Are conservatives more progressive than Conservatives, or are those in political power more defensive and protective of what they've earned and owned? Or are foreign conservative establishment figures ever tortured because of their loyalty whether they are social liberals and moderates around the world? You see, I believe that there is a universal blind-spot about torture victims and human rights being abused on conservatives who may be not on the radar of charity groups against torture like Amnesty International who get specific support but not from a sympathetic moderate (for want of a better word) right-wing demographic!
Let me give you an example of a very seemingly not obvious victim of torture: When Isis overran Palmyra the head Curator of the internationally renowned and priceless collection of Artefacts refused to comply with the desecration of his museum - he was executed. His severed head was put on 'full public display'(irony of ironies for a Curator) to intimidate the public and let the vultures devour it. This was an octogenarian and intellectual, a pillar of the establishment who sacrificed his life to defend Artefacts that transcended his human lifespan to conserve the rights of the past to be understood by the future whilst in defiance of Islamic state! He was the unscripted and unprepared hero who isn't celebrated as a conservative the way he should have been by us all! He was a universal moderate retaining all the secrets and all the rich archaeology in his heroic but brutal end - he was no revolutionary or radical! I wager that there are many more victims of torture on, for example, Amnesty International's torture watch-list that are also not radicals but establishment figures, so why do we not celebrate them? Why aren't they included in the same conversation, universal language, and context of those being victimised by violent extremists? Why should Conservatives be stifled from publicly supporting and getting recognition for any defiance towards criminality and inhumanity that all Britons must now include and debate without any preconceptions about being a moderate Righty? Isn't this a narrative that is wrongly associated with the Left? Why should it be a Left monopoly? Because it is a negative and a taint that sends the mixed message to voters that won't actually favour Tories electorally? The Tories are 'winners' that need 'losers' to be opponents and therefore can institutionalise them in Parliament? But in missing a trick that could endear people to their political cause rather than bring 'embarrassment ' in having to admit vulnerability ( a Tory taboo) are they paying a price for Stiff upper lip! But the two Princes have raised the profile of issues of mental so perhaps Tories need to man-up and bring the same dignity to all victims and not just Torture victims ?! Or perhaps this may explain general Tory gung-ho as bravado and not just keeping it out of the agenda because of their no nonsense attitude? Or, when it comes to torture issue of especially establishment figures, it may be that back-channelling may be going on to rescue people from any further suffering, and a lot of work may be being done to keep this highly delicate work free of Tabloid intrusion? Or pressure is being put on host states of torture to pay reparations too that we shouldn't pry into? Leverage comes in all sorts of ways even when times have moved on and a context for torture is now in the past and the landscape of imprisonment and torture may have significantly changed ? Or perhaps I'm running out of excuses, and it's time for quicker and significant action; we have to grow a pair for people who are being forgotten because of their moderation ! But time is at the essence for every individual suffering from someone else's extremism ! Torture turns people against themselves, where time isn't a luxury that torture victims have ! Forget the optics, forget how it plays out in the world of 'perception' ! The Left doesn't have to show a lead, it just has to cooperate !
But here's the PC nub of it: Torture victims are assumed to be of a liberal Left-wing disposition by those who subsidise and value Charities in this field - they don't want people who will rock the boat! So perhaps both Conservatives and conservatives who are being tortured around the world have the evil of their torturers emphasised and not the background of the individual being tortured. Or it helps 'focus' to refer to victims who may have had a radical experience when they were an undergraduate to refer to? My fear is that PC means you may be off the radar of Amnesty not depending on the veracity of individual claims but whether you need 'more evidence'(that may be impossible to prove) of being tortured, or an actual unspoken blind spot depending on the colour of your political allegiances? Which in short is firstly an actual compounding of a human rights abuse of torture by tacit collaboration, secondly an abuse by 'selective myopia' whilst thirdly, campaigning to slow -roll or hide behind a false pretence of 'there being so many victims of torture that it is impossible to represent them all', so prioritizing or disingenuous misrepresentation collapses a case that may 'over-dominate' to the detriment of other cases...blah, blah blah,..
So, when we all talk about Toryism, just remember those in the background and not just in the Houses of Parliament! The terror of what all victims of torture face should not be lost to anyone, whether a politician or not, and of any political disposition. But whilst they mutually hate each other in Punch and Judy knock about, just remember that somewhere an unlikely pillar of conservative moderation is not part of the gravy train of self-promotion but is being tortured. These are forgotten acts of bravery that few of us can even quantify that we do a disservice to by sloppy or deliberate reductive oversimplification that Torture is a Left wing preserve and a 'negative issue' and not for public consumption ! So remember that the next time you filter out that moderate conservatives, status quo sympathisers, people conserving nature or culture may be prisoners tortured, humiliated, as pillars of their own communities their human rights desecrated, strapped to blood splattered walls and eventually executed! People who are terrified without any previous experience of that level of suffering who may have never had any experience of war, are being ignored until it is too late ! Their voting politics should never come into it nor their demographics ! Who are we to judge when and whom we decide to support, when torture is torture with or without technology?