Thanks for sharing this detailed and fascinating response Mark, I hope it
gets some space.
Jan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Burton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] More on APA and psychological torture by US
military
I started to work on a letter but it turned into an article we've
submitted (attached). Initially intended to send around the group for
comments - apologies for not doing this as decided that it needed an
urgent response. But do write letters too!
Mark
Venables,Keith (Children and Younger Adults) wrote:
>
> Shall we discuss it at the launch of Psychologists for Social
> Responsibility in north London on 16^th October?
>
> Can you send me a copy?
>
> Keith Venables
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Annie Mitchell
> *Sent:* 06 October 2006 21:59
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] More on APA and psychological
> torture by US military
>
> Did anyone see the mealy mouthed editorial on psychology and torture
> for the BPS in this month’s Psychologist? I wondered if someone felt
> energised to write a letter from our network? I’d support if anyone
> else felt able to put something together?
>
> Annie
>
> Annie Mitchell
>
> Clinical Director,
>
> Doctorate in Clinical Psychology,
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> Faculty of Health and Social Work,
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> Peninsula Allied Health Collaboration,
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> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Paul@home
> *Sent:* 14 September 2006 01:32
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: More on APA and psychological torture by US military
>
> I would want to add a degree of caution over invoking international
> agreements on human rights. Such statutes are rarely 'agreements' (in
> a consensual sense) and rarely 'international' (in a collectivist
> sense). Some (most) of these 'agreements' are ideologically and
> politically problematic to the extent that they assert a particular
> cultural, political and historical framework as one that is universal.
> Typically, the individual is considered the fundamental social unit,
> rather than the family, the community, the society and so on.
>
> The UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child is a case in point where
> it is 'the child' rather than 'children' that is named as the focus of
> concern/intervention. At present, invoking the concept of
> international agreements on human rights often does little more than
> universalise Western value systems that place primacy on individual
> rights at the expense of the rights of the collective and that promote
> the interests of Western industrialised nations, economic
> liberatisation and the protection of commerical coporate interests.
> This is particularly problematic when such agreements are imposed upon
> cultures where the rights of the family and of the collective rather
> than the individual are afforded primacy and where health rather than
> wealth is used as the main indicator of development - Cuba being a
> case in point.
>
> Should we need to be mindful that much of what passes now as universal
> agreements on human rights was born from a pact between Churchill and
> Roosevelt following world war two and was more about the protection of
> the economic rights of both the UK and USofAmerica as it was about
> seeking a socially just society. The fact that the UK and USofAmerica
> are reneiging on those agreements or cheery picking from them
> arguablly attests to what those agreements were originally meant to
> ensure - i.e., when they cease to protect corporate interests they are
> abandoned/redesigned. To invoke such international agreements
> unproblematicaly in any condemnations we make over the use of torture
> in the West's war on 'terror' may in fact fuel the very injustice that
> we may feel we want to speak out against.
>
> I have just returned from annual leave and have a large number of
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