AUTHORIZED CANON CAMERA REPAIR

Torture victim Karim in Beirut, where he received vital treatment at the Restart Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture.
UNHCR / A. Yungrova / 2009

Putting a man back together: Beirut centre heals mental wounds of torture

BEIRUT, Lebanon, December 7 (UNHCR) – Surrounded by strangers in a foreign land, Iraqi refugee Karim* quickly became paranoid, convinced everyone he saw was spying on him, plotting to turn him over to his enemies. Fear may haunt many refugees, but Karim's terror was especially justified – he had fled to Lebanon after escaping unimaginable torture at the hands of militiamen in his homeland.

"They destroyed me; they devastated me. That's what they did," the 39-year-old man says, staring fixedly at one spot on a window.

"It was like a horror movie," he adds haltingly, telling his story with as many pauses as words. In fact, his memories might make a Hollywood horror movie producer squeamish.

"There were beheaded men with me in the same room. They made me sleep next to dead bodies. They brought a man and slaughtered him in front of me. 'This is what will happen to you as well,' they said. I heard the sound of the knife slitting his neck. Why did they slaughter him? Why did they slaughter him?"

The only reason Karim can manage to talk about his experiences today is the healing he received when UNHCR sent him to the Restart Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture and Violence in Beirut.

The centre, one of the very few in the Middle East, providing specialized psychological and mental health care since 1996, has been funded by UNHCR since 2007. UNHCR money allowed the centre, already operating in Tripoli, to expand to Beirut. With 22 psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, physiotherapists, and social workers, the centre now cares for more than 800 refugees.

"The agreement with UNHCR was a turning point in our work," said Suzanne Jabbour, head of Restart. "It has widened the scope of our specialized care, given us exposure on the international front, and shed light on the expertise and professionalism of our services."

It was certainly a turning point for Karim, who had originally fled to Lebanon in 2005, married a Lebanese woman and had a daughter. He then returned to Iraq to look for a kidnapped brother, but found his house had been occupied by militiamen who took him prisoner, strung him up from the ceiling and burned his back with a hot steel rod. To this day he can't recall how he escaped and made his way to Beirut once again.

"They have erased a lot of my memory," Karim says now in the safety of the Restart centre. This is, he says, "the only place where I find safety. Do you know that I used to be afraid every time I see a knife or a balustrade or a steel rod?"

Sanaa Hamzeh, a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and one of the founders of Restart says refugees who are victims of torture need regular help to deal not only with the past, but also the present. For Karim, this means trembling even at the sight of policmen on Beirut's streets.

"They feel that everyone is against them," says Dr. Hamzeh. "Living in a different society further alienates them. At Restart they feel that they found a refuge and people who can take them out of their pain."

These days Karim marvels at the improvements he's made. "Now, I go out, I laugh and I live in society. I used to live in the corner. I was afraid to move. I was afraid that they take me back to that horrible place. The centre made a new man out of me. When I first came here, I was like scattered pieces, and they repaired the puzzle of my mind. They gave me my life back."

He has been accepted for resettlement in the US and hopes that will be the real start of his new life.

"When I go to the US, I want to be a new person," Karim says. "I want to wake up in the morning, open the window of my room, let the light in and breathe. I want to be born again."

*Name changed for protection reasons.

By Laure Chedrawi in Beirut

South nave window at St Lawrence's church, Lighthorne, Warwickshire.

Window from c1875 (perhaps by Holt of Warwick?) representing Saints Lawrence (looking very calm atop his burning gridiron!) and Sebastian, tied to his tree and riddled with arrows.

However all is not that simple, as the figure of St Sebastian is clearly much older than the surrounding window and itself of two different dates, his torso upwards being glass from c1510, whilst his legs clearly a repair from around 1600 (employing enamel for the ground and painted in a much cruder style than the original work).

The church (which apart from a 1771 tower was entirely rebuilt in 1875-6 by John Gibson) contains other glass of (later) sixteenth century date, namely some heraldic work believed to be the work of a Swiss glass-painter called Eifeler. This alone is mentioned in Pevsner's guide to Warwickshire, St Sebastian clearly escaped notice!

Whilst this window was removed for repair in 1998 (by Norgrove Studios) I made something of a discovery about it's provenance. It had been assumed to be perhaps connected with the mid sixteenth century heraldic glass by Eifeler, but I felt the face was somewhat reminiscent of earlier work, in particular the glass at Fairford.

On this assumption I revisited some books on Fairford's glass, looking for clues that would conclusively link this glass with the same, Southwark based and Flemish influenced workshop of Barnard Flower and his associates. What I found was somewhat more than a clue...

I found that not only does Fairford posses a similar figure of St Sebastian (in the south nave clerestorey), but on closer examination it was clear that this figure at Lighthorne was actually cut from the exact same cartoon! All of the original part of the figure almost exactly follows the same cutline used for the Fairford St Sebastian, the paintwork of which is far less well preserved than this one. On the other hand the original legs at Lighthorne have been replaced with a rather lifeless approximation of what was there, comparison with the Fairford figure allows us to reconstruct the original outline of feet and legs here.

There are subtle differences, at Fairford the figure has a red background, whereas here it seems the background was originally clear white glass (small surviving element between torso and arm). One of the arrows here is partly painted onto the same piece of glass as the saint's neck, whilst at Fairford it is entirely leaded. With the face at Fairford in much poorer condition it is unclear how freely this figure was interpreted from the same cartoon.

Instances of the reuse of cutlines for certain figures were fairly common in the middle ages, occuring not only in the same buildings but even in adjoining lights of windows. Fairford has at least two such instances amongst the prophets and apostles of the nave aisles.

However this seems to be so far the only example of one of Fairford designs being re-used anywhere else.

The current window thus comprises three seperate dates;

c.1510-20 Southwark workshop (head, arms, torso of St Sebastian, his right thigh, 7 of the11 piercing arrows and the right hand tree branches)

c.1550-1600 repair, possibly a result of iconoclasm (St Sebastian's legs, his left hand, 4 of the lower arrows and the enameled ground on which he stands)

c.1875 , possible Warwick based workshop (entire remainder of window, including all of the blue background behind St Sebastian plus his halo)

Though it is now clear the glass originated from the same Southwark workshops as the Fairford glass, the original setting of the window remains a mystery, though Lighthorne itself is not considered to be it's original home. Glass of this quality and origin was generally evidence of aristocratic, often royal patronage. Nearby Compton Verney is considered a potential candidate, though nothing remains there of the medieval building.

So far it remains, embedded and almost camouflaged as it is by a somewhat commonplace Victorian window, a relatively unknown and obscure work, but one with national significance.