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Full-Text (PDF) Vol. 7(4), pp. 164-171, July 2013 DOI: 10.5897/AJPSIR10.037 African Journal of Political Science and ISSN 1996-0832 © 2013 Academic Journals International Relations http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM Review Torture, capitalism, and the new white man’s burden Wesley C. Kraft-Davis Florida State University, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] Accepted 14 April, 2011 The not so recent distribution of the Abu Ghraib photos throughout the United States and the world brought forth the detection of a practice that is commonly used by the U.S. and its “satellite states.” For the mainstream U.S. American public, it was a shocking and horrifying discovery. For others, such as Carlos Mauricio who “had flashbacks when he saw the guy with the hood (at Abu Ghraib),” the photos were a terrible reminder of a “counter terrorism” practice that is implemented to subdue “communist/terrorist insurgents.” Following the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos, U.S. representatives, with the help of the media, “manufactured consent” by dismissing the photos as “not representing America” and blaming the atrocious acts committed within the photos on a “few bad apples”.` There are those who were not fooled, as well as others who would like to know how we, as a society, can end this dreadful practice. This piece will expose some ideas that may, in fact, contribute to ending the practice of torture by the United States. It will analyze and critique institutions and ideologies, such as racism and capitalism that are so fundamental to the U.S. and create conditions ripe for torture to thrive. Key words: Abu Ghraib, american exceptionalism, capitalism, Torture, War, White man’s burden. THE NEW WHITE MAN’S BURDEN One of the major obstacles hindering the end of the World” and the subsequent colonization, one will observe practice of torture by the US is what was dubbed that Europeans have used and maintained some form of “American Exceptionalism.” This is the belief that the exceptionalist discourse to subjugate an “inferior” group “United States and the American people hold a special of people. This subjugation, driven by greed, was en- place in the world.” Furthermore, it is the belief that forced using tactics that in the current era would be American ideas and values are superior to those found considered some of the worst human rights violations around the globe. This exceptionalist ideology is per- ever witnessed. One such witness, Bartolome de Las ceived around the world as arrogance and has come to Casas, a 16th century Spanish priest, described some of be resented. Critics of the term recognize it “as an the torture tactics used to subdue the “primitive beasts.” ideology intent on creating an ‘imperial America’ by The Spanish soldiers would construct “some low wide converting the world to its ideas.”1 This line of thought gallows on which the hanged victim’s feet almost touched leads to an obstinacy that does not allow any other the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in perspective to be heard; anything that strays away from memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then the norm of U.S. tradition is ridiculed, devalued, and set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them labeled unpatriotic. alive.”2 The basis of U.S. American Exceptionalism, the idea The foundation of American Exceptionalism can also that our way of life is superior to others, is not a new Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, from “sea to shining phenomenon. In fact, if one evaluates the rise of the sea.” This idea was first implemented by the Jacksonian West, beginning with Columbus’s “discovery” of the “New 2 Bartolome De Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account 1 Ibid., p. 11 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 34. Kraft-Davis 165 be compared to Manifest Destiny, which was the belief security concern to us.”5 It is only a concern when the that the United States was destined to expand from the financial interests of the United States are at stake. Just Democrats in the 1840s to expand the U.S. westward. as the fight against “communism” was actually the fight to On those Western lands were, of course, various so- secure free markets, the “War on Terror” is a means to called indigenous tribes. The fate of the Western U.S. secure a fundamental resource that “fuels” Western tribes would be much like those in Florida, “captured . markets. and sent on to Arkansas [concentration camps].” Much like current society’s misrepresentation of all Arab Capitalism and Torture Muslims as “crazed fundamentalist terrorists,” the enemies of the United States in the 1850s were also Capitalism and torture are historically linked. Beginning misrepresented. Like the Spanish before them, the US with the discovery of the “New World,” torture was used viewed and portrayed the Natives as “a set of poor, to subdue the “primitive beasts.” The native inhabitants of miserable looking savages.”3 the Americas were exploited for their gold and labor. The In 1899, McClure Magazine published Rudyard Spanish prospered and became the hegemon of Western Kipling’s infamous poem, The White Man’s Burden, The Europe. With a combination of weak immune systems United States and the Philippine Islands. The poem, and a violent regime of torture and mass murder, the written in the aftermath of the Spanish American War, en- native inhabitants of the Americas were almost completely couraged the United States to re-colonize the Philippine annihilated. Islands, a place where the Spanish had already brutally Another group of people would soon be the survivors of suppressed the inhabitants during colonization. The mass exploitation and torture. Africans, who were tor- poem called for America to: tured from the point of their enslavement up until the Emancipation Proclamation, were treated so in the name Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye of profit. The proceeds of African enslavement catapulted breed; Go bind your sons to exile; To serve your captives' the West into a position of hegemony. Following the need; To wait in heavy harness; On fluttered folk and freeing of Africans, a new system of exploitation would wild; Your new-caught, sullen peoples; Half-devil and arise and torture would remain linked. The age of 4 half-child. imperialism witnessed a scramble between European powers, as well as the United States, to colonize various “Taking up the White Man’s Burden” became the regions of the world. After World War II, the world discourse used by the United States, and most of witnessed the decline of Western Europe and the rise of Western Europe as well, to brutally colonize the anti-colonial movements. A few Western powers sought Philippines, much of Africa, and portions of Southwest to hold onto their conquests. France attempted to subdue Asia. its imperial subjects in Algeria and Vietnam. It did so by Presently, the inhabitants of Southwest Asia have not only waging a bloody war, but also inflicting a cruel become the “New White Man’s Burden.” Like the Filipinos regime of torture. before them, and the many other peoples that have been After the age of imperialism, a new type of exploitation subjugated in the name of true “civilization,” Muslims and would arise. This one was hidden under the rhetoric of Arabs are being depicted and spoken of as needing fighting communism. The United States would turn to someone to help foster their “advancement” as human covert war in order to manipulate markets, often times beings. As George Bush reminded citizens during his supporting and financing ruthless, violent regimes who speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, the used torture to subjugate their populations. people of Southwest Asia were unable to root out the Currently, in an attempt to maintain its hegemony, the “evils” of terrorism by themselves, but were indeed “good United States has turned to overt means. Under the and capable people of the Middle East,” whom “all guise of the “War on Terror,” the United States is attemp- deserve responsible leadership.” President Bush’s speech ting to secure the resource needed to fuel its capitalist continuously reinforced this message of the “New White empire. As the case with many other subjugated peoples Man’s Burden.” who resist aggression and influence, the people of As this next section will bring to light, the United States Southwest Asia are doing the same. Just as the French has no real concern over the spread of democracy. As did in Algeria, the United States uses torture as a tactic to President Nixon stated in 1977, “in terms of our own self- subdue those who resist. interest, the right wing dictatorship, if it is not exporting its revolution, if it is not interfering with its neigbors, if it is not taking action directed against the United States, it is of no The Philippines: Tortured Twice In 1898, at the end of the Spanish American War, the 3 “Indians In Florida,” New York Times, 10 April 1852. 5 4 Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden, 1899, Graham Hovey, “Nixon Saw Cuba and Chile Enclosing Latin America,” New <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden> (22 November York Times, 26 May 1977, p. 30. 2008). 166 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat. United States sought to claim its booty. In Paris, the Between 1946 and 1972, the Philippine economy Spanish agreed to cede its territories of Puerto Rico, rapidly expanded. The benafactors were those who nor- Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines. While the Europeans mally benefit as a result of neo-liberal economic reforms.
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