Moreover, he bore with patience and humour a long illness – a lesson to us all !

Stan Cohen was not only a friend, founder and supporter of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and the struggle against torture in Israel but he was a great public educator. He went beyond the academy to teach about us to look in the mirror and reflect upon what we see and what we refuse to see. He taught that denial of the Other was denial of our basic ideals as humans. We at PCATI are thankful that he was a part of this world and mourn his loss.

On a personal note, one cannot ignore his biography. Born and raised in South Africa he was a part of the struggle against Apartheid and that struggle was a part of him. He knew of the evils of that regime, its racism, the forced disappearances, the torture, the attacks on freedom of expression and assembly. In his move to Israel he had hoped to find something more, a society in which he could trust, I would say, despite one’s differences with it and its policies. I think that his desires and realizations are certainly reflected in the text below, but I think that one incident in particular especially affected him. He was arrested at a demonstration for “disturbing the public order.” It is clear that our jobs as activists and human rights advocates is to disturb the public order especially when that public order refuses to recognize human rights abuses in its midst. Yet when a regime arrests demonstrators for disturbing its order one cannot help but understand that the arrest was made to silence dissent. And, I attest to you that this continues to this day. This, I think was part of Stan’s makeup and part of his reasoning for joining me and others in being part of the establishment of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

In a 1991 piece that he published in Tikkun (v.6 no. 6) he spoke candidly and openly about Israel. I quote him now and ask how much of what he said in 1991 is true today? I fear, almost all of it, in some cases it had gotten worse:

“Of the many contradictions in Israeli society one of the strangest for the outsider to understand is that the same political space is shared by brutal repression and democratic institutions. As much as the denial of Palestinian rights is total, as much as racism and militarism penetrate civil society, so – for Israeli Jews, that is – the terrain of democracy, legality, and civil rights remains more or less open.” He points out that for the right wing the exposure of human rights abuses and torture did not function as a call for correction but rather as exposing a system that was correct… for the anti human rights community in Israel, torture is not a problem but “To respond to internal and external criticism is to be too sensitive to a ‘”foreign”‘ ideology to worry too much about what the goyim think. And for those on the Right who genuinely understand human rights principles, the doctrine of national security overrides other considerations.”

He alludes to history and the struggle against another ‘peculiar institution’ – slavery. “As with slavery” he writes, “the only morally defensible position about torture is abolitionist. It simply is not the task of human rights organizations to talk about alternatives…But even abolitionism needs words. The untalkable has to be talked about because in all societies at all times (and Israel is no exception), and for the vast majority of the population, the contours of daily life depend on ignorance, silence, and passive collusion. Most people exercise what Daniel Ellsberg nicely calls ‘”the right not to know.’”

The right not to know has been identified, by Stan as an absurdity. One who lives in a society cannot not know. We all know. We know about what is happening in Syria today, we know about the Palestinians and their trampled rights. We know about hanging homosexuals in Iran, executions in Texas, FMG, rape, racism of all varieties. We know and too many of us exercise the privilege of not caring… Well Stan was not like that. Stan not only knew but he cared and he saw it as an obligation to amplify the volume and break the silence.

He was, is and always will be an inspiration. We continue to struggle and to disturb the regimes of silent human rights violations by making noise and refusing to acquiesce to oppression against us or in our names. In our work and activism we honor Stan and are blessed and bless others by and with his memory and legacy.

Torture disturbs the public order and it is this public order that we are enjoined to disturb. We do it not to honor Stan but with Stan in mind so that we may honor ourselves as human beings in a world community dependent on people like Stan.

Tom Daems, Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology of Law, Ghent University, Belgium

Stan Cohen was my PhD supervisor. He encouraged me to start my PhD, he directed my thesis and was intensively beside me every step of the way until its end, and beyond; in the toughness and the joy of working and writing, and also in understanding and sharing the important moments like the birth of my children. In my completion of the PhD I came back to Barcelona and whilst we did keep in close touch, regrettably the many distances grow. However, in more or less intensity Stan was always there, and whenever I felt somehow overwhelmed he would just look at me and say: Olga, you ask me but you know it already; it’s all about priorities!

He was more than my dearest friend; he was my life’s mentor.

My love and deep sorrow goes to his family, whom I join in this terrible sadness and emptiness we are all left with.

Olga