The social impact of life narratives on the articulation of human rights is now a major point of interrogation in the realm of Life Writing Studies. Mapping the intersections between storytelling and human rights offers exciting possibilities. Ever since 1990, after the end of the Cold War, it has turned out to be “the decade of human rights” articulating “a diversity of values, experiences, and ways of imagining a just social world and of responding to injustice, inequality, and human suffering”. Smith and Watson introduce the “I-witness” as well as the “eye-witness”, and argue that “I” the narrator represents not only an individual but an entire group, so that the testimonial narratives depict the story of a community. They also make an interesting comment regarding the question of authenticity, or “metrics of authenticity” as they call it and conclude that “ethical reading practices need not be based primarily on verifying claims of authenticity”.
Human rights life writings touching on violations such as genocide, civil war, communal riots, state oppression, etc., are “essential to affect recourse, mobilize action, forge communities of interest, and enable social change”. In fact, these “acts of remembering test the values that nations profess to live by against the actual experiences and perceptions of the storyteller as witness”. They issue an ethical call to listeners both within and beyond national borders to recognise “the disjunction between the values espoused by the community and the actual practices that occur”.
Such writings strongly appeal to human conscience and are capable of reframing public opinion on the occurrences described, challenging the official, statist versions of the same. Documenting the dehumanised subjectivities that gape open the wounds and the re-enactments of such excruciating experiences through writing and telling has a therapeutic effect on the victimised, in addition to having an affective impact on the readers. Life writings do offer immense possibilities for the marginalised and subalterns to communicate with readers across continents and appeal for social legislation. Such texts’ narratives of “pain, shame, distress, anguish, humiliation, anger, rage, fear, and terror, can promote healing and solidarity among disaffected groups and provide avenues for empathy across circuits of difference…”.
The role of digital forms of life writing, such as blogs, social networking sites, in reaching more people beyond borders may also be considered very significant in the era of information technology. However, life stories depicting human rights violations are not only personal simply because of the fact that they happened in specific social contexts; we may also get to know about their wider social dimension and how they impacted the community in general. Hence, one can find a plea for community bonding in such narratives. Schaffer and Smith observe in this context: “As balancing acts, directed back to a past that must be shared and toward a future that must be built collectively, acts of personal narrating can become projects of community building, organisational tools, and calls to action”. Cultural memories connected with certain incidents are invoked in the present context and are subjected to trial by the authors, and this could be capable of a transformation in the social mindset.
The different forms of life writing such as autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, diaries, etc., evoke empathy because they drive home the issue of human rights violations. In fact, this has been a major function of life narratives in the present context of atrocities. Sufferings experienced by certain sections of people are inscribed in the public sphere, appealing to readers. Obviously, there is a dominant tone of dissent and protest in these narratives.
The Holocaust is a potent site of such narratives, and we have multiple memoirs that speak of untold atrocities to the entire world. When it comes to the Indian context, the Partition and the notorious Emergency caused the proliferation of many human rights discourses. The narration of first-hand witnesses have a profound impact on the readers; such writings help the subjects to unburden their “unspeakable experiences” and we may admit here that writing has a therapeutic function. On the other hand, the ones who read these gory descriptions feel empathetic towards the subjects, and hence reading too becomes a therapy, a form of catharsis as far as readers are concerned. However, before generalising the invocation of empathy for readers, we must keep in mind the multilayered identities of readers as well as their contextual differences. It changes from one cultural context to another.
Recently, graphic novels as a mode of life writing have been effectively used by many authors, and we have graphic memoirs or autobiographical comics that represent certain painful episodes in history. Marjani Satrapi’s Persepolis illustrates the dark episodes of Iranian history, whereas the most recent one, Vanni (2019) by Benjamin Dix depicts the bloody civil war of Sri Lanka. The Bhimayana series in India narrates caste discrimination in India, and works such as Drawing the Line (2015), are powerful visual narratives based on gender violence in the aftermath of the gruesome Delhi rape incident. Prison writing is another form that sensitises readers to human rights violations. Such narratives also come under the rubric of ‘resistance narratives’.
As a form of life writing, memoir is crucial in narrating human rights atrocities, and we have Holocaust memoirs by authors like Primo Levi’s If This is a Man (1947), Elie Wiesel’s Night (1960), Ann Kirschner’s Sala’s Gift (2006), Ivan Backer’s My Train to Freedom (2016), Ariana Neumann’s When Time Stopped (2020) and Helen Fremont’s The Escape Artist (2020), etc., as good examples.
Testimonials are also powerful platforms of self-enunciation, and Rigoberta Mechu’s I, Rigoberta Mechu (1983) corroborates this. Television talk shows and interviews offer increased visibility to victims to share their experiences, but sometimes, if things are not handled sensitively, they stoop to such a level that the audience turn out to be voyeurs. Thus, the boundaries between private and public may get transgressed. Many authors have recently explored the potential of graphic novels as a medium for promoting human rights. As mentioned earlier, Satrapi’s Persepolis is a very good text which narrates the trauma connected with the Iranian revolution.
Bana Alabed and Nujeen Mustafa from Syria, Yeonmi Park from North Korea and Nadia Murad from Iraq have all succeeded in using social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to highlight human rights violations they have experienced. In the current world, such constructions of the “activist self” have redefined the scope of life writing. We can see how online life narratives have given these subjects/authors more visibility and made it easier for them to connect with their audiences, resulting in empathy and, as a result, an affective dimension to life writing, mediated by technology.
Stories narrating human rights violations can be emotionally charged texts, and we have perfect examples such as I, Rigoberta Menchu. As a matter of fact, ‘storytelling has become a potent and yet highly problematic form of cultural production, critical to the international order of human rights and movements on behalf of social change’ (Schaffer and Smith 31). Testimonies and subaltern life histories evoke a sense of humiliation and protest. We have good examples like Dalit life narratives and other texts by the marginalised, such as orphans, prostitutes, gays, lesbians, tribals, etc. Such life texts provided emotional outlets in response to human rights violations and served as counter-stories to oppressive systems. On the whole, human rights life narratives bring out the tone of protest and dissent against all kinds of power structures, from a victim’s perspective. Readers are also beseeched to side with the authors through their empathy. So, we can say that these works are essentially protest stories that call for fairness and justice.
Excerpted with permission from Life/Writing, Selected Essays: 2006-2021, Pramod K Nayar, Orient Black Swan.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!