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O Silêncio do Algoz
Em 1971, quando era um jovem etnólogo em missão no Camboja, François Bizot foi detido pelo Khmer Vermelho, condenado à morte e mandado para um campo de prisioneiros no meio da selva. Seu carcereiro durante os três meses que esteve cativo era conhecido por Deuch, um intelectual de 28 anos que falava francês e seguia à risca as instruções de Pol Pot. Mas por um estranho senso de justiça desse homem, que acabou criando um laço com seu prisioneiro durante aquele período e conseguiu que ele fosse liberto, Bizot foi o único ocidental a sobreviver à prisão do Khmer Vermelho.
Anos depois de ter passado pela prisão, o francês descobre que seu antigo algoz - mas também aquele que lhe salvou a vida - havia sido responsável por torturar e matar mais de 40 mil prisioneiros no Camboja. Nos processos do Khmer Vermelho que começaram em 2009, Bizot foi convocado a testemunhar contra Deuch, que recebera a alcunha de “algoz de Tuol Sleng”. Depois de ter ficado escondido por muito tempo, ele foi preso e levado a julgamento, quando Bizot teve a chance de voltar a confrontar o homem que o manteve cativo.
Este livro é o testemunho doloroso daquilo que o etnólogo descobriu sobre o torturador e sobre si mesmo, depois de revisitar o período de terror que experimentou na própria pele. O silêncio do algoz está entre as raras obras escritas por pessoas que sobreviveram a situações extremas e que nos permitem, por sua lucidez e sua descrição da crueldade, entender melhor esse complexo mistério que é o homem.
Anos depois de ter passado pela prisão, o francês descobre que seu antigo algoz - mas também aquele que lhe salvou a vida - havia sido responsável por torturar e matar mais de 40 mil prisioneiros no Camboja. Nos processos do Khmer Vermelho que começaram em 2009, Bizot foi convocado a testemunhar contra Deuch, que recebera a alcunha de “algoz de Tuol Sleng”. Depois de ter ficado escondido por muito tempo, ele foi preso e levado a julgamento, quando Bizot teve a chance de voltar a confrontar o homem que o manteve cativo.
Este livro é o testemunho doloroso daquilo que o etnólogo descobriu sobre o torturador e sobre si mesmo, depois de revisitar o período de terror que experimentou na própria pele. O silêncio do algoz está entre as raras obras escritas por pessoas que sobreviveram a situações extremas e que nos permitem, por sua lucidez e sua descrição da crueldade, entender melhor esse complexo mistério que é o homem.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
12 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
François Bizot
9 books15 followersFrançois Bizot is the only Westerner to have survived imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.
Bizot arrived in Cambodia in 1965 to study Buddhism practiced in the countryside. He traveled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian with whom he had a daughter, Hélène, in 1968. When the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes.
Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.
Bizot arrived in Cambodia in 1965 to study Buddhism practiced in the countryside. He traveled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian with whom he had a daughter, Hélène, in 1968. When the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes.
Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 18, 2013
I like the author's digression into scientific based thoughts of where man's natural cruelty could have possibly originated. The author shares a sensitivity of self that makes the book more than a factual account of events, but a book that encourages one to think about my own human nature with all its flaws, but only after having first examined himself so intelligently and thoughtfully. He seems as an architect of where the human race should choose to evolve. Where should or can we evolve? It is not always an easy read as the book seems to meander along make ongoing similar points. Anyway, I was in Cambodia when I bought this book at the airport. I am hoping to find out a similar truth that Bizot explored with his life, that of what makes humans so absurdly bad.
pg82 update; This book reads like a diary almost. I don't know where it is going but it is quite brilliantly roaming through creative expression of an impossible subject that has joined itself to Bizot like eczema, certainly an unwelcome partner that has to be exercised. I doubt it possible to be exercised, perhaps it can only be cradled and nurtured and then only temporarily absent. Reading this account and story of Cambodia does mean that the demon exists.
