Cusick, Susanne. “‘You are in a Place That is Out of the World…’ Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror’”

Suzanne G. Cusick’s article “‘You are in a place that is out of the world …’: Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror’” provides an overview of how the United States has weaponized music in detention camps. Cusick states that sensory manipulation can be and has been used to disorient persons to such an extent that they lose their grasp on reality, with the result that they can become more compliant to what is asked of them. She raises a series of questions, also about the role of US citizens more generally when it comes to knowledge about music torture: “When we know the basic facts, are we who are US citizens willing to condone this use of music, done in our name?” (4).

The article draws “on first-person accounts of interrogators and former detainees as well as unclassified military documents” and provides an overview of the ways in which “‘loud music’ has been used in the detention camps of the United States’ ‘global war on terror’” (1). The overarching question or key assumption of Cusick’s article is that there is something special about music and/or sound that makes it particularly effective in practices of “harsh interrogation” (3). This comprises various aspects: the type of music and its beats, rhythm, sounds; the loudness of the music and these sounds; but also the singer, the type of singing, or the content, and its potential for humiliation that the detainee could experience. An example of this can be found in playing music by Christina Aguilera to religious prisoners, which can be experienced as humiliating as her music is sexually tinted.

Cusick states that music as torture relies on a dynamic: it does not merely consist of sound or music, but rather is always a combination of different aspects (sleep deprivation, humiliation, rhythm, loudness, etc). Using music in torture is often part of an interrogation technique referred to as “futility” (15), which also includes “‘gender coercion’, strobe lights, stress positions” (16). Cusick argues that using sound and/or music in interrogations is not only harmful to those being interrogated or tortured, but also for those who are conducting the interrogation. The interrogator’s sensory systems are also being overloaded by the consistent exposure to the music, which can amplify their ability to commit evil acts. In addition, they are influenced by how the detainee responds to the torture and their questions (and vice versa). By using music in these torturous ways, it can result in the production of false evidence, as it can force detainees to admit to crimes they did not commit, which in turn puts interrogators in the position of potentially “committing acts of unnecessary evil” (18).

This article is a particularly productive contribution to the field of Perpetrator Studies, since it not only discusses the effect of music on the torture victim as well as the torturer, but also asks the reader to consider their own implicatedness in these practices, and “how we can condone treating any human being this way” (20).

Author of this entry: Alyssa Vreeken.

Cusick, Susanne. “‘You are in a Place That is Out of the World…’ Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror’.” Journal of the Society for American Music, vol.  2, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1-26.