‘Samurai warrior’ has found some peace at last
‘‘BEFORE I came to Gordonia, I was in the samurai academy,” said James van Zyl.
Van Zyl said he is half Japanese and was chosen to learn the art of the samurai to protect the ‘‘innocent”.
His Japanese name is Koeje Morisato. ‘‘We had to take a sworn oath not to teach anyone what we learned because we don’t want to go around training killers.
‘‘Samurais are about combat. To protect the defenceless,” he said. When Van Zyl was a defenceless boy of 10, he witnessed his mother’s horrific death. He will not say much about it. Since then, he has suffered severe mental disorders. Unable to live with family or find a job, he moved to Gordonia when he was 18.
Van Zyl, 28, does not talk much about his past. Instead, he would rather talk about his samurai training, his poetry and unpublished books.
‘‘I’m writing a book about my life. I love writing. It helps me to express my feeling,” he said.
Johannesburg psychiatrist Dr Craig Bracken said it was difficult to assess Van Zyl and fellow inmate Debbie Röhl without talking to either one.
But he said a person had a need to find a meaningful place in the world. ‘‘Everybody rationalises things which make sense to them. Everyone is allowed to have dreams, and nobody is going to confront him [Van Zyl] and say no, you’re not a superhero.
‘‘That’s his dream and that’s okay if that’s how he makes sense of things,” he said.
Bracken said people who had a low emotional IQ struggled to cope in a ‘‘normal” environment.
‘‘That’s why they live in a sheltered environment. Some people with schizophrenia actually can’t live in a normal environment because they don’t have emotional boundaries.
‘‘If they are around people with emotional distress or conflict, they just disintegrate and can’t separate themselves from all the other emotional stress around them,” said Bracken.
He said teddy bears were representative of an attachment to a parent.
“Children carry teddy bears and blankets when their parents are not around.
“It’s a way of comforting yourself and it helps to calm a person,” he said.