ON GAOLS AND GAOLERS

Gaol as a personal experience – a communist tale

I did not give much thought to gaols as a kid, though I knew that prison was a fearsome place for bad people. Once I met a guy who had escaped some sort of correctional institution for juvenile criminals. I will never forget his face. He looked like an animal being helplessly hunted down. We were of the same age, but he looked much more mature. He was talking as if delirious though he was not drugged. I am sure of that, as at the time illegal drugs were only a term with no reference whatsoever in a communist country, except for the references made in the press by the propaganda to blame the capitalist countries for all evil in the world. He spoke of a world that hardly seemed plausible to me. Above all, he said he had to run away to avoid being raped. That was simply something I could not figure, let alone believe. He came by my block looking for some far relative of his. He asked me to bring him some food. I was faced with one of the first real problems that I had ever had to cope with before. Wherefrom was I to get him food? First of all, food was not easy to get, especially in the late evening of a freezing cold late autumn day. I had no money anyway. There was, however, one way for me to get him some food. I could take some from home, as this happened in front of my block, but my folks were at home and all I could do was either to sneak in (which was practically impossible in a flat) and steal some food from the kitchen, or to ask my parents for some food. But what was I to tell them it was for? I was not allowed to eat in the streets. I felt sorry for the guy, but it was simply out of my hand. Then, there was also another problem: he was taller and visibly much stronger than me. I was afraid of the way in which he could react if faced with an outright refusal. So I mumbled something, which now I do not believe to have been very convincing, and headed right back home, where it was safe. This was my first contact with a representative of a world which was closest to my definition of penitentiary at the time. Eventually, I dismissed that memory altogether saying that even though I pitied him, he must have done something really wrong to end up in a place like that. It was really beyond my judgement to try to figure out if any human being, guilty of no matter what, deserved such treatment, that kind of punishment: rape. What exactly did it mean? It sure was something scary. But life was good then and I did not have to think much of that particular encounter any more. But from time to time, I saw on TV various footages of police investigations (which in a communist country were always successful, but this is another story): bad guys were caught and duly sentenced to various terms in prison. Bad guys, some of them really bad. What had they done? They had committed crimes, such as: theft (this was a commonplace under the commies: “as perfect as our society is, unfortunately there still are – but not for long – thieves who steal from the belongings of honest people, or from the common property of our dearest socialist motherland”), rape (again), murder. Common crimes. However, at the time there were various crimes which I would not call common at all. For instance the crime of not being employed. This was illegal and I simply could not understand why people would not like to take up honest work to make a decent living. You would not really go to gaol for something like that (not usually anyway), but it was nevertheless a crime. Other than that, it was ok. I mean, as I could see it at the time, it was ok for such bad people to go gaol, to be disciplined, put back on track and returned to society as law abiding decent people or to be executed for serious crimes. Yes, it was ok. Nobody would want criminals on the loose. Prison was a bad, but necessary place. It was a necessary evil. After all, there were gaols everywhere in the world, or at least so I had heard. It was only years after that I learnt about political prisoners, prisoners battered to death, as covered executions carried out by other prisoners controlled by the guards. Communism fell. It did not simply go away by itself, as easy as you dispose of human waste when you flush the toilet. It was a violent transition. They called it a revolution. There were people killed by the army, by the former secret services. There was random shooting against unarmed civilians. Some of them were killed, about two thousand, the official figures say. Hardly any of the shooters went to gaol. First of all, no one could officially identify the killers. Then, the victims were dead anyway. What good could anyone do to them? It was ok. After all it was a revolution and history told us that every revolution took its toll. But, interestingly enough, I witnessed for the first time an instance in which armed people could kill other people, mostly civilians, some of them teenagers or even younger kids, without facing any kind of trial, let alone going to gaol. It was the first time I said to myself: “Now you can walk by real killers in the street and they would look like everybody else. They do not go to gaol. This is a fact. Admit it. Accept it.” But it was somehow hard to swallow. I felt revolt.
It was a general amnesty. The new authorities released all prisoners saying that some of them had been wrongfully imprisoned and that anyway it was a new beginning and even criminals deserved a chance to live in a new world. There were, however, subsequent press reports saying that the police were having a hard time trying to get criminals back behind bars as the latter simply would not stay out of the crime’s way. But this again was ok. It was police work, that was what they were getting paid for. It was a free country, my country, and I had never lived in a free country before. What could be wrong with living in a free country. It was a new promising life for me (or so I thought). And like anywhere in the world, there were criminals and therefore gaols, to keep them away from the decent honest people, who now did not have to work if they did not want to do so and could make a living out of God knows what. Yes, it was ok. Especially as I had recently been admitted to a university and had begun to work as a journalist. But life was still good. It was a free world, even if real killers, mass murderers (who make today’s serial killers look like a bad joke) did not always go to gaol. People went back to their jobs and continued their daily routine. There was however something they had to consider: some top politicians said that communism was not really a bad thing, it was a good political approach, but unfortunately it had not been put in practice in a proper manner. Capitalism, on the other hand, was something bad, because fierce capitalists would come and take OUR factories, plants, OUR everything and this would be bad because everybody would lose their jobs and ordinary people would starve to death and, moreover, we should not sell our country. Strangely enough however, some people (many of whom were former political prisoners, great personalities of our country before communism – people who should have been referred to as living heroes, but who were nevertheless subject to ongoing slandering campaigns in the press) did not seem to agree. This topic overshadowed any ongoing discussions on how to bring the murderers to justice, even if such discussions were quite sterile in themselves. There was something else the public opinion had to consider (I must confess that the phrase “public opinion” is not quite felicitous in this context, because at the time there was no