Updt.3 Finally the author meets Duch, though it didn't seem clear that this was a first meeting, rather one with movie cameras. Feelings verbally expressed by author attempt to tell what the experience was like, but in my mind continue the seeking of deeper meaning than was there. I agree with Bizot's comment which sums up things nicely in a quote from page 101; "You expect the devil and instead you find a destitute being, with no memory, no papers, no luggage, who only wishes for one thing: to change lives." On to 2009, The Defendant.
Up to this point, much self explanation has been trodden through, and finally we come to activity, the trial. This is where some might skip to and read for the heart of the story to avoid the ramblings, some very insightful, but still somewhat tiresome explaining... Part 2 is much more interesting where history is presented. The transcripts are what I have waited for, Duch's notes on the Gate are very interesting. Part 1 of the book set the stage, although it seems to hover around the similar theme without covering much. I am in the stretch to finish the book, though I won't rush. Just looking for the book's overall insight.
As most legal depositions the word is tedious. The author's transcription is proof of his ability to waffle and say little of concrete content, though he senses his truths are of the most profound. His arguments are rather unconvincing and formal to a point that they are pointless almost. Bizot may have had a horrific experience but it doesn't appear so in this book. I still have more to trudge through to get to the end of this long winded dull book, that I'd hoped for so much more, but it is times like this that I was a much faster reader and that I didn't deliberate on the meaning of things so much. At this point I have changed the 3 to 2 stars. The last portion of the book doesn't really demonstrate Duch as a killer. Perhaps I wanted, expected to see more substance behind a killer and perhaps that is story, that the killer isn't much different than my neighbor or even the fellow shaving in the mirror under different circumstances, but I don't buy that argument. It all comes down I think to your own personal philosophy. I am sure I too would fear death in circumstances. I have had the experience of mortars landing near me on a regular basis in Iraq. I hated it and there was fear. Meaningless killing. I think I read this book not to understand the killing fields as much to contemplate the old question of my own extinguishment and what that means. Understanding the author's view of this when forced into this role has shown me that there are really different versions of this. I am particularly relieved to have some small belief about an afterlife or a continued life. With this the case, not what the book is about, I have the sense that maybe there is more than complete extinguishment. I applaud this diary but it is not not a fresh account retold of a memory that was I assume repressed and brought up to express oneself. I can't really recommend the book unless the reader is a student of Cambodia history. The philosophy is thin and trial is just looking to find fault for a guilty verdict which is forgone conclusion. I don't think they really find a monster but just a regretful intelligent person who hopefully won't commit the same mistakes in his next existence. My new question is what can we do now to ensure we improve then? What if don't improve? Are we damned to repeat the same? Is something imparted to us having committed such acts for our spirits next existence? Anyway now I am not reviewing a book. Best.
pg82 update; This book reads like a diary almost. I don't know where it is going but it is quite brilliantly roaming through creative expression of an impossible subject that has joined itself to Bizot like eczema, certainly an unwelcome partner that has to be exercised. I doubt it possible to be exercised, perhaps it can only be cradled and nurtured and then only temporarily absent. Reading this account and story of Cambodia does mean that the demon exists.
Updt.3 Finally the author meets Duch, though it didn't seem clear that this was a first meeting, rather one with movie cameras. Feelings verbally expressed by author attempt to tell what the experience was like, but in my mind continue the seeking of deeper meaning than was there. I agree with Bizot's comment which sums up things nicely in a quote from page 101; "You expect the devil and instead you find a destitute being, with no memory, no papers, no luggage, who only wishes for one thing: to change lives." On to 2009, The Defendant.
Up to this point, much self explanation has been trodden through, and finally we come to activity, the trial. This is where some might skip to and read for the heart of the story to avoid the ramblings, some very insightful, but still somewhat tiresome explaining... Part 2 is much more interesting where history is presented. The transcripts are what I have waited for, Duch's notes on the Gate are very interesting. Part 1 of the book set the stage, although it seems to hover around the similar theme without covering much. I am in the stretch to finish the book, though I won't rush. Just looking for the book's overall insight.
