I have heard the term Military Intelligence used as an oxymoron. I don't necessarily agree with that, but am pointing out that I have heard the term. I would like to refer to another related term - Institutional Blindness.
This is what occurred to me when I read the book, An Officer and A Spy by Robert Harris. I greatly enjoy the way Robert Harris writes. I first read his Pompeii nearly 15 years ago. Since then I have read many of his books including the Cicero trilogy. He is a fine writer with faint echoes of James Hilton in the way he phrases his sentences and sets up his scenes.
An Officer and A Spy is about a Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus who is falsely accused of being a spy in the French army. Harris narrates how a French Army officer, who is made the head of the spy services Georges Picquart goes to great lengths and personal cost to prove his innocence.
There is no suspense in what happens in the story, since this is famous history. It turns out that years ago, when European history was taught in high school, the Dreyfus Affair merited mention. It was such a scandal that it rocked the French nation in the late 19th century.
Instead of the suspense of the outcome, in Harris' capable hands the story becomes one of how an institution behaves to protect its reputation and its prerogatives.
The context of the story is the Prussians (Germany) snapping up the Alsace-Lorraine territory from the French in the 1870s. The French bitterness of that loss combined with prevailing anti-semitism, set up the false accusation and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus and quite cruelly being shipped off to solitary confinement on Devil's Island for many years. (The same Devil's Island made famous in Steve McQueen's Papillon).
Georges Picquart stumbles on the truth early in the book. He goes so far as to identify the real spy. And much to his chagrin, the Army turns a blind eye to the truth and to the false imprisonment. Through Picquart's eyes the reader gets to appreciate how an institution behaves when its prestige is imperiled. I easily abstracted away from the "French Army" to any institution or bureaucracy for this kind of behavior.
Not only does the Army of that time ignore the real spy, not only do they insist on keeping Dreyfus imprisoned, but they also punish Picquart! One might forgive Harris for taking story-telling license, except that it is a true story and one of the most famous incidents in French history!
One of the most famous images from the Dreyfus Affair is the front page cover of the L' Aurore newspaper. The affair, split the nation into two camps. The Protestant camp was liberal and on Dreyfus' side. The Catholic camp was conservative and on the Army's side. The polemic Emile' Zola took up Dreyfus cause and created one of the most enduring images and phrases from the Dreyfus affair.
In this polemic, on the front page of the newspaper, Zola writes a letter to the President of France accusing the Army of falsely imprisoning Dreyfus.
Many twists and turns in the story ensue concerning Dreyfus, Picquart, Zola and the future French President George Clemenceau.
Richard Dreyfus (no relation) made a movie with the same story called Prisoner of Honor. The movie is not great - but it tells the story. Harris wrote his book almost 15 years after the movie. The book is much better.
I highly recommend this book. Harris has a compelling writing style that thrusts the story forward. He sets up his scenes well and manages to make long ago history come to life. Above all, he showcases to what lengths an institution can go to protect its interests.
The phrase I am referring to should actually be Wilful Institutional Blindness. But I am inferring wilfulness in the word Institution. Thus in learning the lessons from the wonderfully narrated story of the Dreyfus Affair, use the phrase Institutional Blindness.
This is what occurred to me when I read the book, An Officer and A Spy by Robert Harris. I greatly enjoy the way Robert Harris writes. I first read his Pompeii nearly 15 years ago. Since then I have read many of his books including the Cicero trilogy. He is a fine writer with faint echoes of James Hilton in the way he phrases his sentences and sets up his scenes.
There is no suspense in what happens in the story, since this is famous history. It turns out that years ago, when European history was taught in high school, the Dreyfus Affair merited mention. It was such a scandal that it rocked the French nation in the late 19th century.
Instead of the suspense of the outcome, in Harris' capable hands the story becomes one of how an institution behaves to protect its reputation and its prerogatives.
The context of the story is the Prussians (Germany) snapping up the Alsace-Lorraine territory from the French in the 1870s. The French bitterness of that loss combined with prevailing anti-semitism, set up the false accusation and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus and quite cruelly being shipped off to solitary confinement on Devil's Island for many years. (The same Devil's Island made famous in Steve McQueen's Papillon).
Georges Picquart stumbles on the truth early in the book. He goes so far as to identify the real spy. And much to his chagrin, the Army turns a blind eye to the truth and to the false imprisonment. Through Picquart's eyes the reader gets to appreciate how an institution behaves when its prestige is imperiled. I easily abstracted away from the "French Army" to any institution or bureaucracy for this kind of behavior.
Not only does the Army of that time ignore the real spy, not only do they insist on keeping Dreyfus imprisoned, but they also punish Picquart! One might forgive Harris for taking story-telling license, except that it is a true story and one of the most famous incidents in French history!
One of the most famous images from the Dreyfus Affair is the front page cover of the L' Aurore newspaper. The affair, split the nation into two camps. The Protestant camp was liberal and on Dreyfus' side. The Catholic camp was conservative and on the Army's side. The polemic Emile' Zola took up Dreyfus cause and created one of the most enduring images and phrases from the Dreyfus affair.
In this polemic, on the front page of the newspaper, Zola writes a letter to the President of France accusing the Army of falsely imprisoning Dreyfus.
Many twists and turns in the story ensue concerning Dreyfus, Picquart, Zola and the future French President George Clemenceau.
Richard Dreyfus (no relation) made a movie with the same story called Prisoner of Honor. The movie is not great - but it tells the story. Harris wrote his book almost 15 years after the movie. The book is much better.
I highly recommend this book. Harris has a compelling writing style that thrusts the story forward. He sets up his scenes well and manages to make long ago history come to life. Above all, he showcases to what lengths an institution can go to protect its interests.
The phrase I am referring to should actually be Wilful Institutional Blindness. But I am inferring wilfulness in the word Institution. Thus in learning the lessons from the wonderfully narrated story of the Dreyfus Affair, use the phrase Institutional Blindness.
2 comments:
This not only an important story about institutional blindness, but the institutional effects that such blindness (corruption) has from that point forward. For instance after reading your review and googling a bit I came across this:
The arrest in 1894 of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus for revealing French military secrets to the German embassy rocked a nation. Its echoes are heard still more »
I wasn’t aware that…
The Dreyfus affair led directly to the separation of church and state in France in 1905. Today the French insistence on their secular state and thus the prohibition on the wearing of the veil or burqa is misunderstood by those (often British) who insist on failing to understand how French civic principles developed after the Dreyfus affair.
And then there’s the personal after effects…
https://www.newcriterion.com/cm/images/Zola.jpg
The Disappearance of Émile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case, by Michael Rosen (Pegasus Books): When Émile Zola published his “J’accuse!” letter in defense of the framed convict Alfred Dreyfus in 1898, he merely cemented his already well-developed reputation as a literato without limits. Prior to his involvement in the controversial case, the French novelist had forged a working friendship with Manet and countless members of the artistic avant-garde, and stayed abreast of his era’s breakthroughs in psychology in an effort to craft a truer type of novel than had ever been written. The Disappearance of Émile Zola, Michael Rosen’s narration of Zola’s flight to Britain after the libel conviction that followed his Dreyfus letter, recalls that Zola’s habit of boundlessness continued during his exile, as his letters and works from that period demonstrate his reckoning with the politics and literature that remained swirling in his mind. —MU
Thanks! I just ordered the book. I am finished Robert Massie’s “Catherine the Great” which is helping me understand modern day Russia.
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