, becomes a celebrity on French and international tv, Michael Moore makes a film of his life with said 19-year-old student starring as himself in the leading role (Or, perhaps Brad Pitt, Sean Penn...) etc, etc, etc.,