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In Reply to: Very well said! posted by Donny on September 03, 2002 at 23:32:32:
I think it is also important to note that when leadership got it from the top it was OFTEN because they weren't doing something they were told to do, balked at it or perhaps just questioned it. The original deposing of leadership was to rid the family of personalities that were too charismatic on their own and they were a threat. I mean, if they did not obey, then who might follow them? Or their bad examples? And many of them were mimicking that Royal family idea in their own regions. And because of their familiarity with Berg, it was easier for them to question or disagree. So while those leaders where off in retraining camps or deposed completely,Then they got the Visiting Servants whose complete follow-to-the-letter-Mo-letters attitude, rather than a personality, made them more desirable puppets. Also, they had reign over the "older bottles" (a devastating humiliation tactic gleaned from Mao and others in which hordes of young "sold out" youth humiliate and deal with the older ones until they are quite broken, or dead.)Those "older bottles" were for the most part never restored.
I left when my kids were quite young, and they were all boys. I can remember travelling with a couple that had alot of kids. The guy would fondle the girl children, only one that I saw, but heard of others later. When I saw it she was screaming. I screamed at him to stop. He did, but then I was dealt with because if I did not see eye to eye with him, he was like a "spiritual thermometer" and my vocal and outward disagreement was a result of my spiritual weakness. I believed that, but I rebelled anyway. So what happened to me? I ended up on endless road trips. One day I took the scissors and cut my hair off short. Something you didn't do in the family. I was almost sent to Turkey on a road trip from Germany by the VS's. I refused to go. So we were briefly abandoned in the winter in a foreign country. I came from a family of origin where I was sexually and physically abused. It did not make me an abuser. I resisted and was dealt with multiple times. Now, reporting to the authorities... You saw the French court reports, and this was after abuse of minors was far more frequent and involving way more than inappropriate touching. Time after time in the family, it was also reinforced that the individual was shit, spiritually weak and undedicated to question. I am also realizing that the dynamics of the family after I left changed quite a bit. The younger generation got older, and the natural thing for an adolescent to do is to question, and it is obvious that Victor Camps, humiliations, physical, sexual abuse did not stop that, but added fuel to the fire. Or fission to the bomb. I left on impulse and a foreshadowing of that was part of my motivation. At the time I joined, none of what the second generation had happen to them was happening to me or any other youth that I knew of. The youth of my generation were fleeing abuse, broken ideals, etc. and replacing them with a supposedly good cause. So where I think apologies are owed, and accountability is owed is between the perpetrators and their victims once people are out of the family. I cannot categorically say that all adults that were there and did not report things are accountable. Not when your mind is twisted into a pretzel and you feel hopeless about it. And your kids can disappear. Or you can. AND you are conditioned to believe that all those possibilities would be your weakness and fault. You have to get out and see it for what it is to report it. I did that. I told my story and reported what I had seen and it cost me alot. And this was prior to the more horrid abuses of Victor camps, sharing schedules and so on. I personally believe that we were all victims, except for those who already had a predisposition of a perpetrator. And there are, IMO a percentage of people that do. A victim that became a perpetrator under the influence of the family has a very hard path. To be accountable to their specific victims and to live with the realization of their crimes after getting out from under all that. It would be my hope that such people would come forward and if they can find their victims account for it at the mercy of their victims or the courts, as their victims choose. It is one way to be restored from carrying the guilt of what you have committed. A true perpetrator will not feel guilty for long. And mostly only cry about getting caught. (i.e., David Berg).
I have seen where being members of a destructive group is compared to the Stockholm syndrome. I think that is very fitting and may make this point more understood. Do some think that all FGAs should be held accountable in some way shape or form, even if they weren't perpetrators? If so, please explain exactly how they should be accountable.
