Hostage

Hostage (pronounced hos-tij)

(1) A person given as a pledge or security for the performance of the conditions of a treaty or similar agreement, such as to ensure the status of a vassal.

(2) A person seized in order to compel another party to act (or refrain from acting) in a certain way, because of the threat of harm to the hostage.

(3) A security or pledge (obsolete).

(4) The condition of a hostage.

(5) To give someone as a hostage (rare).

1225–1275: From the Middle English hostage & ostage, from the eleventh century Old French hostage & ostage (kindness, hospitality; residence, dwelling; rent, tribute; compensation; guarantee, pledge, bail; person given as security or hostage (and ôtage (hostage) persists in Modern French)) of uncertain origin although most etymologists favor the Vulgar Latin obsidāticum (state of being a hostage; condition of being held captive), from the Latin obsid- (stem of obses (hostage)), the construct being ob- (before) + sid- (the base of sedere (to sit)) + -āticum (the suffix used (1) to form nouns indicating pertinence to the root verb or noun & (2) to form nouns indicating a state of being resulting from an action).  There is a (less supported) alternative etymology which traces hostage back to a construct from the Old French hoste (host) + -age (the sense development from “taking someone in and offering them lodging” to “taking someone in and holding them captive”.  The initial “h” was added to the Latin obses (hostage) under some influence which may have been the Old French hoste or the Latin hostis.  The word displaced the Old English ġīsl.  In idiomatic use, the phrase “hostage” to fortune historically had different meanings on either side of the Atlantic.  In the UK it meant “an action, promise, or remark that is considered unwise because it could be difficult to later to fulfill one’s obligations (even if merely implied)”.  In North America, it conveys the idea of “a person (or institution) whose fate is seen as dependent on chance or luck”.  Hostage & hostageship are nouns and hostaged & hostaging are nouns; the noun plural is hostages.

Swapped for one of Moscow’s hostages: Viktor Bout in Thailand.

The hostage negotiator is now a recognized specialist category in law enforcement and there are also many in the private sector, engaged usually on an ad hoc basis as needed.  The taking of hostages, although use of the word spiked only in the 1970s as the hijacking of civilian airliners became a popular means of pursuing political agendas, is ago old and during certain periods was institutionalized as an accepted part of how conflicts were executed.  Nothing new then but of late, some regimes have become more blatant in the way “hostage diplomacy” is done, making only the most perfunctory gestures towards adding a veneer of legal legitimacy to what is essentially the tactic of gangsters.  Some cases have attracted some public attention such as the exchange by Moscow of one of their American hostages for Viktor Bout (b 1967) a Russian arms trader apparently of Ukrainian origin and one of the great characters who flourished in the chaos which prevailed after the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Whether it was grenade launchers, government officials subject to UN sanctions or frozen chickens, all through Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Viktor Bout’s air-freight operation gained the reputation of delivering the goods as described, on time and at the price quoted, international sanctions and embargos no obstacle.  Unfortunately, he strayed too closely to the claws of Western law enforcement agencies and ended up being extradited to the US where he was convicted of this and that and sentenced to a 25 year term, ten of which he served before he was exchanged in a swap.

Held us hostage” is now a commonly used phrase applied to the tactics or antics of trade unions, film stars, Meghan Markle, minority political parties and anyone else who proves difficult.

US diplomat and historian George Kennan (1904-2005) is best remembered for the “Long Telegram” he sent from Moscow in 1946, warning the State Department of the possible implications of Soviet policy and advocating the US adopt its own policies to contain Soviet expansion.  He also published widely on other aspects of US foreign policy including an assessment of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), early in the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and while he held the Chinese in high regard (he thought them “…probably the most intelligent, man for man, of the world’s peoples”), he thought “…no good could come of any closer relationship between the US and China” and he was little more enthusiastic about the rival Kuomintang government established by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Formosa (Taiwan), regarded to this day by Beijing as a renegade province.  To support his views, he made four points which, some seven decades on, sound remarkably modern and probably familiar to diplomats in many chancelleries and embassies:

(1) The Chinese were, as a people, intensely xenophobic and arrogant.  Their attitude towards the foreigner and his world, based as it was on the concept of China as the “Middle Kingdom” and the view of the foreigner as a barbarian, was essentially offensive to other peoples and did not provide a basis for satisfactory international relations, other than ones of the most distant sort.

(2) He noted it seemed clear the Chinese, despite the highly civilized nature of their normal outward behavior, were capable of great ruthlessness when they considered themselves to be crossed.  How he thought in this Peking much differed from Washington & London he didn’t explore but he nevertheless found admirable many of their best qualities including industriousness, honesty in commerce, practical astuteness and political acumen.  Where he found the national character lacking was in their lack of two attributes of the Western Christian mentality: the capacity of pity and the sense of sin though intriguingly he conceded the possession of these both qualities induced weakness rather than strength in the Western character.  Presumably, he added, the Chinese were all the more formidable for their lack but this was a reason to afford them a healthy but wary respect, not to idealize them or seek intimacy in our relationship with them.

(3) His third observation was that of the pragmatic diplomat.  While the Chinese were often ready to make practical arrangements of an unwritten nature and usually ones that could at will be reversed if that suited their purposes, they were never prepared to yield on matters of principle.  Occasionally, they would consent, were sufficient pressure applied, to allow others to do certain things provided they were able to insist that there was no actual right to act in such a way.  In other words, at least in theory, China was always in the right, others in the wrong.  Kennan thought this an expression of national arrogance that augured badly for really good relations with any outside power.

(4) Finally, there was the matter of hostage taking although it’s clear from his writing that he was somewhat in awe of the skill and success in the subtlety of their gangsterism.  Over decades he noted, the Chinese had corrupted a large proportion of the Americans who had anything to do with them and the longer these visitors resided there, the greater the risk.  He was anxious to point out this corruption wasn't always, or even usually, financial, deciding it was something far more insidious, the Chinese infinitely adept at turning foreign visitors and residents (even diplomats) into hostages.  Then, with their superb combination of delicacy and ruthlessness, they would extract the maximum in the way of blackmail or ransom for giving them the privilege either of leaving the country or remaining, whichever it might be they most desired.  It all sounds remarkably modern.