By PLS
Within 24 hours recently I read two communications about the situation in Burma. They were both describing the same thing but the language was strikingly, almost ludicrously different.
One employed the highly abstract language of extremely careful diplomacy, the kind of bland speak that’s supposed to keep lines of communication open while possibilities for resolution are cautiously explored. The minimal hope of this kind of language is that the door to understanding will not be closed even though, for the longest time, nothing seems to be passing through but a cold breeze.
The other style is designed to arouse public indignation to heights that will compel perpetrators of atrocity to make a deal, and quickly, with the soft talking bureaucrats who know that insults normally stiffen opposition.
So here’s the U.N. speak as transmitted in a “World Briefing” squib in the NYT:
The United Nations Security Council, after a week of negotiating the language of a statement, said it “strongly deplores” the use of violence against demonstrators in Myanmar, “emphasizes the importance” of the early release of political prisoners and detainees and urges the government to “create the necessary conditions for genuine dialogue” with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader held under house address.
Now it’s easy to ridicule language like this as so insipid it’s useless. But the U.N. has to work by consensus, and the fact that all the veto-wielding members of the Security Council could sign onto a statement criticizing the junta in Myanmar is a critical step forward. Even China signed on, and China is busying sucking Burma’s old stand teak forests and every other natural resource into its insatiable industrial maw.
Now, here’s the other extreme of political language, the kind that shows up in the more outspoken print media outlets:
Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatized to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon's residents hear their neighbours being taken away.Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month's pro-democracy uprising.
And so on, with even bloodier details. When specifics like this see the light of day, it’s a lot harder for dictators to convince the world that they are really acting in their people’s interest. And it’s correspondingly easier for the diplomats to make their own kind of pressure work.
At this point it would be easy to insist that one form of discourse is “better” than another—and we regularly see people who do just that. However, in practice, the two styles are complementary. In a way, it's tantamount to a good cop, bad cop routine. Villains may be forced, eventually, to change course, but they are seldom willing to admit that they are vicious sadists in public or in print. The same thing happens when corporations pay huge fines without admitting they have actually poisoned or cheated thousands of people.
Calling a spade a spade, a brute a brute, is extremely satisfying in the short run, but the essential, indispensable goal of negotiations or court procedures is to stop or prevent human rights violations or fraud. And the quicker the negotiators get there the better, even if they have to deny themselves a few raw emotional satisfactions.