Freedom and civilization / by Bronislaw Malinowski.

  • Bronisław Malinowski
Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Freedom and civilization / by Bronislaw Malinowski. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    302/360 page 284
    for which they fight; when they are fitted out with the material apparatus of weapons of offense and defense; and when in this they follow the rules of tactics and strategy. The purpose or charter of a military band or army is therefore killing, destruc¬ tion, and paralyzing the enemy by means of propaganda. These give all the possible advantages which can be obtained by war: scalps, heads, cadavers and trophies, slavery, wealth and con¬ quest. War thus teaches that the sanction of force is the means of obtaining definite results and also of the integral control of the vanquished and disarmed community, tribe or nation. Let us • keep in mind that war is a crisis made by man and directed against man. The advantage of one, as has been already argued, means in the contest of war the misfortune of the other. The charter of war from its very beginnings is founded on a basically discriminative conception between friend and foe as regards their essentially human rights. The primitive always con¬ siders that only he, himself, and his tribesmen are men. The others fall outside the scope of legitimate humanity. Lin¬ guistically, the word “man” is generally used for the tribe, and another word with an evil connotation applied to those outside. This even in our own language adheres to such words as “alien”, “stranger”, “foreigner”. When war breaks out the word “alien” becomes synonymous with enemy and is used as a euphemism. This discriminative principle enters into the charter of earliest warfare. The alien, that is, the enemy, becomes something out¬ side the scope of humanity, and for him the laws which apply to the tribesmen are not valid. He becomes an animal fit to be killed as in hunting, to be eaten in a cannibal repast, to be de¬ prived of his head or scalp or some other portion of anatomy which will be turned into a trophy. Later on in evolution when slavery becomes profitable, or when conquest can be implemented, the enemy population or those parts which are not killed, are
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