Evil appears as an unfathomable or simplistic agenda in our lives. We can refer to it as a deep impenetrable darkness that resists all attempts at rational and reason.
We always think or feel that evil is ambiguous as how it is seen and has no motivation. I am of the firm opinion that unthinkable or unspeakable evil has a premeditated cold and calculated motive.
One must accept the fact that evil or negative forces are a part of human life to varying degrees. Given the events in our country and the world, I had concluded sometimes that God must be malevolent to allow evil to exist and impotent to prevent acts of evil.The violation among human being especially on the platform of religion, breaching the lowest standards of goodness, justice and decency. There are many whose lives are lost just on the basic perimeters of paper thin marginal differences
For one to recognise evil, one must feel the reality of pain, suffering, deprivation as acts of abomination and unnatural cruelty that are perpetrated on the victims.
In this day and age of supposed advancement, we are armed with the powerful tools of knowledge and discussion as such ignorance is a very poor excuse against brutality.
We must acknowledge that all forms of atrocities have the benefit and professional advantage of clarity of intention, meticulous planning, technical innovation and a process of laws, justification either through a religious, racial or any other convenient agenda.
The root of evil can be chiselled out from the rock of religious terrorism and be exterminated in totality if one displays iron will.
If we aren’t moved and driven to our knees by the slaughter in Peshawar of the innocent and condemn it univocally our faith is emasculated. The expression that this is a senseless killing is very far removed from the truth. The children and attackers shared the same faith. This did not prevent these brutish murderers from the cold premeditated planning and executing their mission in a remorseless manner.
The tourniquet words of comfort offer no consolation to families and friends of the victims. The most eloquent condemnation to honour lives lost needlessly is that one should condemn any faith, religion or ideology that dictates:
- Differences as reason to kill
- Supreme ideology that breaches the equality of race and gender.
- Justifies the tenants of the faith to kill another
We should just not have any of this. If our leaders or persons in governance are protecting extremist groups or are impotent, we have no recourse but to treat them as extremist and pariahs at the best.
The Pakistani government record has been dismissal and the blood of the lamb spilled in Peshawar has much to do with their policies for so many years. The political thought that one can control an evil beast and use it to one’s advantage has been a fallacious and the carnage that has been reaped on what was sown.
The direct consequence is unbearable grief and tremendous sorrow where retribution against the Taliban will not bring these lives back . In this day and age where knowledge is available at the click of a mouse/button no individual or group can act with impunity and claim immunity for their actions based on ignorance of religion – Evil in any form must be castigated and castrated.
We can either blame God for this misfortune of evil or we can accept collective responsibility.
In this day and age if we apply ourselves with conscience we can be a force for change and a direction that is non offensive. Freedom of will provides us the possibility to choose to be inherently good or to choose a path in defiance of good. This defiance of good is essentially the consequence of freedom which despite the negative connotations is a right that must be accorded to any individual and protected- but at what cost?
I think that evil constitutes a minority but appear like a majority as there is a silent majority of good people who by virtue of their silence accord evil a might and right that could easily be whipped into submission if we use our collective voice and will.
Many persons of various faiths extol and express various pronouncements in resignation that suffering and death is the will of God.
I always ask, does suffering need a God to lend it meaning? Will we attribute to God acts of suffering even if it is designed by perpetrators among us?
The question related to evil is a formidable intellectual challenge but it is certainly not insurmountable. Human history is filled with pages of compelling lessons on how religion, racist supremacist, entitlements or philosophies were used by the most intelligent and educated of individuals to advance a cause that has showcased some of the most horrible, demented, spine tingling catalogues of mass extermination and slaughter.
The mask of evil is not just in religion but it has shown itself in divisive racial agendas and also the philosophies of generations. The best of ideals advocated in the catchphrase of Liberty, fraternity and equality were coined by proponents of the French revolution.
Exacerbated by the fervour of this cause, the scale of pillage, plunder, destruction, and killing on an ideal was and remains an effrontery against the basic convention that life is a basic, sacred, and inalienable right in any society.
It is a shame that those with a majority of shared ethnicity, culture and language deem it fit to abrogate and grade the rights of other communities, reduce them to servitude or manoeuvre them into a condition of dependence and in very extreme cases it leads to extermination and genocide.
