By Shaun Tan

That charming bastard. Many of us have seen him, and those who haven’t are likely to see at least one of him during their time at Yale. He’s the guy in the tailored Italian suit with the velvet glove on his iron fist. He’s the guy clothed in civility, but whose past is painted in blood.

I saw one of him in London. This one’s name was Paul Kagame. The year was 2007 and I was at a public lecture at the London School of Economics. The moderator of the lecture was Conor Gearty, the Rausling Professor of Human Rights Law at the LSE and a leading human rights lawyer, a man who, till that day, I held in high esteem. Paul Kagame was, and still is, the President of Rwanda, and is credited with lifting Rwanda out of poverty. He is also an autocrat who rigs elections, tortures and kills dissenters and political opponents, and is accused by many of triggering the Rwandan Genocide.

Therefore you can imagine my surprise at the effusive praise Conor Gearty heaped on Kagame. It went above and beyond what courtesy required; it bordered on the sycophantic. It was also misleading. Gearty described Kagame as winning “a landslide victory in democratically contested elections”, and lauded his “experience in dealing with rights abuses”. The audience (in characteristically British fashion) followed Gearty’s cue. They laughed at Kagame’s terrible jokes, and when, at one point, a Congolese rights campaigner got up and criticized Kagame for his abuses, the audience laughed and jeered at the campaigner like he was a clown.

Kagame of course, loved it. He smiled smugly. With no hint of irony he criticized African “one-party states” and addressed his lone critic like he was indulging a local loon. Not once did Gearty even question Kagame (an act that would have been within his rights as the moderator), and when Kagame denounced human rights organizations, Gearty didn’t even blink. I squirmed in my seat thinking that either I or everyone else in the room had gone mad.

Gearty isn’t the only one Kagame has seduced. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton also number among his fans. The reason for this is simple: on a continent filled with West-hating African despots, the economically competent despot who doesn’t hate the West (apart from France) stands out as a shining example. And yet I left that lecture feeling profoundly disturbed. Disturbed because it seemed like the past no longer mattered, that nothing else Kagame did mattered.

In September 2010 Karl Rove came to speak at the Yale Political Union. The following day, Yale English professor Edward Ball wrote a controversial article about Rove’s visit. In his article he described the same phenomenon. Rove, the chief architect of an administration that morally bankrupted America and misled the American people, received a fawning reception, as if the past had been glossed over.

George Orwell also battled this phenomenon; what he saw as willful amnesia and a creeping sense of self-censorship. He wrote his book Animal Farm to remind people of Stalin’s abuses at a time when Western governments were portraying their new ally “Uncle Joe” as a man to be trusted. Orwell warned against allowing political necessities to sweep away inconvenient truths, and we ignore his warning at our own peril.

Economic realities may force us to work with Kagame. Pragmatism may force us to acknowledge Rove or negotiate with Ahmadinejad. Strategic realities may force us to ally with someone like Stalin. But this doesn’t mean that suddenly the killings, the Iraq invasion, the torture, the purges, should be considered passé. Because, as I saw that day at LSE, when the supposed purveyors of knowledge or guardians of rights behave in a certain way, many people follow their lead.

Let us be honest. Let us acknowledge the true nature of these charming bastards even if we have to work with them. Let us say that they are the devils we know, and that consorting with them is a necessary evil. And let us keep this in mind the next time we see a charming bastard. The next time we drink the wine at his reception and shake his perfectly-manicured hand that will never have a spot of blood on it. Because the atrocities he is responsible for are not things that should ever be forgiven or forgotten.

Shaun Tan is a first-year Masters student in International Relations at Yale University.