“The roots of this behaviour lie not in individualpsychological disorders,” says Professor Simon Harrison whocarried out the study, “but in a social history of racism andin military traditions that use hunting metaphors for war. Althoughthis misconduct is very rare, it has persisted in predictablepatterns since the European Enlightenment. This was the period whenthe first ideologies of race began to appear, classifying somehuman populations as closer to animals than others.” European and North American soldiers who have mutilated enemycorpses appear to have drawn racial distinctions of this sortbetween close and distant enemies. They ‘fought’ their closeenemies, and bodies remained untouched after death, but they’hunted’ their distant enemies and such bodies became the trophiesthat demonstrate masculine skill.
Almost always, only enemies viewed as belonging to other ‘races’have been treated in this way. “This is a specificallyracialised form of violence,” suggest Professor Harrison,”and could be considered a type of racially-motivated hatecrime specific to military personnel in wartime.” People tend to associate head-hunting and other trophy-taking with’primitive’ warfare. They consider wars fought by professionalmilitaries as rational and humane. However, such contrasts aremisleading.
The study shows that the symbolic associations betweenhunting and war that can give rise to abnormal behaviour such astrophy-taking in modern military organisations are remarkably closeto those in certain indigenous societies where practices such ashead-hunting were a recognised part of the culture. In both cases, mutilation of the enemy dead occurs when enemies arerepresented as animals or prey. Parts of the corpse are removedlike trophies at ‘the kill’. Metaphors of ‘war-as-hunting’ that lieat the root of such behaviour are still strong in some armed forcesin Europe and North America — not only in military training but inthe media and in soldiers’ own self-perception. Professor Harrison gives the example of the Second World War andshows that trophy-taking was rare on the European battlefields butwas relatively common in the war in the Pacific, where some Alliedsoldiers kept skulls of Japanese combatants as mementos or madegifts of their remains to friends back home. Female Body Piercing Jewelry
The study also gives a more recent comparison: there have beenincidents in Afghanistan in which NATO personnel have desecratedthe dead bodies of Taliban combatants but there is no evidence ofsuch misconduct occurring in the conflicts of the former Yugoslaviawhere NATO forces were much less likely to have considered theiropponents racially ‘distant’. But, it would be wrong to suggest that such behaviour amounts to atradition. These practices are usually not explicitly taught.Indeed, they seem to be quickly forgotten after the end of wars andveterans often remain unaware of the extent to which they occurred. Furthermore, attitudes towards the trophies themselves change asthe enemy ceases to be the enemy. The study shows how human remainskept by Allied soldiers after the Pacific War became unwantedmemory objects over time, which ex-servicemen or their familiesoften donated to museums. Bangle Bracelets for Women Manufacturer
In some cases, veterans have made greatefforts to seek out the families of Japanese soldiers in order toreturn their remains and to disconnect themselves from a disturbingpast. Professor Harrison concludes that human trophy-taking is evidenceof the power of metaphor in structuring and motivating humanbehaviour. “It will probably occur, in some form or other,whenever war, hunting and masculinity are conceptuallylinked,” he says. “Prohibition is clearly not enough toprevent it. Personalized Silver Rings Manufacturer
We need to recognise the dangers of portraying war interms of hunting imagery.” Further information.
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