Looking at the current flow of events in Malaysia; are we being lead along such a path. In being pragmatic we must never discount the possibility that we may fall prey, we must never think for a moment that it can never happen to us!
I propose that religion, politics, ideals or philosophies camouflaged or coated with scriptural references of justification that threatens to breach the sacred repository of trust in life and the associated freedoms should be challenged and dismantled.
Any threat of such nature should receive the unequivocal support, condemnation and opposition from every segment of society no matter what our political affiliations or beliefs. A strong faith or a God who is divine does not need our defence, if any faith or individual claims to act on behalf of God and suppress or kill the very being that God is deemed to have created – it goes against the very basic principal concept and nature of how God is supposed to be conceived.
The incriminating question are we strong and courageous enough able to be able to prevent the growing presence of evil despite our ethnic, political, religious and social differences?
Trajectory of evil
We must not fall into a delusional trap, when we express that only governments that are religious appear to go down a dark road. A balanced objective view requires that one examines the secular Governments or individuals who lead them.
Mustapha Kemal Ataturk systematically deported Armenian and Greek-speaking Christians. During the First World War, a conservative estimate of approximately one million Armenians were massacred in the first genocide of the 20th century.
These men, women, youth, children and elderly were killed, raped, shot, starved, poisoned, suffocated and burnt to death, as they were regarded as dangerous microbes according to one top Turkish politician.
One need not look far for lessons further or nearer to our time: Nazi Germany and wartime Japan are evident examples.
The top leadership of both countries had some brilliant master politicians, thinkers and tacticians who were caring husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and friends and seemed ordinary enough. Consider that with deep reflection without a shred of remorse they carefully in a premeditated manner: relentless slaughtered and exterminated persons using all sorts of conceivable, creative and justifiable reason.
It was documented that in a single day one can expect a sentence to be dispensed for thousands of unfortunate individuals to be judged and slaughtered in a methodical and metronomic manner with cold precision and efficiency.
Individual evil can be contained and quite easily be snuffed out, but political evil is insidious when a party or a group of person’s impact and influence people to follow an agenda that benefits a specific group to the detriment of others.
One must never forget large segments of the German population supported the Nazi policies of racial persecution and genocide. It is shocking and revolting that people with a tradition of splendid culture, finesse, discipline and regimentation chose the evil of tyranny and barbarism over decency on the account of convenience and comfort.
The number of rank and file professionals who opposed such evil was rather small. Albert Einstein was one of those minorities who opposed the Nazis. Only when it was clear that the war would be lost was the erosion of support evident.
The permutations of the darkness and negativity begets the question is there hope against the vicious cycle of evil that manifest itself in what seems like an endless occurrence of conflicts.
I was once asked this perplexing question if light is possible in the deepest darkness where death is a certainty? I draw inspiration from a book titled "Landscapes of Metropolis Death". A child harmonica player in Auschwitz is playing "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven’s ninth symphony opposite the crematoriums of Auschwitz, and a few hundred metres from the place of execution. The most callous and degrading action were the norm and expectation. Without a given doubt, death here was an absolute certainty.
Imre the conductor of the children’s choir in the family camp taught doomed children and whoever else "Ode to Joy" in this barren inescapable prison.
Given the circumstances, this seemed like the most senseless and insensitive act. This song in a captivating manner sings of human dignity, humanistic values and faith in the future, in the camp there is nothingness. The simple desperate fact is that in this camp there only existed destruction and desolation. Each one was resigned so it seems to take this one song to their deaths.
Tragically Imre the conductor was gassed sometime in March 1944. It is generally thought that in the midst of such degradation and deprivation; Imre hoped that some children may survive the carnage.
To impart, implant and tender the gift of a song was done in the hope to prepare potential survivors the opportunity to acquire the finest and noblest in culture to rebuild civilization from the ashes of hopelessness. So I would take a leaf out of Imre exceptional courage and foresight and use it as a message of hope. Surrendering to evil or living in despair is not an option, we may feel and live on the knife edge of prosecution and persecution, even if we are consigned to being unknown, or ending our lives in apparent nothingness without the privilege of witnessing a sun kissed day or a night glittering with a million stars - we must resolve to be the sacrifice for that which is decent in humanity and call ourselves Malaysians.
