By Erika Meyer
“Affliction (Malheur) hardens and discourages us because, like a red hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the scorn, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of guilt and defilement that crime logically should produce but actually does not. Evil dwells in the heart of the criminal without being felt there. It is felt in the heart of the man who is afflicted and innocent.” – Simone Weil
There is a two-hour documentary called Worse Than War in which a Jewish-American historian Daniel Goldhagen presents insights gained over more than three decades of studying genocide. According to Goldhagen, over the past 100 years, genocide has claimed more than 100 million victims. He says that the innocent victims of genocide outnumber combat deaths in every war that has occurred everywhere during that same period. He says that genocide occurs mainly because instigators feel it will benefit them, and because they believe they can get away with it.
The fact that those who have the knowledge and power to stop or deter genocide so often fail to act – that so many innocents suffer and die because of this – is terribly hard on the human heart and psyche.
I don’t know how anti-genocide activist Robert Park knew to contact Portland musician Chris Newman about making a record. He knew of Chris’ music, and had for some time. When I asked, he said that he thinks Chris is a very spiritual person.
Robert, for his part, had made international news back in 2009, illegally crossing from China into North Korea, carrying a message of support for the North Korean people and demanding that the North Korean release all political prisoners. North Korea uses all the usual tools of genocide: rape, torture, forced relocation, managed starvation, concentration camps, murder. Robert’s act was a dramatic attempt to bring attention to the situation. He was prepared to die for the cause.
North Korean forces captured him but did not kill him. Instead they held him for 43 days, and tortured him until he recanted on camera. Their intent was most likely to break Robert down mentally and physically to the point that he would be unable or unwilling to ever create a problem for them again. Due to severe psychological trauma, Robert has not yet spoken in detail about the experience.
Robert went back to his activism, but he had been badly hurt. Suffering from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he was hospitalized for nine months. He still struggles with insomnia, nightmares, torment, suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, sudden rages, self-destructive urges and acts, and intense physical pain.
Robert began to channel his energy into writing. He wrote and published many articles about North Korea, and he wrote songs – many songs. He had recorded some acoustic demos at home. Now he was asking Chris to help him take the process a step further. They planned a two-day recording session, with the idea that they’d come back for a third day the following month to mix.
It was a rainy morning in Portland when Robert arrived. He and Chris headed off to engineer Mike Lastra’s basement studio near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. While Mike ran the controls, Chris assumed the role of producer, arranger, and side-man. Like the dentist who pulled my wisdom teeth, Chris’ approach to timid musicians is push through the recording process hard and fast. It may hurt, but it’s over so quickly you barely notice.
For basic tracks Robert played a Telecaster and sang, while Chris played drums in an isolation booth. After about two hours, Robert’s anxiety became so intense, he felt he couldn’t go on. Chris talked him into staying at least long enough to get bass and lead guitar parts down. After four hours, Chris and Robert had some basic tracks for half a dozen songs. But Robert was really crumbling now, so they had to stop.
The following day, Robert’s anxiety was still out of control. He could not make it into the studio at all. Since he had already paid for a remaining four studio hours, he gifted those hours to Chris, and left Portland with no plans to return.
Chris used the gifted studio hours to mix Robert’s songs. He then mailed a copy of those mixes to Robert. At this point, Robert was in a severe downward spiral. He had no stable living situation, was continuously tormented by nightmares and pain, and very fearful of being locked up again.
His panic grew worse and worse, then he disappeared.
Almost a year later Robert Park reappeared.
With the help of a group of activists who look out for him and his work, Robert had taken the mixes and put them on a website which also featured links to the many articles he had written. He had a Facebook page, and his demos had already received favorable reviews, and he seemed to have found an ally in Big Takeover editor Jack Rabid.
He had named his act Malheur V.O.L. Malheur is a concept taken from Jewish mystic Simone Weil’s writings (it is often translated into English as “affliction”), and V.O.L. stands for “violence of love,” after a book of writings by martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, an advocate for the poor and oppressed.
Now Robert was asking me to make a video for one of the songs, ‘Indifference’.
He told me to show scenes from different genocides. “Make it like a nightmare unfolding,” he said. His hope is that upon viewing the obscene horror of it all, more people will rise up and take action. He asked me to include song titles in both Korean and English. It was also very important to him that I emphasize the image of Soghomon Tehlirian who, as a teen, witnessed the murder of his entire family (his sisters raped first), was left for dead on the pile of corpses, and somehow survived. Six years later, with a single bullet, Tehlirian shot and killed one of the orchestrators of the Armenian genocide. I think that for Robert, Tehlirian is a symbol of survival, vengeance, and justice.
The Big Takeover premiered ‘Indifference’ on July 8. Three weeks later, it had received almost 4,500 plays on YouTube.
In March, according to Genocide Watch, the U.N. created a “three-person commission to look into allegations of human rights violations in North Korea, including food deprivation, labor camps for political prisoners and torture”.
Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. – Simone Weil