According to Senekal (1987:85), norms are,
‘n aantoonbaar wederkerend-gevolgde riglyn van ‘n maatskaplik relevante handeling as die nie-vervulling daarvan so dikwels deur die gemeenskap met sanksies gestraf word, dat die sanksies self in ‘n groot mate deur die betrokkenes aanvaar word. [...] Norme is kontrawerklik gestabiliseerde verwagtings. Norme reduseer kompleksiteit en maak gevolglik ‘n duursame sosiale gedrag moontlik. [a proven recurrent guideline of a socially relevant action if the non-fulfilment is so often punished with sanctions by the community, that the sanctions themselves are to a large extent accepted by the participants. [...] Norms are contra-realistic stabilized expectations. Norms reduce complexity and therefore make durable social behaviour possible.]93
As the following section will show, normlessness and powerlessness are strongly correlated in a conflict environment.
SEEMAN’S NOTION OF NORMLESSNESS
In Seeman’s original five-aspect model, normlessness denotes both the rejection of what is seen as the dominant values in a society, and the perception that socially unapproved means are required to achieve socially approved goals. Normlessness “derives partly from conditions of complexity and conflict in which individuals become unclear about the composition and enforcement of social norms. Sudden and abrupt changes occur in life conditions, and the norms that usually operate may no longer seem adequate as guidelines for conduct” (Neal and Collas 2000:122). Neal and Collas’s description of normlessness includes both facets of the term as Seeman originally conceived it, but in Seeman’s revised six-aspect model, normlessness’s facet of rejecting “the community as a source of standards” (Mirowsky and Ross 1986:36) was reclassified under cultural estrangement, and in the six-aspect model normlessness refers to the second aspect of normlessness as identified in the five-aspect model, namely, “the technically most
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effective procedure, whether culturally legitimate or not, becomes typically preferred to institutionally prescribed conduct” (Merton 1949:128). Where an individual accepts the goals of society, but feels himself unable to achieve these goals with the means at his disposal, a situation of anomie arises, which Seeman (1959:788) defines as, “one in which there is a high expectancy that socially unapproved behaviours are acquired to achieve given goals” (original emphasis). In this sense, normlessness is “an acceptance of socially unapproved behaviours as the way to achieve goals” ((Ross and Mirowsky 1987:257), see also Seeman (1959:788)). Since normlessness involves “the expectation that illegitimate means must be employed to realize culturally prescribed goals” (Middleton 1963:974), the concept implies powerlessness, since the individual has the perception that achieving recognized goals (wealth, success, victory) through legitimate means is untenable, what Ross and Mirowsky (1987:258) call “structural inconsistency.” They94 argue,
Structural inconsistency is a situation, common in the lower socio-economic positions, in which society defines certain goals as desirable and also defines the legitimate and allowable procedures for moving toward the objectives, but does not provide adequate resources and opportunities for achieving the objectives through legitimate means.
Similarly, society sets the goal of military victory, but adds that this should be achieved without great loss of life (on both sides) or destruction of property, whether civilian or military. In both the US and South Africa, society elected governments that would ensure their security, and masculine society encourages males to take part in warfare to prove their manliness. However, both the US and South African publics abhorred military casualties and the subjugation of other peoples, creating a “structural inconsistency.”
An “ends justifies the means” approach can develop in any war, whereby behaviour that is not accepted by society in general is adopted through the perception that this is the only option available. During WWII, ‘strategic’ or ‘area bombing’ killed indiscriminately, as illustrated in the British Air Staff directive of 14 February 1942, which laid down that operations “should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular of industrial workers” (Keegan 2004:374). The concept of Total War “created a new centre of gravity: civilian populations” (Chaliand and Blin
94
Although Ross and Mirowsky’s research is focused on criminal environments, conflict environments exhibit many of the same features (see Kaldor (2006:12), Jütersonke, Muggah and Rodgers (2009:374), and Shapiro (2009:447)), as argued under the section on powerlessness.
