There is an English proverb which says “there is honour among thieves” as well as the directly contradictory statement “there is no honour among thieves”. I have recently had cause to reflect and research these statements. Why will the English say there is honour among thieves and then directly rebut the first assertion? On “UsingEnglish.com”, I found this explanation for the first statement: “If someone says there is honor among thieves, this means that even corrupt or bad people sometimes have a sense of honor or integrity, or justice, even if it is skewed.” This tallies with my understanding – when corrupt or bad people have an agreement among themselves, they can be expected to keep faith with each other, even as they may not honour obligations or agreements with others.
I got more comprehensive insight from “English.stackexchange.com” which provided five contexts for resolving any ambiguity. First, “The classic proverb holds that, ‘There is honor among thieves’. The meaning, of course, is the concept of ‘professional courtesy’, that even the disreputable and unethical do – particularly among themselves – adhere to various sorts of moral codes of conduct. As to the converse, ‘no honor among thieves’, the meaning is self-explanatory. Curiously, the concept isn’t limited to the English-speaking world, as evidenced by this Spanish proverb: Piensa el ladrón que todos son de sucondición. (The thief thinks that all are of his condition.)…” This suggests the concept of honour or integrity among thieves or “disreputable and unethical” persons is ultimately futile because each expects the other to betray him sooner or later and will therefore at some point act first to gain the advantage!
This is apparent from a second perspective – “They are both well-known idioms that simply mean what they say and complement each other very well. There is honor among thieves conveys the idea that even people of lesser integrity can find trust in each other, if only for a short time, and at the same time mistrust each other, hence no honor among thieves.” The implication is that any notion of integrity and trust between people of low integrity is by definition short-lived!
A third articulation clarifies: “‘There is honor among thieves’ is to say that there is a code of conduct ranging from a mere professional courtesy, to a complete set of in-house rules in a group, band, or guild of thieves working in cooperation. ‘There is no honor among thieves’ is used to express situations when such systems break down, or the greedy nature of thieves interferes with their code of ethics…. It is also used to express that the breaking down of such a code of ethics seems inevitable.” This must be why deadly assassinations often break out in criminal gangs such as the Mafia!
The fourth context introduces the concept of treachery and the fact that talking about honour among thieves actually reminds us not to expect such integrity among dishonourable people except very rarely – “The closely related quote from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, ‘The treacherous are ever distrustful’, which carries a similar meaning as ‘No honour among thieves’. This derived from ‘Even a traitor can trust’ which would coincide with ‘There is honour among thieves’. I think both forms make sense and do not actually contradict each other. They are not opposites. One would not bother to state that there is honour among thieves if it weren’t a rare and remarkable commodity.”
I was led to embark on this linguistic excursion due to events in the National Assembly, specifically the Federal House of Representatives, last Tuesday, June 9, 2015. I am not suggesting any similarity between our elected honourable representatives and thieves or otherwise disreputable people. My discourse may in fact be adapted to read “honour among co-conspirators” rather than thieves, which is in this context simply a proverbial or idiomatic expression. In 2011 the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoned the office of Speaker of the House to the South-West in line with its principle of power sharing in consonance with the Nigerian Constitution. That was the only high office allocated to the South-West by the PDP which then nominated Mulikat Akande-Adeola for the position.
However, sometime between the general elections and inauguration of the National Assembly, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, which had collaborated in the election of President Jonathan, reached an agreement with some Northern leaders on a new strategy for national power involving an alliance between the North and the South-West. In pursuance of that agreement, the ACN helped in thwarting PDP’s planned election of Adeola and instead joined rebellious PDP legislators in electing Aminu Waziri Tambuwal from the North as Speaker instead! Consequently, the South-West held no major office for four years of the Jonathan Presidency! The alliance agreed and solemnised at the House of Representatives in 2011 bore fruit and resulted in the All Progressives Congress (APC) winning the 2015 Presidency with a strong majority in the National Assembly. As ruling party, the APC also sought to zone the Speaker’s position to the South-West with Gbajabiamila as nominee. For Tinubu and Femi Gbajabiamila, who led ACN representatives to vote Tambuwal, becoming minority leader (and who strenuously defended Tambuwal’s election and longevity in office, including by climbing the House fence!), June 9, 2015 was pay-back time as he expected his former allies to endorse his own coronation. Alas! Tambuwal was at the forefront of an anti-Gbajabiamila conspiracy that elected Yakubu Dogara House Speaker instead of Gbajabiamila!
The final explanation on “English.stackexchange.com” settles the matter for me – “Thieves are so described due to the decisions made and actions taken. A thief lives with no developed conscience and thus no honor.”
Opeyemi Agbaje