As most legal depositions the word is tedious. The author's transcription is proof of his ability to waffle and say little of concrete content, though he senses his truths are of the most profound. His arguments are rather unconvincing and formal to a point that they are pointless almost. Bizot may have had a horrific experience but it doesn't appear so in this book. I still have more to trudge through to get to the end of this long winded dull book, that I'd hoped for so much more, but it is times like this that I was a much faster reader and that I didn't deliberate on the meaning of things so much. At this point I have changed the 3 to 2 stars. The last portion of the book doesn't really demonstrate Duch as a killer. Perhaps I wanted, expected to see more substance behind a killer and perhaps that is story, that the killer isn't much different than my neighbor or even the fellow shaving in the mirror under different circumstances, but I don't buy that argument. It all comes down I think to your own personal philosophy. I am sure I too would fear death in circumstances. I have had the experience of mortars landing near me on a regular basis in Iraq. I hated it and there was fear. Meaningless killing. I think I read this book not to understand the killing fields as much to contemplate the old question of my own extinguishment and what that means. Understanding the author's view of this when forced into this role has shown me that there are really different versions of this. I am particularly relieved to have some small belief about an afterlife or a continued life. With this the case, not what the book is about, I have the sense that maybe there is more than complete extinguishment. I applaud this diary but it is not not a fresh account retold of a memory that was I assume repressed and brought up to express oneself. I can't really recommend the book unless the reader is a student of Cambodia history. The philosophy is thin and trial is just looking to find fault for a guilty verdict which is forgone conclusion. I don't think they really find a monster but just a regretful intelligent person who hopefully won't commit the same mistakes in his next existence. My new question is what can we do now to ensure we improve then? What if don't improve? Are we damned to repeat the same? Is something imparted to us having committed such acts for our spirits next existence? Anyway now I am not reviewing a book. Best.
June 24, 2013
The Khmer Rouge ... triumph was a milestone in the life of this nation, for it was not just many human lives that were annihilated, but also the heart of the subtle mechanics of intimacy.
This is Bizot's reflection following his testimony at the torture and genocide trial of Duch, the man who led the torture and murder of some 17,000 or so Cambodian people, most famously in the S21 prison, of which there were only 7 survivors. Another one of Duch's few survivors, Bizot, a foreigner captured early in the Khmer Rouge period, was released after three months chained to a tree in a rural prison camp. Bizot has an autobiography that tells the story of his capture and eventual release, at the behest of Duch's political machinations, after the torturer found some affinity for Bizot during his interrogations and went above his direct superior to secure Bizot's freedom.
This book offers a bit of history and context for the trial, and a larger part philosophy as Bizot tries to make sense of his own luck and survivor guilt. From a distance as a reader, I see only a man who was privileged as a foreign, well spoken researcher to be able to relieve the boredom of the soldier-bureaucrat, who chose to enact one episode of interesting pity in the midst of tens of thousands of methodical choices to ignore humanity. Yet within this book is the writing of someone who clutches desperately to his own free will, and with it, a sense of guilt, of having partaken in some crime for evoking sympathy in the butcher of Tuol Seng. This whole book, down to the notes that Duch scribbled in response to reading Bizot's autobiography, reminds me of the central conclusion of Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery: what was shocking when I read Herman's book is how long-term domestic violence and sexual abuse produces the same trauma as combat. Here, in Facing the Torturer and to a greater degree in the documentary film S21, everywhere I saw survivors and perpetrators enacting the same personal revisions of history (claiming choice and therefore guilt in the former, releasing oneself to societal pressure and victim blaming in the latter) of mundane sexual violence. The Khmer Rouge never lost, really, and there was almost no accountability or reconciliation between the victims, the perpetrators, and the victim-perpetrators (the child soldiers, the food hoarders, the people who harbor their own 'Sophie's Choice' and the ones who saw and blamed) who perhaps account for most people during the time when Angkar penetrated every aspect of existence so that no one could ever do right or heroically, and survive.