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2007:209), since civilians supported the war effort and thus became targets as well. The Nazis, Soviets, British, and Americans all targeted civilians intentionally.95 These actions were however deemed necessary in order to win the war, and some counterinsurgency tactics are no different. Merton (1946:143) observes, “The emphasis on this theme reflects a social disorder – ‘anomie’ is the sociological term – in which common values have been submerged in the welter of private interests seeking satisfaction by virtually any means which are effective.”
Dale (2007:200) claims the US, Britain, and France as well as the South Africans used torture as a means of conducting counterinsurgencies. This is certainly not a unique feature of counterinsurgency, since Soviet, Nazi and Allied atrocities during WWII are for instance well documented, and so are numerous massacres during the colonization of the Third World. Scarry (1985:40) notes that torture rooms were called ‘guest rooms’ in Greece and ‘safe houses’ in the Philippines, and “Israeli soldiers held in Syria describe being suspended from the ceiling in a tire that was swung as they were beaten, or having one’s genitals tied by a string to a door handle and having the string beaten.”
Counterinsurgency, however, places greater emphasis on the population and erases the distinction between combatants and non-combatants – two factors that encourage torture and atrocities. Being unable to distinguish between insurgents and civilians, COIN-forces sometimes see themselves as forced to operate beyond the rule of law and morality in order to quell the insurgency. During the Palestinian insurgency just before WWII, the British used “Oozle minesweepers” – Arab hostages placed in the front of trains or forced to run in front of convoys on mined roads (Townshend 2008:32). The Soviet COIN in the Ukraine was similarly characterized by brutal COIN-tactics:
95 One very controversial tactic employed in Vietnam was the Phung Hoang or Phoenix Program, which
grew out of a 1967 CIA pacification program and attempted to identify, arrest or otherwise remove NLF commanders, or in the official terminology, to “neutralize” (Tovy 2009:11) insurgents. The program was modeled on a similar program employed by the British in Malaya (Tovy 2009:17), and from 1968 to 1972 – when it was phased out – operatives captured 34,000 and killed around 26,000 PLAF commanders ( (Hall 2008:68) see also Nagl (2008:145)). This was heavily criticized for being an immoral program of assassination, yet Codevilla and Seabury (2006:237-238) defend this approach, since “Killing those whose death is most likely to stop the killing is not only more ethically defensible but also more effective militarily.” In Phoenix one finds the beginning of what would become official US strategy in Iraq, namely that not all Iraqis are the enemy, but only the Baath Party, and hence regime change was aimed at limiting civilian casualties, unlike in WWII. Similarly, current sanctions against Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF target the ruling party, not the entire population, as Cold War sanctions had done. In effect, this gravitational shift is a corrective on the Total War strategy during WWII, and thus Phoenix is one of few positive legacies of the Vietnam War.
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Suspected insurgents were often subject to show trials and public executions, after which their bodies were placed on public display and residents were forbidden from burying them. Families of individual insurgents were often held hostage as leverage, while the populations of entire villages where active support for insurgents was widespread were deported to other parts of Ukraine and the Soviet Union (Zhukov 2007:448).
During the counterinsurgency in Cyprus (1955-1959), British journalists nicknamed the Cyprus Police and intelligence personnel – most originating from Britain – “HMTs” for “Her Majesty’s Torturers” (Corum 2006:33). Kalyvas (2005:96) also notes atrocities committed by the Portuguese during the Angolan war of independence (1961-1975), although admitting to similar atrocities committed by liberation movements. In the Portuguese territories, troops “poisoned wells and threw drugged prisoners out of aircraft” (Purkitt and Burgess 2002:233) – a claim often made against US and South African soldiers as well.