such thing as public opinion. It was just people, frightened, curious, angry, vengeful, demanding people watching TV, the only TV station in the country, and as they watched they let that last bastion of communist propaganda manipulate them. That was easy enough and the TV people were experts in manipulation. After all, they had done it for decades on end): there were many (not just one) political parties and, except for one of them (the ruling party), all were enemies of the state. There were rallies. At first, the new democratic police (consisting mostly of officers of the former communist police) were reluctant to react, that is to bring back order in the streets, so that the decent, honest people could go to work and live a happy and accomplished life. It was trouble. Big trouble. Police could do nothing, as the protesters were unarmed, non-violent civilians, chanting anti-communist slogans and singing popular songs of revolt and protest. Then it happened. The official story went that a group of decent honest and hardworking people were outraged. They happened to be miners. No matter that they were from a rather distant town, they still had a right to make their point: decent honest and hardworking people had nothing to do with the scam of the society, with tramps going on rallies, who chanted anti-communist slogans and sang and disturbed the peace and public order. That particular group of outraged citizens had to take action and they did just that. They gathered in quasi paramilitary groups of vigilantes, pick hammers in hands, stampeded in the railway station, took conductors hostages, seized trains and came to the capital city to teach the protesters a lesson. It is true that on their way to the capital city, these honest citizens ransacked several shops (they had to eat and of course to drink – alcohol is good when it comes to things like that), vandalised a couple of other towns and even raped (mind you!) a few women who were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they did come to the capital city and, with the silent assistance of the law enforcement authorities, did away with the protesters. Some of the latter were killed in the process, other were battered beyond recognition. Not many. Also not many of the protesters were arrested for a short while and then released as a sign of mercy from a new and merciful society. But apart from that, nobody went to gaol. First of all, the officials did not admit that any crime had been committed. Then, years after, when the rapes, murders and beatings could no longer be denied, it was tou late to identify the criminals and, moreover, what good could that do to anyone? People needed peace.
A few years later, as a journalist, I visited a real gaol. This was a first. I got to see most of the cells and I had a thorough look at the inmates. They were sad men and women. Some of the men had scars and looked menacing. The female prisoners were even sadder: some of them were casual prostitutes. Most inmates were almost illiterate. Rapes were probably ordinary. My guide, the prison shrink, a lieutenant-colonel, showed me how well treated they were. The guards had been informed of our visit and everything was neat. All prisoners were happy and ready to chat with us. We went to a sports ground where about a dozen prisoners were happily playing football. They saw us and let us know that any interviews were welcome as long as we were willing to give them cigarettes, which we did. They looked at us and smiled. “Stupid fucks, what do you really know about us?”, their smiles seemed to say. They were nevertheless polite. Our guide was glad to give us meaningful hints about the inmates’ lives: for fun, the prisoners cast dice, gambling on cigarettes and… painkillers (this was more than ten years ago; now there are frequent reports in the media about drug dealing amongst prisoners). “I sometime give them painkillers myself. They take about a dozen pills at a time, which gets them in a state that of drunkenness and this keeps them happy and quiet.”, our guide told us. He, however, was cautious enough to ask us, in a friendly but imperative voice, to rewind our recorder and play back everything that we had recorded inside the prison. We did that and he was happy with the result. There was nothing that could cause trouble (so he thought). As I look back, that visit means nothing to me now, but a bad memory. What struck me then and it still does now is that I saw no real criminals there. The prisoners there were just unfortunate misfits who hardly had any kind of education and who could hardly even realise that they had done something wrong, that crime was wrong. They hardly had any sense of right and wrong. I had expected to see real killers with killer instinct, professional thieves, white collar cons, but I saw nothing of the kind. I asked myself what had become of the killers whom everybody had been blaming, where they really were. There was no easy answer. One thing was sure: they were not in prison, which meant that, unless they had died, they were free people, like you and me. Some of them, as I learnt later on, held public offices in the government, army, police, secret services or were simply happy and wealthy pensioners.
What is wrong with this country, I keep asking myself. One thing is quite obvious to me: the prisons I have heard of and the one that I have visited are not real gaols. The real gaol is my whole country, a huge penitentiary, and the undercover killers, bullies and rapists are the gaolers and they enjoy state protection as they use violence for the benefit of the state. It is just that most people just do not know it. Of course, cover-ups are necessary, as violence as a means to rule (not to govern) a country is not quite acceptable to public opinion. Former agents of the former secret services are now presidents of banks or big shot businessmen. People in my country are quite ready to accept whatever wrong the state may do to them. Even though they sometimes seem to be unhappy with the situation, they simply say “it’s just fate, what can you do?” and they move on.
Things have changed in the recent years. My country has gradually granted more freedom to its citizens. Capitalists have come and continue to come, but at first they seemed quite reluctant to buy any part of our beloved motherland (or is it fatherland? Who the hell knows? Maybe Freud.). Capitalism, however has slowly become an acceptable idea, as capitalists have created many jobs, good jobs, decently remunerated. Still, reminiscent habits of the dark past have survived. Large scale population surveillance is still a fact. People are still encouraged to keep an eye on their neighbours, just to find out the business, likes or dislikes, political views, friends of the latter and to inform the proper authorities (whose undercover agents still come by to gather such information). The government does not care much about the right of individuals and hardly reacts when such rights are disregarded or violated (when it does not disregard or violate such rights itself). There is hardly any idea of responsibility and just a few scapegoats have been imprisoned (just for the hell of it; it makes good press) for the crimes that I tried to sketch above. You still have to give detailed explanation when you leave the country (even though you may want to cross the border only for a few hours, just for shopping, or to visit a museum or whatever you may want). I still feel I am a prisoner in my own country. I do not take much comfort in knowing that I am not the only one and that there is little I can do. I still want to break free. (August 11,2005).