Bizot tries to make sense of the illogic of the Khmer Rouge confession machine-- in which prisoners were tortured until they crafted, together with their torturers, the particular story invented and applied to them out of an inexplicable demand for written narrative, pure creative fictions declaring guilt, a piece of bureaucratic red tape required before getting on with the business of execution. In this light, it is fascinating that the narrator here and the main surviving storyteller in S21 the film are both artists. Bizot writes with poetry; the survivor in S21 is a painter. Who better to reflect upon the all-encompassing, mind-boggling theater of the Khmer Rouge's constructed universe?
This book is haunting and unsettling, worth reading but perhaps not so full of revelations to make it indispensable reading. In Bizot's decision to hold himself accountable and lay bare his personal wrongs, I think he does himself a disservice. Yes, it is people who commit torture and genocide, not monsters. But it is people enacting choices or choosing to view the constraints offered them as bereft of choices, and it does humanity no service to conflate actions and magnitudes of cruelty.
This is Bizot's reflection following his testimony at the torture and genocide trial of Duch, the man who led the torture and murder of some 17,000 or so Cambodian people, most famously in the S21 prison, of which there were only 7 survivors. Another one of Duch's few survivors, Bizot, a foreigner captured early in the Khmer Rouge period, was released after three months chained to a tree in a rural prison camp. Bizot has an autobiography that tells the story of his capture and eventual release, at the behest of Duch's political machinations, after the torturer found some affinity for Bizot during his interrogations and went above his direct superior to secure Bizot's freedom.
This book offers a bit of history and context for the trial, and a larger part philosophy as Bizot tries to make sense of his own luck and survivor guilt. From a distance as a reader, I see only a man who was privileged as a foreign, well spoken researcher to be able to relieve the boredom of the soldier-bureaucrat, who chose to enact one episode of interesting pity in the midst of tens of thousands of methodical choices to ignore humanity. Yet within this book is the writing of someone who clutches desperately to his own free will, and with it, a sense of guilt, of having partaken in some crime for evoking sympathy in the butcher of Tuol Seng. This whole book, down to the notes that Duch scribbled in response to reading Bizot's autobiography, reminds me of the central conclusion of Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery: what was shocking when I read Herman's book is how long-term domestic violence and sexual abuse produces the same trauma as combat. Here, in Facing the Torturer and to a greater degree in the documentary film S21, everywhere I saw survivors and perpetrators enacting the same personal revisions of history (claiming choice and therefore guilt in the former, releasing oneself to societal pressure and victim blaming in the latter) of mundane sexual violence. The Khmer Rouge never lost, really, and there was almost no accountability or reconciliation between the victims, the perpetrators, and the victim-perpetrators (the child soldiers, the food hoarders, the people who harbor their own 'Sophie's Choice' and the ones who saw and blamed) who perhaps account for most people during the time when Angkar penetrated every aspect of existence so that no one could ever do right or heroically, and survive.
Bizot tries to make sense of the illogic of the Khmer Rouge confession machine-- in which prisoners were tortured until they crafted, together with their torturers, the particular story invented and applied to them out of an inexplicable demand for written narrative, pure creative fictions declaring guilt, a piece of bureaucratic red tape required before getting on with the business of execution. In this light, it is fascinating that the narrator here and the main surviving storyteller in S21 the film are both artists. Bizot writes with poetry; the survivor in S21 is a painter. Who better to reflect upon the all-encompassing, mind-boggling theater of the Khmer Rouge's constructed universe?
This book is haunting and unsettling, worth reading but perhaps not so full of revelations to make it indispensable reading. In Bizot's decision to hold himself accountable and lay bare his personal wrongs, I think he does himself a disservice. Yes, it is people who commit torture and genocide, not monsters. But it is people enacting choices or choosing to view the constraints offered them as bereft of choices, and it does humanity no service to conflate actions and magnitudes of cruelty.
August 31, 2017
Reviewed for the Portland Book Review.