We ought to do some soul searching and ask, can the evil of the past invade and overcome Malaysia? Going by what is happening in our country, are we on the trajectory of reaping unimaginable and unspeakable evil when we plough and sow with racial inequality and religious supremacy?
Insanity of evil
A few weeks ago, a social activist by the name of Rebecca Jane Thomas who is very pro-active with disadvantaged children and takes care of people was subject to verbal bashing and physical abuse from an individual who was operating an illegal goreng pisang stall within an enclosed low cost housing area of flats.
When she expressed her concerns to the offender that the stall with cooking oil and fire could be a potential danger to children who run through the area, she was immediately abused and told that she had no right to speak as she was a pendatang and she could go back to where she came from.
There were frothing expletives that were also hurled at Rebecca. This imbecile had the audacity to spit at her and threaten her physically. A police report that she lodged evoked no response. This may seem like a small act but it was one of those that eventually emboldens even a small time goreng pisang seller to behave in a thuggish manner.
The shameful legitimisation of violence and intimidation by a thuggish mob in Penang at the Speakers Corner against another group and their coarsening brutality and sickening vulgarity particularly against women was an indictment of the implicit nature and tacit or subtle support for such gangs from all stratas of governance.
This is not faceless evil and it can and should be stopped. If our lawmakers, or law enforcers can do nothing, we must change them or protest in volume as a group to awaken the powers to be that we hold them accountable.
Religion is as good as it is, and has proponents who have hijacked and used it as a tool of submission in the most negative of ways. We are witnessing the monstrosity of Isis rampaging and tearing apart villages, towns and cities in the Middle East. The indiscriminate and barbaric violence where innocent inhabitants are decimated and massacred is repeated with ferocious and chilling cruelty. We are experiencing a group that is behaving in a deranged and rabid manner where the perversity of behaviour seems to emit from religious faith.
If the claim to being a Muslim by Isis and like minded individuals and groups in Malaysia accord them the legitimacy and respect to perpetrate all manner of cruelty on people on the account of differences, we should just stop calling them Muslims and just term them as pariahs.
On the field of battle, there are Kurdish women who were begging to be killed after being raped countless times by the so-called holy jihadists. This act alone is a blatant defamation of the nobility, civility, compassion and honour of the Islamic faith.
If one interprets and represents religion like a savage rabid wild beast and kills or suppresses another, we must just use the heaviest chains and ropes of justice to cage the beast which uses the religious agenda to commit such unforgivable atrocities.
The deteriorating political, religious, racial relationship, social and economical inequalities in Malaysia is indeed a cause for grave concern. Does it not look and feel that groups like Isma, Perkasa, and individuals within the federal or state governments are in an infantile evolutionary stage that is displaying the capacity and backbone to transform into a local Isis or Nazi party. There seems to be a systemic implementation and deliberate attempt to undermine persons of other faiths inclusive of many good persons of the Muslim faith.
It is not surprising that we are experiencing and witnessing gradual disillusionment where individuals are viewing religion as belligerent, intolerant, irrational, dark and violent.
While it is true that we cannot fight every battle, champion every cause or feel the pain of humanity we are placed here for a reason and should not feel frustrated or powerless.
We must recognise that from the structures of Divine law there can be emissions of abuse and misrepresentation and this should receive conscientious and qualified objection without fear.
Exasperation on evolution of evil
A counterproductive understanding of religion seems to produce and attract individuals to come together as a cohesive group to act with extreme violence and cruelty.
The premise for this is they are utterly convinced that God is on their side. This is when mutual respect, acceptance and compromise become virtually impossible.
When it is thought, felt and accepted that God dictates and supports a group it seems justifiable that all manner of cruelty and barbarism is employed and used against children from eight months to the old and infirm of eight years of age and above, with no conscience or remorse.
This seems to be the road that the Ridhuan Tee’s, Ibrahim Ali's, Zulkifli Noordins and other like minded individuals and groups are embracing. Rational, moral or intellectual communication with such obstinate, contemptuous groups or individuals with primitive ideologies are the road to exasperation where we place ourselves at the grave risk of an infection of untreatable madness.
Malaysia is gradually spiralling on a self destructive mode, becoming polarised, contaminated and infected by the virulent nature of evil which is showing itself in insatiable greed, avarice, and corruption. Ethnicity and religion are the convenient chameleons that hide the real motives.
