In 2011,
a
zine called It’s Down to This:
Reflections, Stories, Experiences, Critiques, and Ideas on Community and
Collective Response to Sexual Violence, Abuse, and Accountability published
an essay by Angustia Celeste called Safety
is an Illusion: Reflections on Accountability. The essay, which is a
critique of community accountability processes, has gained some interest due to
its impassioned call for change in the way we deal with abuse and sexual
violence in our communities. While the author is correct in highlighting the
fact that these processes often fail, and it would serve our communities better
to be more realistic with the reach, scope and effectiveness of our community
accountability processes, there are aspects of this essay that we believe to be
incredibly problematic and, with the dissemination of these ideas, potentially
damaging to survivors of abuse and communities in general.
We are
writing this critique because we believe that certain arguments made in this
essay firstly minimize survivor experience and, secondly, encourage a culture
of victim blaming. Because of these things, we believe parts of this essay and
its implications should be disregarded as being detrimental to the struggle
towards the destruction of power and patriarchy.
Celeste
twice refers to abuse as a “dynamic” between two people and, in the case of
emotional abuse, states that it is exclusively thus. We find this problematic,
because it disregards the multitude of experiences of emotional abuse in which
there is a very clear perpetrator and a very clear victim. Doubtless there are
many examples where the lines between these two roles can become blurred, but
in a great many situations this is simply not the case. We absolutely can
identify the characteristics, traits, examples and behaviors of emotional
abuse. To suggest that emotional abuse is “an unhealthy dynamic between two
people” suggests that, in clearly abusive relationships, the survivor is
somehow responsible for that abuse. These statements are very similar to the
pervasive views around survivor responsibility or victim blaming. These inherently patriarchal views are a significant part
of what continues to disempower survivors of abuse and minimize their
experiences.
The
author backs up this viewpoint by dismissing certain safety strategies put into
place in many accountability processes (e.g. communication through support
groups), whilst advocating for direct communication. We think it is totally
legitimate, and in some processes more effective, for a survivor to request to
not have direct communication with an aggressor. The very reason why those
strategies are put in place is because, in many cases, aggressors have
disallowed the space for direct communication, not picking up their end of the
communicating, but continually putting the blame on the survivor. This furthers
the cycle of disempowerment experienced through abuse. By dismissing this fact
Celeste makes it clear that it is their opinion that survivors of abuse are
responsible for subsequent communication or transformative processes that may
occur. In addition, they imply that survivors are responsible for these
processes succeeding or failing and more responsible than the aggressor in
creating and controlling these processes.
In the
case of emotional abuse, it seems the author is suggesting that survivors are
partially responsible for that abuse, and also for the response to it. As well
as being a form of victim blaming, this attitude is (to put it bluntly)
patriarchal macho bullshit. Many of us are sick of how hard it is to have any
kind of transformative process. Yes, accountability
processes rarely “work”, but that in no way means that, consistent with systems
of patriarchy, we should turn the spotlight onto survivors of abuse who chose
to engage in these processes and tell them that they are to blame for their
abuse and the failings of their response.
The
issue that we have with these statements is not only concerned with their
effects on survivor experience, but how a culture of victim blaming contributes
to minimize the impact of abuse as a whole. In addition to the reasons stated
above, this essay is harmful, because by assuming the responsibility of the
survivor in many cases, it cannot help but partially remove the responsibility
of the perpetrator and, therefore, minimize the hierarchical nature of abuse.
Patriarchal
culture necessitates silencing survivors and supporting perpetrators. While we
totally think it is legitimate and understand the sentiment and the anger, to
“kick the living shit out of people and put them on the next train out of town”
isn't a realistic option for many survivors who don't have adequate support. Some
survivors would experience severe backlash if they dealt with an assault in
this way. Advocating for violent retaliation is an easy thing to say, but far
from easy to follow up: an easy option to point out that isn't even an option
in many cases. Our radical communities are
connected. People travel, word spreads, everyone has an opinion on things and
often those opinions are to side with the perpetrator and call into question
the response of the survivor to a sexual assault. It's not so easy to literally
put a perpetrator on the next train out of town, and it's also not so easy once
it's done to wipe our hands of it, to have closure. It's also important to be
honest about the effects that more violence can bring upon the survivor.
Promoting
these responses to abuse, whilst discounting accountability processes serves to
perpetuate the macho romanticization of force, violence and insurrection that
pervades parts of anarchist subculture. Once again, it’s easy to talk the talk,
whilst gaining credibility for the zealousness of one’s ideas, but rare for
people who proselytize these tactics to actually follow through with them. We
think it's important to acknowledge that there is a whole host of ways that
survivors can choose to respond to intimate violence, and all of these ways are
valid. There is not one right way to respond, and we think the tone of this
essay implies that some ways are better (and more glamorous) than others, thus
undermining other ways of responding.
The
other attitude that's communicated in parts of this essay and within the title
itself is that safety doesn't exist, so fuck it. Let's not try to create it. Let's
have low standards so people aren't disappointed in addition to being
unsupported. We can see these sentiments coming from a place of frustration and
despair, but it's all too easy for others who are not interested in supporting
survivors who are reading the article to agree and say, "Why waste our
time trying to make spaces safe for survivors, to try to address and change the
ways our communities are lacking in support for people who have been assaulted?
This particular survivor (Celeste) didn’t need networks of support, so it
doesn't seem as important to me anymore to try and create them in my life, to
put work into self-reflection, challenging patriarchy and creating
accountability."
The
nihilism that is inherent in Celeste’s argument is easily picked up and
propagated by people who want to talk about “fucking shit up,” but have no real
intention or investment in transforming their communities into safer spaces.
Does Celeste want us to feel guilty about hoping for a violence-free world,
because it’s a symptom of privilege? Sure, living in a violence-free world
isn't a realistic goal (neither is anarchy, as we have been reminded for
decades), but we can hope for it and work towards it. On the contrary, refusal
to hope for and work towards creating a safer world says a lot more about our
privilege than engaging with it: to be so privileged we could ignore oppression
and not challenge it. Refusing to work towards it preserves our own entitlement
to a privileged existence.
Safety is an Illusion promotes easy answers to far
from simple issues. It glosses over the multitude of complexities inherent in
the violence of this culture with a romanticized machismo and nihilism that
completely fails to support the reality of many survivors of abuse. It focuses
on an alternative that whilst being more seductive than many other options, in
practice is counterproductive in many direct and more insidious ways. We hope
that Safety is an Illusion is read
with a critical eye and resistance to being seduced into taking easy options
out of far from straightforward situations.
The
accountability processes we create in our communities, that are as varied as
the needs of survivors and that respect all survivors’ individuality,
circumstances, and backgrounds, are truly important to the struggle to subvert
power and patriarchy. We need to actively combat the culture of victim blaming
that reinforces the disempowerment created through abuse and we need to put in
real effort to work towards safer communities that are a part of a world that
validates survivors of harm and has the capacity to offer real accountability
and healing.
you can contact the authors at
buckthorn@outlook.com
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