It’s not uncommon to see portrayals or stories of torture on news and TV programs, but an examination or reflection on torture is more rare. The topic is either viewed as a bygone consideration or a foregone conclusion due to exceptional historical circumstances or solitary people, yet Francois Bizot has written Facing the Torturer to call to mind the very near, human missteps and configurations that underpin torture. Bizot describes that while imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge under Comrade Duch, he acted differently and was viewed differently than other prisoners; it is now Bizot’s endeavor to instigate a different view and show that “the butcher of Tuol Sleng” and our shared humanity with him needs broader scrutiny if we care at all about preventing torture. His book is recounted mostly in an impressionistic and anecdotal fashion, dropping graphic details and emotions along the way. Only towards the end of the book does “objective” court testimony and post-Khmer Rouge encounters with Duch appear and bring welcome grounding of the subject, but it is the mythic language that provides equal lucidity. Francois Bizot provides an authentic account of the process of "facing the torturer" which follows its own pace.
Some of my favorite passages in the book had to do with writing, language, and translation, which I did not expect in this book but were beautiful words. As I wrote, the book to me was mainly impressionistic, and doesn't get very graphic; I do not know whether Bizot keeps this sort of distance now because he already churned it out when he wrote The Gate, about his time imprisoned, but I'm intrigued enough about that and about the before and after of his arrest when he remained in Cambodia working to want to read The Gate.
It’s not uncommon to see portrayals or stories of torture on news and TV programs, but an examination or reflection on torture is more rare. The topic is either viewed as a bygone consideration or a foregone conclusion due to exceptional historical circumstances or solitary people, yet Francois Bizot has written Facing the Torturer to call to mind the very near, human missteps and configurations that underpin torture. Bizot describes that while imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge under Comrade Duch, he acted differently and was viewed differently than other prisoners; it is now Bizot’s endeavor to instigate a different view and show that “the butcher of Tuol Sleng” and our shared humanity with him needs broader scrutiny if we care at all about preventing torture. His book is recounted mostly in an impressionistic and anecdotal fashion, dropping graphic details and emotions along the way. Only towards the end of the book does “objective” court testimony and post-Khmer Rouge encounters with Duch appear and bring welcome grounding of the subject, but it is the mythic language that provides equal lucidity. Francois Bizot provides an authentic account of the process of "facing the torturer" which follows its own pace.
Some of my favorite passages in the book had to do with writing, language, and translation, which I did not expect in this book but were beautiful words. As I wrote, the book to me was mainly impressionistic, and doesn't get very graphic; I do not know whether Bizot keeps this sort of distance now because he already churned it out when he wrote The Gate, about his time imprisoned, but I'm intrigued enough about that and about the before and after of his arrest when he remained in Cambodia working to want to read The Gate.
November 11, 2013
bizot is famous for his insightful historical and philosophical wrtings, he being a master of explicating very complicated human thoughts and actions in understandable prose. also, he made a big splash when after being captured and help pow by khmer rouge he wrote aobut his expericnese in the camp and with his captor in this most excellent book The Gate
so this book here is a continuation of that ordeal, as he attends and testifies at the trials of khmer crimes against humanity.so he revisits more of his captivity, the geopolitical situations during that time (and now) and asks, among many other questions, are humans evil as individuals, social beasts, training, arendt's banality, exigencies, or other reasons?
so this one is more a mix of real events and thoughts on evil, while his "the gate" is more about real events with some thoughts about why.
bizot is a beautiful and important writer and can help a reader understand genocide and evil.
so this book here is a continuation of that ordeal, as he attends and testifies at the trials of khmer crimes against humanity.so he revisits more of his captivity, the geopolitical situations during that time (and now) and asks, among many other questions, are humans evil as individuals, social beasts, training, arendt's banality, exigencies, or other reasons?
so this one is more a mix of real events and thoughts on evil, while his "the gate" is more about real events with some thoughts about why.
bizot is a beautiful and important writer and can help a reader understand genocide and evil.