The politics of frothing hate and divisiveness in our country are intentional concoctions of venomous poison brewed in the toxic fires of racial and religious divide.
Like a double-edged sword, it may consume everyone without distinguishing evil and good.
In an incisive manner we must ask ourselves are we immune to such evil.
I do not think so. There are deliberate attempts and excuses to defend indefensible actions and some of it seem to garner support from apparently the most qualified and educated among us.
A former prime minister, ex-judges, academicians, professors, lawyers, doctors, musicians, artist, law makers, law givers, law enforcer holy men and women of God and anybody who requires his/her place in the limelight of notoriety.
They have all been part of the shameful regression of goodwill, repression of rights, revulsion against race, repugnance towards religion, retardation of politics, repulsion of decency, common sense and destruction of diversity in our good country.
These charlatans who have divided us with the propriety of their lofty exalted status that was accorded, acquired or embezzled through trickery and manipulation, must never be allowed to used their purported knowledge or wealth to hold us hostage. They must be vilified, shamed and accorded the dubious distinction and recognition as the gravest danger and threat to the common good in our country.
If one observes countries which are generally peaceful, it is those who have separated, as a prerequisite for peace, religion and state. In Malaysia we are having authorities assiduously observing what is deemed as the proper rituals in the defence of the faith and yet we have the poor, oppressed and marginalised and those of different beliefs being cast aside and seen as expandable in sum total of the countries advancement and progress.
The message of the Quran and Muslim faith seemed to have been hijacked and used in the most inappropriate and desiccative manner. This, I fear, will lead to a litany of evil deeds not just against non-Muslims but against Muslims who are considered moderates and liberals.
No individual should be excused or granted immunity for any excess in the representation their religious or political leaderships. Other countries have impeached their heads of governments or prominent figures inclusive of the judiciary for their excess.
Education, intelligence, religious or social status does not guarantee that one is immune or incapable of the worst atrocities. The higher the intellectual level or qualifications the greater the propensity for un-lamentable barbaric evil and mind boggling cruelty.
Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb, Pol Pot of Cambodia and Paul Kagame of Rwanda being personified case examples that are still locked in the time capsule of our collective memories.
Many individuals who are brought to trial for crimes against humanity are intelligent and evasive enough to articulate and claim immunity under the guise of government, military or orders of higher authority.
The standard claim is that one has no choice but to obey or being a minor participant one has to comply.
When one investigates the realm or rational or conscience the common denominator appears to be greed, advancement, belief and personal advantage. The fact that one can concoct all kinds of excuses in defence of evil is the clearest sign that freedom of choice is available.
Sometimes we attach a label for evil such as thoughtlessness or ignorance. The fact is that thoughtless or ignorant people are in excess a greater threat to society. If one strips from evil the defensive layers and coating of language that justifies its existence, naked to bone or skin, one will see the obvious intelligence and motive it possess.
We all make choices of acceptance on how we think and what we think, and the simple truth is that no one points a gun at our heads and forces such choices.
Will we mourn when the last of the diverse religions, faiths, atheist, ethnicities, indigenous tribes, individual philosophies and preferences are extinguished and exist no more?
Or will we gloat, laugh and dance over the bones of the dead on the account that one creed one culture and one philosophy lives in triumph over the diversity and exclusion of the others?
Even after having defiled the conventions of good and tasting the blood and meat of all the corpses of the various ethnicities and religious, the wicked evil is the inordinate hidden joker in the stacked cards of life. The human insecurities on the triumph of extermination may linger around to haunt those who remain.
We may kill one another on the simple premise that one’s eyes are not same as another, or some deformity in physique or character is prevalent and the cycle of extermination has renewed purpose and is reborn in a new season. How does one stop the vicious cycle?
The simple truth is that religious or human morality is safeguard that prevent our human frailty from going off tangent. We must recognise that combating evil in any form requires consistent vigilance as evil is here to stay.
With guile, deception, cunning and stealth it may metamorphise and manifest itself in any shape, form thought, creed, culture or philosophy.
Will we find our courage before our personal Auschwitz of evil threatens to envelope, imprison, condemn and cage us before the winter of life is upon us? Or will we sacrifice the convenience of life and fight for common decency, virtues and values that we call peace, freedom and equality? – December 23, 2014.
