There are so many things that I want to write about these days. I wanted to write for many years and never found the time, or better, the energy. There always were excuses: Demanding work, things happening in my life. Subsequently, my archive of little notes that I am collecting for later processing, it grew. Stacking them away, in text collections, diaries, and else, they kind of disappeared, been put into a dusty corner on the mental den, so to say.

Now, with my decision to begin to write again, I am revisiting my mental den. It’s almost overwhelming, I have projects on accountability, on organized crime, on the nexus between organized crime and terror, on torture, on trauma and it’s profound effects on individuals, and then on groups and societies, and so much more.

When I begin to write on a complex issue, I usually go deep, beginning with analysis and definition, looking up references, stats, supporting material. That’s not what this blog should be all and only about. This blog may collect refined thoughts that then form the basis for deeper analysis, may be for articles, or books. This blog also needs to reflect what’s on my mind right now. Readers commenting (which I hope to see at some point, through promotion of this blog), may then contribute to my learning and refining.

So, that’s helpful, clearing my mind. Entries here need to focus on what’s happening right now, what I am thinking about right now, reflections on elements of larger and more complex issues. That will help keeping the read interesting, and writing will remain a creative and living process, one through which I will discover new connections between topical issues, and insights.

So let me prepare the next entry with some initial thoughts on denial processes. I read so much about this more recently, and there are so many highly actual and profound discussions in the public space where the problem with denial, it’s negative consequences, and the challenges to break denial up, can be seen. There are two highly interesting public debates here in the United States right now in which denial plays a role: The first discussion is about profiling with massive and negative effects on communities of black and colored people, through the combined system of political decisions and actions (War on Drugs), action of law enforcement, and action of the criminal justice system. The second discussion relates to the most recent report on abuse and (should I say alleged?) torture by the CIA.

As a professional police officer, both discussions deeply upset me, make me following up, and engaging in discussions. But all my international experience also includes tons of experience with the same structural effects of denial, in almost every part of my professional experience, and since some time, learning about what effects denial had, in my personal life, too.