December 29, 2014
What happens when you accept the humanity of a monster? That is the key question at the heart of Franciois Bizot's essay "Facing the Torturer." The writing itself is peppered with a wonderful philosophical premise: the reason we chose to make monsters of people is because we cannot handle the realization that what hideous things live in THEM live in US as well. And while this point is interesting enough, it is over-elaborated and extended throughout a laborious 200 pages. Bizot also fails to give us enough historical or political context on the Khmer Rouge and it's role in Cambodian politics and the atrocities that ensued for the book to have the kind of historic weight it clearly requires. As a sequel to his memoir "The Gate", I'm sure it works splendidly. Without these contexts, though, the essay tends to retread the same interesting idea over and over again, adding little narrative or philosophical insight to it.
March 2, 2017
I have to say that I wasn't really impressed by this book. The author had some great details and unique perspectives, but he was very repetitive. Much of the book was confusing because some of the things he wrote about seemed contradictory. Some of the story was pretty interesting to read about, like when he'd talk about his daughter he had to leave. I don't really recommend reading this unless you have something like a research project to do. (Much like I did.)
May 31, 2013
I loved this book. There are so many books from the perspective of prisoners of war, however this was like no other. This looked at things from a really compelling point of view. There were many questions asked regarding humanity that I'd never thought of and sparked many thoughts within me. This is a must read for anyone who enjoys thought provoking novels.
July 22, 2013
When we prosecute "crimes against humanity", should we indict humanity or insist on masking the accused as an inhuman monster, separate from ourselves? The question has not let Bizot go for 50 years.
August 30, 2021
The first 50 pages of this book were very difficult to get through. Things improved afterwards, but ultimately it did not feel like a history book to me. Bizot spends more time struggling with morality than reporting on what went on in Cambodia. Considering the fact he only spent three months in captivity and did not even witness any physical torture, the title seems to be misleading as well.
April 5, 2024
If you’re looking for an account of the Cambodian genocide, then you’re looking for Bizot’s other book, The Gate. But if you want a philosophical consideration of humanity and inhumanity, this is it.
March 20, 2017
Helps if you've read the previous books of his, especially The Gate. Tries to get to the heart of why Duch does what he did but generally struggles to offer much insight.
January 16, 2016
This is a difficult read, for many reasons. Subject matter, structure, that it's {although very well} translated from the original French. It's weighty and tangled. It's as much a reflection on philosophy as memoir -- and not at all a memoir in the traditional sense. I actually read it twice through, immediately, and that helped; not all of it made sense to me until I'd read further and not all of it made sense to me completely, at all. There isn't a point-to-point timeline here, and monumental events that changed Bizot are layered in his own language and abstract reactions. Reading it felt like a late night rambling discussion over tea-then booze-then coffee. There is a thesis in it, I think, and it came as his answer to one of the lawyer's prosecuting the crimes. [[What I mean by that is that to take the measure of the abomination of the torturer and his actions, that it's especially about, you just cited the name of Nuon Chea. Or of the defendant. I say that we need to rehabilitate the humanity that inhabits him. If we make him into a special monster, in whom we are unable to recognise ourselves, as a human being, not as what he did but as a human being, the horror of his actions seems to escape us to a certain extent. So if we consider that he is a man with the same capacities as ourselves, we are frightened, beyond that kind of segregation that would have to be made between those who are capable of killing and us, who are not capable of it. Unfortunately I'm afraid that we have a more terrifying understanding of the torturer when we take account of his human side. It is not a question of wanting ot forgive what was done. My approach is trying to understand the universal tragedy that was played out here, in the forests of Cambodia; as in other countries, or at other times in our history. Even the most recent history.]]
