History & Morality

An elementary understanding of the 20th century should make this easy to understand.

How would you have described Pol-Pot in the early 1970s or Mao Zedong in the late 1940s? Better yet, how would you have compared them to the competition?

The BBC’s general ignorance of the last century came out when they recently interviewed “Prachanda” (The Fierce One), leader of Nepal’s Maoist rebel forces (see the interview transcript here). The interview is worth a read, but the article about the interview is grotesque. The correspondent waxes romantic about the mastermind of civilian slaughter, teacher executions, and children abductions.

The 52-year-old man I met, with his speckled beard, was mild-mannered, shy, joking, laughing nervously – more humorous than intimidating and without the overt charisma of some revolutionary leaders. He looked more like a popular uncle [sound familiar?] than a communist who has been underground since 1981 and waging war for a decade.

Who cares what crimes he’s got on his record—the man has a sense of humor!

Of course, it’s pretty easy for the BBC to pass judgment when the incumbent monarch is a thug wearing an Opera fascist uniform. But we’re not talking about democrats fighting Big Brother. This is not Good v.s. Evil. Like many things in life, it’s a choice between a bad option and an even worse one, first discussed on this blog this time last year. When Pinochet ruled Chile, his regime killed 3,000. That’s an equivalent to the King; at best we can hope for is that this thug will lead to some long-term benefits for this very poor country. By contrast, Pol Pot killed up to two million people and left Cambodia in ruins. That is the alternative embodied by “The Fierce One.”

SIDENOTE: Who would have thought that Xinhua has a page for its Nepal stories and surprisingly wastes no words in listing every atrocity of the rebels. The rebels may be Maoist, but the joint US-UK-India abandonment of Nepal has given the Chinese a golden opportunity to expand their influence in the Himalayas, and they’re taking that chance.