Stockholm High

While shopping at the local supermarket last week, a few teen boys in line in back of me at the checkout counter were dissing other teens not present – an activity that was not entirely alien to my own long-ago teen years. I wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping: adults other than those in authority were simply invisible to them, as they were to me at that age, so they weren’t being remotely quiet. The crime of the not-present was conformism at school. “Stockholm Syndrome,” one of the boys ventured. This was actually funny. Outside of teen oriented TV series with adult professional screenwriters writing the lines, one doesn’t commonly expect cleverness from teen boys. I think the remark was lost on the other two, but by then I was headed to the door with my groceries so I can’t say for sure.
 
Stockholm Syndrome is the tendency of hostages in certain situations to identify and sympathize with their abductors. Though Patty Hearst soon became the poster child for the syndrome, the term comes from a high profile 1973 robbery of Kreditbanken in the Norrmalmstorg area of Stockholm; hostages were taken and held for six days while police surrounded the bank. (The original term was Norrmalmstorg Syndrome, but that proved too much of a mouthful for non-Swedes.) I remember hearing about the robbery on newscasts (yeah, I’m that old), but don’t remember many details from them, which is just as well since reports when the event was ongoing were largely wrong. By coincidence (unrelated to the supermarket overhear) however, I recently read Six Days in August, a very well-researched book about the event by David King. King revisited original sources and interviewed participants. There is also an upcoming Netflix series called Clark that is based on the Norrmalmstorg robbery.
 

The affair was far more bizarre than I had gathered in 1973. It was not a simple robbery gone wrong. Jan-Erik Olsson had far more grandiose plans when, disguised in wig and makeup, he walked into the bank on August 23 armed with a submachine gun, ample ammo, and explosives. He wounded a policeman in the first exchange of fire, took four hostages (three women and a man), and retreated with them into the vault. He demanded 3 million kronas as well as the release from prison and delivery to the bank of Clark Olofsson, a flamboyant criminal of national notoriety. This latter demand caused police to misidentify the robber as a friend of Olofsson: a misunderstanding that persisted until that friend called in. Police in fact delivered Olofsson to the bank based on this error and on Olofsson’s assurances he would help mediate a nonlethal resolution. Instead, he appeared to join Olsson, assisting him in his armed resistance to the police and the holding of hostages. (A court later accepted Olofsson’s claim that he was just going along with things to prevent bloodshed.) Olsson and Olofsson demanded, in addition to the 3 million, a car and a clear path to safety; they said they would bring along two hostages with them for insurance but would release them when they were clear. Police refused. The prime minister Olof Palme agreed to a demand for direct negotiations (it was an election year and it would have looked bad if hostages were killed because he refused to get on the phone) but was surprised when one of the women hostages chided him on the phone for being unhelpful. After six long days, police teargassed the vault through a hole they drilled in the ceiling despite threats from Olsson to shoot or blow up the hostages. Olsson and Olofsson surrendered without following through on the threat.
 
During the ordeal the hostages became friendly and chatty with the robbers. They grew to feel that the greatest threat to their safety was an obstinate and aggressive police force. Identifying and sympathizing with abductors/abusers is a common survival mechanism on two levels: it relieves psychological stress by reducing the sense of victimhood, and it really does reduce the odds of being killed. It’s often said that hostages are in the greatest danger when they are dehumanized: seen as a member of some disliked group (even if it’s just “bank employee”) rather than as fully human. This is almost but not quite right, for some misanthropists hate humans in general too. The real risk is depersonalization: it is easier to harm some random human than Bob or Barbara with whom you have friendly chats. As for the hostages, they may start out by expressing faux sympathy and friendliness, but, as Kurt Vonnegut was fond of noting, if you pretend to be something long enough, you may discover that’s what you are. The feelings become real. After the crisis was over the released Kreditbanken hostages remained sympathetic to the robbers. One of the female hostages actually met Olofsson for a lunch and hotel romantic encounter while he was on a day pass from prison to see his lawyer.
 
Police psychologist Dr. Harvey Schlossberg, designer of the FBI curriculum on hostage negotiation, writes that such hostage attitudes are to be encouraged when possible as they improve the chances of nonlethal outcomes. He writes, “The Stockholm Syndrome is an automatic, often subconscious, emotional response to the trauma of becoming a victim.” Police shouldn’t be surprised or angered by curses and insults from hostages: “A hostile hostage is the price that law enforcement must pay for a living hostage.” Cults (religious or secular) when attempting brainwashing deliberately employ the techniques used in unplanned fashion by hostage takers (a mix of terror and small kindnesses) and frequently evoke the same response.
 
So, can the term Stockholm Syndrome fairly be applied to school? I suppose it depends on how much school resembles a hostage situation. Maybe the teen had a point, but that is a discussion for another day.
 
 

Donna Summer - The Hostage