Plato wrote, ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’. Yet some people choose to wear sunglasses as a mask, creating a barrier, that gives anonymity the chance to move in. As Le Bon (1895) wrote, ‘under the cloak of anonymity many anti-social impulses are released’.
In the 1950s, Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier created a brutal personal militia called the Tontons Macoutes. Over the next two decades, they were given free rein to commit indiscriminate violence, such as stoning or burning people alive, disregarding any ethical or civil rights in order to suppress political opposition. Their trademark attire was straw hats, blue denim shirts, dark glasses and machetes, which were used to cut out the hearts, eyes and lungs of opponents. It is estimated that the Tontons Macoutes murdered up to 60,000 Haitians.
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