alibi_shop (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alibi_shop) wrote2019-06-22 03:46 pm
alibi_shop) wrote2019-06-22 03:46 pm
Entry tags:
a little less awfully bad
Charles Pierce, writing about one historical precedent for the US's current crimes against migrants, quotes these priceless words:
It is impossible not to see that, however blameless we may be in the matter, we shall not be able to make anybody think so, and I cannot avoid an uncomfortable feeling that there must be some way to make the thing a little less awfully bad if one could only think of it.
That's Lord Milner, circa 1903, privately discussing the unfortunate issue of concentration camps in the Second Boer War.
The depressingly hilarious image of someone in a position of high authority pretending we not only can't do anything but can't even think of what could be done, and insisting that of course it's not even our fault, is of course timeless. But the passage that Pierce quoted omits some context that makes Milner look even worse.
A year or two earlier during the war, authority over the camps was transferred from Kitchener's military command to Milner's colonial government. Milner had been closely involved in the war all along, and was well aware of how deadly the camps were, but he had assumed that the death rate would fall once the "weaker" adults and children had already died, and when it didn't fall he complained that Kitchener's idea had been stupid all along and started looking for ways to make all this mess disappear somehow. First he signed off on a statement that if the Boers think the camps are so bad, why don't they try taking care of these families themselves, we'll gladly send them back into the war zone where everything's been destroyed. The Boers refused, and Milner was out of ideas. He did however rapidly improve conditions in the camps by finally addressing some of the ghastly things that Emily Hobhouse had reported the previous year (despite the government's best efforts to suppress her work), and Kitchener stopped bringing in more children. People were still dying there, but not as fast. It stayed that way till the end of the war.
In other words, when Milner says "we" are blameless, he means his own administration: as far as he's concerned, Kitchener's atrocities had nothing to do with him, and he had managed to improve the results from unthinkably horrible to just horrible. And when he says "make the thing a little less awfully bad", he's not talking about what's happening to the prisoners: in 1903 the war's over, that's all done, and he did make it a little less awfully bad. He's just talking about the public relations problem.
For every Kitchener, who actively creates hell on Earth, there are 100 Milners of 1902, who see creating hell on Earth as perhaps unwise and will see if it could be made a bit less hellish, as long as that doesn't endanger their own position. And for every Milner of 1902, there are 101 Milners of 1903, concerned with nothing at all but covering their asses: that's 1 who used to be in the previous category, plus 100 who were that way all along.
All of those people want to avoid being held to account, but most of them are unconcerned with the crime itself one way or the other. If it can be reduced and brought to a steady state, they'll keep resisting efforts to actually stop it, because if everything is brought down there might be more risk for them. But once it's clear that it's a lost cause, they won't waste their time trying to keep it going; they'll switch their attention to self-preservation. So, first, it has to be made clear that it is absolutely a lost cause. There will be endless excuses afterward and an inadequate reckoning, but we knew that. It just has to stop now anyway.
It is impossible not to see that, however blameless we may be in the matter, we shall not be able to make anybody think so, and I cannot avoid an uncomfortable feeling that there must be some way to make the thing a little less awfully bad if one could only think of it.
That's Lord Milner, circa 1903, privately discussing the unfortunate issue of concentration camps in the Second Boer War.
The depressingly hilarious image of someone in a position of high authority pretending we not only can't do anything but can't even think of what could be done, and insisting that of course it's not even our fault, is of course timeless. But the passage that Pierce quoted omits some context that makes Milner look even worse.
A year or two earlier during the war, authority over the camps was transferred from Kitchener's military command to Milner's colonial government. Milner had been closely involved in the war all along, and was well aware of how deadly the camps were, but he had assumed that the death rate would fall once the "weaker" adults and children had already died, and when it didn't fall he complained that Kitchener's idea had been stupid all along and started looking for ways to make all this mess disappear somehow. First he signed off on a statement that if the Boers think the camps are so bad, why don't they try taking care of these families themselves, we'll gladly send them back into the war zone where everything's been destroyed. The Boers refused, and Milner was out of ideas. He did however rapidly improve conditions in the camps by finally addressing some of the ghastly things that Emily Hobhouse had reported the previous year (despite the government's best efforts to suppress her work), and Kitchener stopped bringing in more children. People were still dying there, but not as fast. It stayed that way till the end of the war.
In other words, when Milner says "we" are blameless, he means his own administration: as far as he's concerned, Kitchener's atrocities had nothing to do with him, and he had managed to improve the results from unthinkably horrible to just horrible. And when he says "make the thing a little less awfully bad", he's not talking about what's happening to the prisoners: in 1903 the war's over, that's all done, and he did make it a little less awfully bad. He's just talking about the public relations problem.
For every Kitchener, who actively creates hell on Earth, there are 100 Milners of 1902, who see creating hell on Earth as perhaps unwise and will see if it could be made a bit less hellish, as long as that doesn't endanger their own position. And for every Milner of 1902, there are 101 Milners of 1903, concerned with nothing at all but covering their asses: that's 1 who used to be in the previous category, plus 100 who were that way all along.
All of those people want to avoid being held to account, but most of them are unconcerned with the crime itself one way or the other. If it can be reduced and brought to a steady state, they'll keep resisting efforts to actually stop it, because if everything is brought down there might be more risk for them. But once it's clear that it's a lost cause, they won't waste their time trying to keep it going; they'll switch their attention to self-preservation. So, first, it has to be made clear that it is absolutely a lost cause. There will be endless excuses afterward and an inadequate reckoning, but we knew that. It just has to stop now anyway.