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From International Socialism, No.13, Summer 1963, p.36.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Torture: Cancer of Democracy
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Penguin. 3s6d
‘...the water and electricity methods, provided they are carefully used, produce a shock which is more psychological than physical and do not therefore constitute excessive cruelty.’
Torture has always been used. Sometimes it it a normal, legal institution, but more recently it has come to be regarded as an unusual and rather exceptional measure. Unfortunately there are always exceptions. Algeria was one – also Madagascar, Indo-China. Malaya. Kenya, Cyprus ... M Vidal-Naquet’s example is Algeria and his book describes how the exception multiplied and became the rule. The quotation is from the Wuillaume report (printed as an appendix) – a classic example of the capabilities of the bureaucratic mind in the face of irregularity. A senior civil servant, a man of ‘complete, moral integrity.’ M Wuillaume divides torture into two classes, one of which constitutes excessive cruelty, the other, he suggests, should be authorised, but only under proper supervision. An honest, if inhuman attempt to face the situation but one which the government could not accept. The government, being that of a civilized, democratic and, of course, free country, did not want to know, but it did want results. The police and the army used the necessary methods and in doing so demonstrated yet again that violence and colonialism are inseparable. The larger the settler population, and the larger the mineral resources, the more the violence. This, presumably, is as true of British as it is of French colonialism. The difference is that the French had an exposure which, although it did not come until some years after the war had started (there were individual exceptions) finally achieved considerable proportions. The British exposure never arrived and the British Left (if it observes the capital) has been far too quiet. The one book on Cyprus was written by a one-time foreign editor of the Daily Express. The official left is particularly to blame – when Barbara Castle spoke up about Cyprus she was rebuked by the leader of her own party – but then it wouldn’t do to demoralize the troops. The army won in Malaya and was quite successful in Kenya. This, perhaps, is one reason why the image of a team of high-powered boy scouts looking after the natives has never teen seriously challenged – the Hola affair is treated as an isolated incident. In the absence of a British exposure M Vidal-Naquet’s book must do service for us as well. Of course the book contains faults and irritations but it is the facts that matter. Read it and wonder at our silence.
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