Betrayal and Treason: Violations of Trust and Loyalty

Military Review,  May-June, 2003  by John Barnhill

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Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 2001, 401 pages, $35.00

Nachman Ben-Yehuda is an Israeli sociologist specializing in the study of deviance. Betrayal and Treason: Violations of Trust and Loyalty is a fascinating, original, and creative book written with a reasonable degree of attention to the needs of the reader. There is no jargon to speak of, and them are occasional flashes of insight.

We usually think of treason as a violation of law. but for Ben-Yehuda, treason is a moral offense that requires action, normally clandestine, that betrays the trust and loyalty of the traitor's community. Treason situates itself at the end of a continuum whose other end is the innocuous white lie, the illicit affair. There is no qualitative difference across the continuum; violation of trust and loyalty produces betrayal Ben-Yehuda expends almost a third of the text developing this theory of the continuum, the universality of betrayal, and the nature of treason.

Of course it is more difficult to recognize treason in fact than in theory. By sampling the many cases of purported betrayal, Ben-Yehuda reveals that there are always extenuating and complicating circumstances. What appears to be clear treason or other betrayal is not necessarily so. Sometimes the seeming betrayal is a case of being honest and open about being loyal to a higher or different call.

Those we do not trust cannot betray us. Ben-Yehuda would have us consider the spy, especially the mole. Not being originally of the community, the mole cannot really betray. His loyalty is elsewhere. Consider the turncoat, such as Benedict Arnold, during a time of mixed and shifting loyalties. Or consider the many, including King Edward VIII, whose loyalties lay with fascism before fascism was the enemy. Their crime, if any. was to be consistent. faithful, and loyal to an idea.

According to Ben-Yehuda, there are others who seemingly betray. The collaborator's loyalty might be to the greater good of the nation-loyalty to the people instead of merely the government. The Vichy leaders, Philippe Petain and Pierre Laval, fall into this category, as do the Judenrat, the Jewish collaborators with the Nazi deportations. And, as in the case of Tokyo Rose, collaboration can be involuntary, a matter of doing whatever is necessary for survival. Treason? Not necessarily.

Some traitors become heroes over time and vice versa. La Malinche in Mexico is an example of one who moved from hero to villain when the European perspective gave way to the indigenous perspective. And, there is a difference of perspective. Benedict Arnold is no traitor in England; Nathan Hale is no betrayer in the United States.

This book is loaded with examples, all trying to make the point that defining treason is not quite as easy as believed. Treason is much more subtle more nebulous, more case-specific on the sliding and shifting continuum. It is easy to Shout "treason"; it is much harder to demonstrate that treason is really the case.

John Barnhill, Ph.D., Yukon, Oklahoma

COPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army CGSC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning