“He’s exaggerating!” they say. But, Is he?
The movie Spotlight (2015) is based on a true story. It is the story of how a team of investigative journalists from the Boston Globe uncovered widespread child abuse by priests of the Catholic Church. It also highlights how large-scale human rights violations can go unchecked for inordinate lengths of time because ordinary people choose to look the other way. The character of Mike Rezendes uses the term ‘Good Germans’ to explain this phenomenon. This is a reference to ordinary German citizens who were not actively involved in genocide, but who did not take any stand against it either.
One of the characters in the movie is Phil Saviano. He is a survivor of abuse by the clergy. There is a scene where Saviano is invited to the office of the journalists investigating the scandal. So that they may hear his account of abuse.
This is early on during the investigation, and everyone is trying to persuade the reporters to stop pursuing the story. The reasons offered are varied. The victims are labelled unstable, the story is said to be thin, the lawyer siding with the victims is said to be weird. When all else fails, the reporters are reminded how important the church is to the well-being of their city, and how much work it has done for the good of society. It is safe to say that the game is rigged against those trying to draw attention to the abuse.
At the meeting, Saviano comes prepared. He has a boxful of material supporting his claims of frequent abuse. Not just his own, but that of other victims. The reporters are so shocked by these revelations that their comments give away their incredulity. Saviano, who has faced denial of his abuse all his life, flares up. He tells them he had sent the Boston Globe all this material five years ago. And he was told the paper wasn’t interested in his truth. He is a man who finds himself fighting a lone battle. Everywhere he goes with his pleas, he feels like he is running into walls. People who feel so cornered often come across as shrill or aggressive.
Seeing Saviano get so easily triggered, and already quite sceptical of the enormity of the problem, the editor concludes that they need to do a background check on Saviano before they can believe anything he says. It doesn’t help that some of the editor’s colleagues try to discredit Saviano. It is only after a detailed investigation that the reporters realize that Saviano was not exaggerating.
If these reporters, too, had been put off by Saviano’s anxiety and his strident tone the abuse would have remained hidden for much longer.
Why do people find it preferable to doubt victims?
There are probably many different reasons.
While investigating the story, the reporters found it hard to believe that a human rights violation of such magnitude could remain so thoroughly hidden. Even to a practical person, who is fully aware of the presence of evil in the world, it appears doubtful that so many crimes could go unreported for so long. Someone, somewhere would have spoken up. The truth is, many people did speak up. They were systematically silenced. They were harassed, discredited, bullied, and ostracised. The concealment of abuse by clergy was a massive, and very successful, undertaking. That is why, crimes that would have come to light much earlier, were swept under the rug. Repeatedly. And this information can be too much to take in, even for the worldly-wise.
There are other reasons too. Most people would like to believe that the world is, by and large, a just place. Society is functioning efficiently and everyone gets what they deserve. The good get rewarded, and the bad get punished. This, more or less, is what is meant by the ‘Just world hypothesis’. So, when something terrible happens to someone, it has to be their own fault. They must have brought it upon themselves in some way or the other. Because if, even for a moment, we pause and consider that the victim is actually a victim and not a sinner, then our illusion is destroyed. We no longer feel protected. We are forced to confront the possibility that even though we are doing everything we are supposed to, our good behaviour offers us no protection against the evil of the world. If we accept that there are innocent victims, we entertain the possibility that one day we may join their ranks. So, we continue to demonize the victims. We deny their truth, we discredit them, we ask them not to over-react.
Six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed in the Holocaust. There are documents, photographs, testimonies, and mass graves to prove it. And yet Holocaust denial is a fact.
Why do people choose to take the side of the perpetrator?
Sometimes, entire systems slowly mutate into a machinery of exploitation. Like Nazi Germany trying to exterminate the Jews. Like the Jim Crow laws that dehumanized and segregated the blacks. Or USA gymnastics’ repeated dismissal of complaints against Larry Nassar.
In the presence of such rampant evil, the majority of people choose to look away. Sometimes the perpetrators are so powerful that bystanders are afraid to intervene. Some others are deriving all kinds of benefits from the perpetrators and will be adversely affected if the criminals are brought to justice. These people may not actually be involved in committing the abuse but are instrumental in supporting it. They help to isolate the victim. Or urge the victims to stay quiet when they try to speak up.
The problem with this approach is summarized in a famous quote by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor who strongly opposed Adolf Hitler.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Why are some victims so hard to believe?
I assume that most of us believe that if something bad happens to us, our friends, our acquaintances, will feel sorry for us. They would sit with us; they would listen to us.
Probably that is what most victims believed, too. Till something bad actually happened to them. And the majority of people they knew either began to doubt them, or began to doubt their sanity. Every time they told their story, they hoped that at least the truth of the story would be acknowledged. That at least once they would not have to face judgments about their character, and their choices. And time and time again they were disappointed. How does anyone behave ‘normally’ after such an experience?
Psychiatrist and author, Marcia Sirota, summarizes it thus:
“On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it’s the talking about them that is forbidden.”
In the movie Spotlight, the lawyer fighting for the victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, Mitchell Garabedian tells one of the reporters from the Boston Globe a shocking bit of news. Some incriminating documents that would prove the systematic coverup of abuse had gone missing from the court records. At the behest of the Catholic Church. The reporter, Mike Rezendes, finds it hard to believe that the Church had that kind of influence. After all, Garabedian had often been described as crazy. But Garabedian said:
“Look, I’m not crazy, I’m not paranoid. I’m experienced.”
Some people have seen evil so closely, and so often, that they can never look at the world the same way again. They know too much to be under any happy illusions. ‘Normal’, less affected people sometimes find it difficult to understand these experienced men and women. And even more difficult to empathize with them. It is so much easier to think of them as crazy, abnormal, too sensitive, or overreacting.
I am only one, what can I do?
None of us may be able to change the world or conquer all its evils. We may not be able to change corrupt systems either. But we can offer a patient ear, the gift of time, and the gift of our belief to people who are in pain. We can teach the young people in our life to do so too. If we practice kindness repeatedly, who knows someone watching us may decide to emulate us. And we may turn our tiny corner of the world into a truly just world.
Psychologist and lawyer Mollie Marti has something to say about this:
“Our power lies in our small daily choices, one after another, to create eternal ripples of a life well-lived.”