Brutality is part-and-parcel of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; Metz and Millen (2004:32) argue, “Regime after regime fighting determined insurgents has found that the most effective methods, sometimes the only effective methods, violate human and civil rights. Beleaguered governments must often choose between sinking to the ethical level of the insurgents or defeat.” In the Philippines, for instance, atrocities were committed by insurgents as well as US forces (Joes 2008:43), and in Malaya, 24 Chinese villagers from Batang Kali were killed by British forces in December 1948 (Stubbs 2008:115). McWilliams (2009:34) recalls, “The TRC is full of accounts of individuals who conducted illegal actions with and without government support because of this willingness to see things in the extreme.” Dale (2007:201) admits that the SADF did punish those responsible for atrocities, although retaining the right to try soldiers in South Africa rather than Namibia. Giliomee (2004:616) also admits that some atrocities were committed during the rule of the National Party regime, but notes that these were not officially sanctioned and that perpetrators were punished. Du Preez (2005:14) however disagrees, arguing that members of the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) that assassinated political opponents were never punished, and the TRC (1998:66) claims,
Mass detentions in the ‘operational areas’ were common. Many detainees were held secretly and without access to lawyers or relatives for long periods, sometimes years. Such conditions provided opportunities for prolonged abuse and torture. Torture was also used as a method of intimidation by police and
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soldiers in the war zone, and as a way of extracting ‘operational’ information quickly. Torture methods reported in the South West African press, in affidavits by South West Africans and as a result of international human rights investigations included beatings, sleep deprivation, drowning, strangling and suffocation, suspension from ropes or poles, burnings (sometimes over open fires), electric shocks and being held against the hot exhausts of military vehicles. Atrocities are often represented in grensliteratuur. In the short story “Van die verraaier,” Gawie Kellerman (1988:44-45) writes how an SADF soldier is sent to interrogate the wife of a possible insurgent sympathizer,
Ná oomblikke se twyfel kry ek weer ‘n houvas op myself en regverdig myself met my Suid-Afrikaans-vervaardigde stewels. Ek besluit om haar nie ‘n derde keer te skop nie. Dit sou te erg wees. Ek kyk vir oulaas na die meid teen die houthoop, die kleintjies in die deur en hardloop dan weg.
[After a moment’s doubt I get a grip on myself and justify myself with my South African-made boots. I decide not to kick her for a third time. It would be too severe. For the last time I look at the black woman against the heap of wood, the young ones in the door, and run away.]96
Of course, torture was not confined to COIN-forces, and this is represented in grensliteratuur as well: Kellerman’s (1988:33-34) “Van ‘n man se storie” tells of the pain an SADF POW endures during torture by insurgents, including electric shock. In Robin Moore’s The Green Berets – significantly a book dealing with the advisory phase and depicting the war in a far more positive light than later works – torture is conducted by the South Vietnamese,
Stitch had the names of the other four strikers implicated by the Viet Cong Ngoc had questioned the day before. The translator asked by individual name if the other prisoners were Viet Cong infiltrators. The suspect, staring aghast at the machine, answered yes four times. The polygraph indicated he was telling the truth. Ngoc was delighted. Through the interpreter he said, “This is truly a fine machine. Now we don’t waste time. We know exactly who to torture.” Stitch shook his head. “When you learn to use this machine you don’t need to use torture. I can find out whatever you want to know through the polygraph.’’ Ngoc listened to the translation and asked, “What if they refuse to say a word?” “They’re probably hard-core VC,” Stitch replied. “Chances are you won’t even torture the truth out of them.” “If they are truly the enemy they should be· tortured anyway,” Ngoc retorted. “Now we get the Oriental mind at work,” Stitch said wearily to the Americans in the room. “If we stay here for twenty
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years we won’t change them, and God save us from getting like them (Moore 1983[1965]:46-47).
Allen (2008:164) claims that torture was also used as a method of interrogation by US forces in Vietnam, and in early 1971, the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit provided a platform for soldiers to testify to war crimes they committed in Vietnam. They testified to “committing or witnessing rape, the routine killing of civilians, and mass murder” (Allen 2008:184). Such testimonies strengthened the image of US soldiers in Vietnam as ‘baby killers’, although just as not all US soldiers conducted themselves professionally, the reverse is obviously true as well. Issues such as Morley Safer’s report, which showed the burning of Vietnamese villages and the execution of a National Liberation Front (NLF) prisoner in Saigon during the Tet offensive, strengthened the image of Americans inflicting unnecessary suffering on the Vietnamese, and undermined public support for US forces while simultaneously strengthening support for the PLAF and PAVN, both nationally and internationally.
