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A review by arat
The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau
4.0
Now seems appropriate to talk about this...
The context of the Dreyfus Affair is never overtly mentioned, but the connection is clear. The judicial system is performative at best, an excuse to pretty up whatever miscarriage of justice the courts, church, and state wish, while still being able to claim:
"We went through all the proper proceedings! We did all the hand gestures and used all the flowery language! Sure, we're still 'murdering' a man, innocent or otherwise, but we set up all the rose bushes and aesthetic niceties to make it bearable! Aren't we such a civilized society?"
I am writing this review in early June of 2020. George Floyd was killed by a police officer May 25th, and there's been protests and riots across the country since. Why do I mention this in a review of a book contextualized around French injustice towards a Jewish artillery officer?
The prison industrial complex in America is the Dreyfus trial on a larger scale; a performance to impress the idea of fairness upon the populace, whilst incarcerating black (yea yea, and all other races, sit down) men knowing their chances of re-entering society is slim at best. Why even go through with the trial if the opinions of the courts, church, and state are this obvious?
This is the idea behind "The Torture Garden." The garden is not the sentence men and women are given, but the trial itself. A flowery distraction from the fact that WE AS A COLLECTIVE PEOPLE are about to murder a man. The sentence itself is death, and I don't use these words lightly; to condemn a man to a prison sentence in America is to take away what they knew as their life. For those who can come back and are able to rebuild what was stripped from them, they may as well be Lazarus receiving the miracle from Christ to rise from the dead.
Our sentence is murder, our trial is a torture garden. But many black men (and women) aren't even granted this performative gesture, being murdered without justifiable suspicion or while already apprehended. Is that better or worse? Well, worse in that they are, in the literal sense, dead, not able to even try to re-establish themselves in society.
But (and I want to stress, I don't think either of these outcomes are acceptable, and don't view either as more "good" than the other) the killings of unarmed black people by the police are ~~~better~~~ in that they are more honest. It's the true desire of the courts, prison system, and state expressed openly for all to see. We no longer have a torture garden to trick us into believing we live in a civilized time. We are shown the results of our injustice in the very streets we walk, filmed for all to see. There is no hiding what is behind the flowers now that they are drenched red. We are still just apes, murdering other apes because we were given a spear and the pardon of the tribe leaders.
"To the priests, the soldiers, the judges, to those people who educate, instruct and govern men, I dedicate these pages of Murder and Blood."
Rest in Peace all who entered the garden, rest in power those who never made it there. We failed you and called our actions 'civil.'
Black Lives Matter
The context of the Dreyfus Affair is never overtly mentioned, but the connection is clear. The judicial system is performative at best, an excuse to pretty up whatever miscarriage of justice the courts, church, and state wish, while still being able to claim:
"We went through all the proper proceedings! We did all the hand gestures and used all the flowery language! Sure, we're still 'murdering' a man, innocent or otherwise, but we set up all the rose bushes and aesthetic niceties to make it bearable! Aren't we such a civilized society?"
I am writing this review in early June of 2020. George Floyd was killed by a police officer May 25th, and there's been protests and riots across the country since. Why do I mention this in a review of a book contextualized around French injustice towards a Jewish artillery officer?
The prison industrial complex in America is the Dreyfus trial on a larger scale; a performance to impress the idea of fairness upon the populace, whilst incarcerating black (yea yea, and all other races, sit down) men knowing their chances of re-entering society is slim at best. Why even go through with the trial if the opinions of the courts, church, and state are this obvious?
This is the idea behind "The Torture Garden." The garden is not the sentence men and women are given, but the trial itself. A flowery distraction from the fact that WE AS A COLLECTIVE PEOPLE are about to murder a man. The sentence itself is death, and I don't use these words lightly; to condemn a man to a prison sentence in America is to take away what they knew as their life. For those who can come back and are able to rebuild what was stripped from them, they may as well be Lazarus receiving the miracle from Christ to rise from the dead.
Our sentence is murder, our trial is a torture garden. But many black men (and women) aren't even granted this performative gesture, being murdered without justifiable suspicion or while already apprehended. Is that better or worse? Well, worse in that they are, in the literal sense, dead, not able to even try to re-establish themselves in society.
But (and I want to stress, I don't think either of these outcomes are acceptable, and don't view either as more "good" than the other) the killings of unarmed black people by the police are ~~~better~~~ in that they are more honest. It's the true desire of the courts, prison system, and state expressed openly for all to see. We no longer have a torture garden to trick us into believing we live in a civilized time. We are shown the results of our injustice in the very streets we walk, filmed for all to see. There is no hiding what is behind the flowers now that they are drenched red. We are still just apes, murdering other apes because we were given a spear and the pardon of the tribe leaders.
"To the priests, the soldiers, the judges, to those people who educate, instruct and govern men, I dedicate these pages of Murder and Blood."
Rest in Peace all who entered the garden, rest in power those who never made it there. We failed you and called our actions 'civil.'
Black Lives Matter