#victims

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones. ↗

— Peter De Vries

#begin #broken #homes #i #i can

The weapon of suicide bombing is so desperate that you aren't even left with the possibility of taking revenge or punishing anyone; the terrorist is killed along with his victims, his blood mixing with theirs. ↗

— A. B. Yehoshua

#anyone #blood #bombing #desperate #even

When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims. ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#crisis #victims #life

Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a privileged space dedicated to memory. Within that space, survivors gain the freedom to know and tell their stories. Even the most private and confidential disclosure of past abuses increases the likelihood of eventual public disclosure. And public disclosure is something that perpetrators are determined to prevent. As in the case of more overtly political crimes, perpetrators will fight tenaciously to ensure that their abuses remain unseen, unacknowledged, and consigned to oblivion. The dialectic of trauma is playing itself out once again. It is worth remembering that this is not the first time in history that those who have listened closely to trauma survivors have been subject to challenge. Nor will it be the last. In the past few years, many clinicians have had to learn to deal with the same tactics of harassment and intimidation that grassroots advocates for women, children and other oppressed groups have long endured. We, the bystanders, have had to look within ourselves to find some small portion of the courage that victims of violence must muster every day. Some attacks have been downright silly; many have been quite ugly. Though frightening, these attacks are an implicit tribute to the power of the healing relationship. They remind us that creating a protected space where survivors can speak their truth is an act of liberation. They remind us that bearing witness, even within the confines of that sanctuary, is an act of solidarity. They remind us also that moral neutrality in the conflict between victim and perpetrator is not an option. Like all other bystanders, therapists are sometimes forced to take sides. Those who stand with the victim will inevitably have to face the perpetrator's unmasked fury. For many of us, there can be no greater honor. p.246 - 247 Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. February, 1997 ↗

— Judith Lewis Herman

#abuse-of-power #abused-women #attacks #bravery #courage

It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them. ↗

— Paddy Ashdown

#cannot #change #come #committed #crimes

Gun bans disarm victims, putting them at the mercy of murderers or terrorists who think nothing of breaking the gun laws. ↗

— Michael Badnarik

#disarm #gun #gun laws #laws #mercy

Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them. ↗

— Walter Bagehot

#apt #become #make #men #them

Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers. Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother's home. ↗

— Shirin Ebadi

#carriers #confines #culture #every #his

Symbolic violence is violence wielded with tacit complicity between its victims and its agents, insofar as both remain unconscious of submitting to or wielding it. ↗

— Pierre Bourdieu

#between #both #complicity #insofar #remain

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions. ↗

— Malcolm Fraser

#find #found #indigenous #indigenous people #must