Beyond the Marquis de Sade: America’s Alligator Alcatraz
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
"The snakes are fast but the alligators are faster. We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Don't run in a straight line, look like this and you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. Not a good thing."
Who said this? No, not the Marquis De Sade or a villain from a horror movie. No, believe it or not, those words were spoken by the current President of the United States. Such sadism was scarcely concealed. The words were spoken in praise of a new detention centre now known as the Alligator Alcatraz migration center in Florida.
The newly opened center is intended for detained migrants and has the capacity to hold an estimated 40,000 prisoners. The camp is enclosed by mesh-fencing, barbed wire and water infested by alligators and sharks. It is an unpleasant place of extreme heat, humidity, and mosquitoes.
A reported 1,000 detainees are reported to have been sent there a few days already!
Given the passing of a draconian 'big beautiful bill,' which boosts the money available to finance this anti-migration campaign, the likelihood of more such camps will increase. The attempts to sustain a quota of 3,000 arrests of migrants a day threatens to turn America into one huge concentration camp which represents a paradise for sadists who indulge in torture.
The immense damage to America's reputation at home and abroad is incalculable.
In this context it's worth reflecting on the etymology of the word sadism. The meaning is someone who adores cruelty and derives pleasure from inflicting it. The word was inspired by the French aristocrat the Marquis De Saden{1740-1814}. In 1834, the word sadisme was officially lexicalised in a French dictionary the Dictionaire Universal by Boiste implying 'A horrible abhorrent form of debauchery; a monstrous and anti-social system of ideas which revolts nature.'
The word then turns up in a late 19th century dictionary by the German psychologist Richard Von Kraftt Ebbing to describe someone who derives pleasure from inflicting pain or suffering on others. The poor Marquis De Sade was depicted as the monster, ogre and bogey man who inspired the word. This is unfair.
The Marquis De Sade simply wrote Gothic novels where victims were abused and tortured. He himself spent most of his life as a prisoner. His novels such as 'The Misfortune of Virtue' and 'The 120 days of Sodom' were not intended to advocate or defend the behaviour of the characters. His works were not an apology for sadism but subversive satire exposing its folly. And to do good is often to be punished.
Actually, the marquis felt misunderstood and misconstrued. He explained to his wife in one letter “Yes, I am a libertine, I admit it freely. I have dreamed of doing everything that is possible to dream of in that line. But I most certainly have not done all the things I dreamt of and never shall. Libertine I may be, but I am not a criminal, I am not a murderer.”
And what did the Marquis De Sade do when he was released from the Bastille in 1790? Well, he did not go out and abuse people. He refused to send the Presidente de Montreuil to the guillotine. He saved his life. He was against the abuses of the revolution. He was shocked by the September massacres of 1792. But his habit of showing leniency to the victims of persecution angered the extremists. So they sentenced him to death but couldn't find him because he never responded when his name was called out on the day of his execution.
Perhaps he had done a convenient disappearing act.
The Marquis De Sade actually served on a commission which recommended humanitarian reforms in hospitals—not to mention prisons. The Marquis De Sade would be horrified by the plight and treatment of migrants in America. He would naturally be affronted about how migrants are being demonised as 'criminals' and 'monsters.' For he himself has been demonised by the word 'sadism' in both the French and English language.
The case of the Marquis De Sade reaffirms the axiom that we should judge a person by his actions and not what others say or claim. And the Marquis De Sade saved the lives of people from the guillotine.
But remember: he did not gloat at the misfortune of others; nor did he approve of the torture of defenceless prisoners.
His example should remind us to be weary of misjudgment. Migrants need compassion and care and not cruelty.