July 17, 2018
Contrepoint de Le Portail, à l'occasion du procès de Douch, bourreau khmer rouge et responsable de plus de 15000 morts à la prison S21 de Phnom Penh. François Bizot se repenche sur ses souvenirs et sa relation de prisonnier à geôlier avec Douch qui l'a libéré après 3 mois de détention dans un camp en pleine forêt en 1971, convaincu de son innocence. La terreur est toujours là. Dans la lignée de Hannah Arendt, François Bizot met en lumière l'humanité du monstre, à ce titre beaucoup plus effrayant que si l'on le juge en dehors de la communauté humaine en raison des actes qu'il a accomplis par "devoir" et "conviction révolutionnaire" si ce n'est par goût, cette communauté qui refuse pourtant de lui reconnaître sa part d'humanité et le miroir qu'il nous tend. L'auteur demande quand acceptera-t-on de juger l'homme au cours de ces procès internationaux contre des crimes commis contre l'humanité, et non pas seulement un ou une poignée d'hommes ?
Un immense livre, ardu parfois, poignant, sur la condition humaine, le choix, la conviction politique, l'aveuglement et les pièges, la mémoire, dignité, l'humilité, la perte et la découverte du pire en soi, un destin marqué à jamais par la survie, une relation hors normes, dans un contexte atroce.
Un livre indispensable, tout comme Le Portail. Des questionnements fondamentaux, et des réponses terrifiantes. On ne sort pas indemne de la lecture de l'expérience de François Bizot.
Un immense livre, ardu parfois, poignant, sur la condition humaine, le choix, la conviction politique, l'aveuglement et les pièges, la mémoire, dignité, l'humilité, la perte et la découverte du pire en soi, un destin marqué à jamais par la survie, une relation hors normes, dans un contexte atroce.
Un livre indispensable, tout comme Le Portail. Des questionnements fondamentaux, et des réponses terrifiantes. On ne sort pas indemne de la lecture de l'expérience de François Bizot.
November 22, 2017
Mr Bizot speaks without the common human allure of dehumanising the "monster," much like the "monsters" dehumanise their victims, so as to comfortably live knowing our own humanity secludes us from ever committing such crimes.
We are presented with a unique and fascinating account of a man who witnessed the compassion of "the man" within Comrade Duch and later had to understand the atrocities that "the monster" within Comrade Duch was willing to commit. With startling prose, we are led, transfixed towards an understanding of the human nature of Duch and as always with understanding comes love. Then, kicked out into the street, feeling naked and ashamed we attempt to comprehend every genocidal degradation and torturous act he ordered or carried out with vicious brutality; our mind staggers.
We are all human, there is a raging monster in every single one of us. From Steve Biko to Anders Breivik and Hitler to Christ, a crucial battle must be fought within us every single day.
We are presented with a unique and fascinating account of a man who witnessed the compassion of "the man" within Comrade Duch and later had to understand the atrocities that "the monster" within Comrade Duch was willing to commit. With startling prose, we are led, transfixed towards an understanding of the human nature of Duch and as always with understanding comes love. Then, kicked out into the street, feeling naked and ashamed we attempt to comprehend every genocidal degradation and torturous act he ordered or carried out with vicious brutality; our mind staggers.
We are all human, there is a raging monster in every single one of us. From Steve Biko to Anders Breivik and Hitler to Christ, a crucial battle must be fought within us every single day.
April 18, 2013
Chilling account, at least half of it. I humbly apologize if this would sound like I'm downplaying Bizot's horrid torture experience but there were points of "snore fest" especially when he began over philosophizing the mind of his torturer. I get it, he was troubled, YEAH. But it was difficult for me as a reader to understand him. The torturer was a monster, period.
February 16, 2016
I am not sure I have a lot of praises for this book because it doesn't demand it. Did I like it? I don't know. I didn't hate it though. Reading this one was like having to just accept the bitter aspect of life. It felt like being take though a dark alley which is inevitable in life.
I won't recommend it for anyone's who's not feeling too lively.
I won't recommend it for anyone's who's not feeling too lively.
January 19, 2013
Most interesting. Mr. Bizot was able to distance himself in a most academic manner to write this account. The translation may have contributed to its, at times, rather formal tone.
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