Letter from London

The Flight from Pity

I have read many attempts by those who were born in the last century to compare modern England with Edwardian England, but one significant change appears to have escaped the attention of septuagenarian commentators: the coincidence between the flight from pity and the rapid growth of humanitarian sentiment. There was never a time when more people expressed sympathy with the underprivileged, and when fewer people were prepared to inconvenience themselves seriously to prevent the world from forgetting the victims of tyranny. It would be easy to cite the names of those professional humanitarians in the Labor Party who are always ready to exploit against a Conservative Government any alleged ill-treatment of terrorists charged with assassinating British administrators, police, soldiers or settlers—the same Laborites consistently reticent about the victims of Russian colonialism. It is to the credit of those members of the Labor Party who entertained Mr. Khrushchev during his recent visit to this country that they aroused his ire by questioning him on the murder of the Hungarian Nagy and the fate of Socialists imprisoned in the satellites. This protest, however, would have been even more impressive had it been made on behalf of all victims of Communist oppression and not only on behalf of Socialists. Such selective indignation, only provoked when those of one’s own religion, race, class or political party suffer persecution, is far more common today than in my youth.

SL

About the Author

Sir Arnold Lunn

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Religious Persecution

The Flight from Pity

I have read many attempts by those who were born in the last century to compare modern England with Edwardian England, but one significant change appears to have escaped the attention of septuagenarian commentators: the coincidence between the flight from pity and the rapid growth of humanitarian sentiment. There was never a time when more people expressed sympathy with the underprivileged, and when fewer people were prepared to inconvenience themselves seriously to prevent the world from forgetting the victims of tyranny. It would be easy to cite the names of those professional humanitarians in the Labor Party who are always ready to exploit against a Conservative Government any alleged ill-treatment of terrorists charged with assassinating British administrators, police, soldiers or settlers—the same Laborites consistently reticent about the victims of Russian colonialism. It is to the credit of those members of the Labor Party who entertained Mr. Khrushchev during his recent visit to this country that they aroused his ire by questioning him on the murder of the Hungarian Nagy and the fate of Socialists imprisoned in the satellites. This protest, however, would have been even more impressive had it been made on behalf of all victims of Communist oppression and not only on behalf of Socialists. Such selective indignation, only provoked when those of one’s own religion, race, class or political party suffer persecution, is far more common today than in my youth.