The best-known example of an atrocity from Vietnam is the My Lai massacre, for which Lieutenant William Calley was convicted of multiple murders on 29 March 197197. According to reports, nearly 500 unarmed civilians had been massacred at this village on 16 March 1968 (Hall 2008:66). A derogatory attitude towards the Vietnamese seem to have played some part in the incident; after the investigation, an army psychiatrist noted, “Lt. Calley states that he did not feel as if he were killing human beings, rather they were animals with whom one could not speak or reason” (quoted in Allen (2008:48)).
Significantly, Tim O’Brien served in the same area where the My Lai massacre took place, an area called Pinkville. In “How to tell a true war story,” even animals are massacred (O'Brien 1991:75):
Later, higher in the mountains, we came across a baby VC water buffalo. What it was doing there I don’t know – no farms or paddies – but we chased it down and got a rope around it and led it along to a deserted village where we set up for the night. After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose.
He opened up a can of C rations, pork and beans, but the baby buffalo wasn’t interested.
Rat shrugged.
97 However, Calley only spent three days in prison before being put under house arrest by President Nixon,
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He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world.
Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy’s sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs. All around us there was the smell of smoke and filth and deep greenery, and the evening was humid and very hot. Rat went to automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn’t quite make it. It wobbled and went down sideways. Rat shot it in the nose. He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, then he shot it in the throat. All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been. It lay very still. Nothing moved except the eyes, which were enormous, the pupils shiny black and dumb.
Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself.
Note that it is not simply a water buffalo, but a “VC” water buffalo, thus indicating how their entire environment is considered hostile – even the animals – after Curt Lemon had stepped on the IED.
Importantly, insurgents are never a match for COIN-forces in the military sphere, but this military weakness has been turned into an advantage by insurgents using the media. Insurgents use the media to raise awareness of their grievances, and in particular portray COIN-forces as ruthless and brutal, while they are oppressed and forced to resort to violence because of the violence directed at them (according to their narrative). Van Creveld (2008:269) remarks, “By definition, guerrillas and terrorists are weak. By definition, their opponents are much stronger. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, [...] most guerrillas and terrorists won their struggles because they are weak.” This weakness can help recruit like-minded individuals – such as Islamic extremists that flocked to Iraq and Afghanistan – or undermine public support for the counterinsurgency effort, because “fighting the weak demeans those who engage in it and, therefore, undermines its own purpose. He who loses out to the weak loses; he who triumphs over
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the weak also loses” (Van Creveld 1991a:175). The power relationship has an effect on how tactics and strategies are viewed by the national and international public,
Necessity knows no bounds; hence he who is weak can afford to go to the greatest lengths, resort to the most underhand means, and commit every kind of atrocity without compromising his political support and, more important still, his own moral principles. Conversely, almost anything that the strong does or does not do is, in one sense, unnecessary and, therefore, cruel (Van Creveld 1991a:175) (original emphasis).98
Eeben Barlow (2007:42) relates how this principle manifested in South Africa in the 1980s: After the successful Special Forces raid on Botswana (Operation Plexi), which included killing junior MK leader Thami Mnyele, Barlow realized, “the international community would quickly condone any ANC action while immediately condemning any counter-move South Africa made.” In the collective memory of South Africa in the 1980s (as depicted for instance in the Apartheid Museum), it is the firing on protestors by security forces, the death in detainment of Steve Biko, and the images of CASSPIRs and teargas that stand out; necklacing, the murder of civilians, the planting of landmines and bombs are hardly mentioned – if ever. In particular, the defining picture of pre-1994 South Africa is Hector Peterson’s death in the 1976 Soweto riots, not Andrew Zondo’s victims, or the killing of Amy Biehl. In Vietnam as well, the iconic images are not People’s