The Public Relations of Ethnocide

Imperial democracies have a history of performing absolution by judicial bath. Among the dozens of examples are the trial of Robert Clive (1725-1774), a founder of the British empire in South Asia and the first English governor of Bengal; the impeachment of Warren Hastings (17321818), the first Governor-General of the British dominion in India; the conviction of General Michael O'Dwyer, author of the 1919 massacre of Jalian Wala Bagh; and the court-martial of Lt. Calley, whose US army unit carried out the Mylai massacre in Vietnam. The infractions of each were products of an ideological environment, and of policies for which the responsibilities lay with a political system and with men who occupied higher positions. In each instance, the legal exhibition helped provide a liberal covering for aggressive policies, and served to calm disturbed popular conscience. On each occasion, they merely cleaned the slate for the next series of brutalities. The appointment by Mr. Menahem -Begin of the Commission of Inquiry into the massacres of Sabra and Shatila** was undoubtedly a tribute to the 400,000 Israelis who demonstrated their outrage following

Political science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · History · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

• ‘The Geography and the Event’

  Barbara Harlow•Interventions•2012

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