The Evil that Men do
Remembering historical atrocities is important, but it's clearly not sufficient to prevent new crimes against humanity
The BBC is currently serialising Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The third episode is due for broadcast next Sunday evening, 27th July, here in the UK. But as is the way of things these days, you can watch all five episodes now on iPlayer, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend you binge it in a single sitting.
It is brilliant television, with convincing characterisations, great acting, taught, sparse dialogue and fabulous music, all driving an epic story, based, as all the best ones are, on real events.
But in it’s depiction of the brutality suffered by Australian prisoners of war working on the Burma railway, it is one of the most harrowing and distressing things I’ve ever watched. My wife and I considered abandoning it several times, only persevering because of the compelling storyline.
I understand why the director, Justin Kurzel, chose to be so graphic in his depictions of the depravity of which people are capable; it always serves to be reminded. Though even I thought he went too far in the drawn out scene towards the end of Episode Four. But such hideous crimes continue to be committed all over the world. Perhaps this is why we are obliged to watch.
Many of us live such sheltered, comfortable lives that we exist in a perpetual state of denial about such things. And the extent of that collective denial leaves us ill-equipped to deal with new atrocities when they occur, or take preventative action when they seem likely.
The international community could quite easily have acted to save thousands of lives during the Rwandan genocide. Likewise, foreign powers could have taken steps to reduce the loss of civilian lives in Gaza during the current conflict, with minimal political risk. That they chose not too suggests they know how few people care; there is little electoral downside to acquiescing in the wishes of a genocidal maniac like Benjamin Netanyahu.
[Just to be clear, I also view the Hamas leadership as genocidal maniacs. Fortunately they lack the capacity and resources to effect the genocide against the Jewish people they frequently threaten.]
It exasperates me when people, politicians or headline writers express their shock at a brutal murder, or the use of rape as a weapon of war, or some other heinous crime, often committed in the name of one god or another, when we know perfectly well the depraved behaviours of which human beings are capable given certain circumstances.
But rather than identify what those circumstances are and take steps to reduce the number of people exposed to them, we simply express our shock, wring our hands and wait for the next ‘inexplicable’ episode of brutality to be reported.
Towards the end of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, our troubled hero takes the opportunity to remind people of the importance of remembering past atrocities as a way of preventing further outrages. I’ve always shared this sentiment, especially in respect of The Holocaust. But a cursory glance at the world today suggests that memory loses its remedial capacity over time, and that simply remembering without trying to understand why such things happen in the first place, is really no remedy at all.
Today, while Gaza may be grabbing the headlines, dreadful things are happening all over the world. As former British diplomat Carne Ross says in this recent post:
‘Russia's campaign against Ukrainian civilians, and its accompanying rhetoric denying the existence of Ukraine, amounts to genocide, according to several qualified authorities.’
He goes on to cite evidence that what is currently happening in both Sudan and Gaza amounts to genocide.
Arguments rage over the precise definition of genocide. For me, regardless of the numbers killed in a conflict, if an agressor deliberately targets civilians with total disregard for children, with a view to depleting the population of the enemy ‘group’ whether defined ethnically, racially, religiously or tribally, and their soldiers routinely engage in rape as a weapon of war, then genocide is being committed. There are other actions that commonly feature in genocides, but these two are sufficient to define it.
Are things worse today than at other times in history? Are humans more inclined to inflict suffering on each other than previous generations? In the period after 1945 concerted efforts were made by western Governments to prevent a repeat of the conditions that led to the rise of the Nazis and The Holocaust. But in many parts of the world, similar atrocities continued: they were committed by both sides in the Vietnam War; the Khmer Rouge, funded and armed by Mao’s China, killed up to two million people during the Cambodian genocide. And many readers will remember both the horrors of Rwanda in 1994, and the massacre in Srebrenica just a year later.
Some people try to explain away such atrocities as the inevitable consequence of human nature. But that’s far too simplistic: it neither explains how such atrocities come to be committed, nor why, at many points in history, people of different communities, cultures and ethnic groups have co-existed perfectly happily for decades, and in some cases centuries.
All wars create the conditions in which crimes against humanity are possible, and open up the possibility of genocide. If we wish to avoid such atrocities, we need to stop going to war. This is a big ask given the many factors involved. But we could start by talking up the alternative view that war is not inevitable. Or rather, that is only inevitable because all too often, power-crazed psychopaths (nearly always men) attain positions of political leadership. But these psychotic leaders cannot wage war on their own. They need armies to do their bidding.
Economic factors always play a role in the ability of such leaders to mobilise armies. Historically, when technology had not developed sufficiently to enable the mass-production of food, and create opportunities for most people to earn a living through gainful employment, wars were a matter of survival. Better land to grow more food was sought; areas known to be rich in mineral resources were considered fair game by neighbouring states which enjoyed no such endowments. But in nearly every part of the world today, development has made such natural scarcity a thing of the past.
Indeed, anthropologists will tell you that our problems really began when technological improvements allowed the creation of economic surpluses, and with them the possibility of individual wealth on a scale never previously imagined. This is when communities and states began to be led by psychopaths intent on lining their own pockets and consolidating their own power.
Perceptions of economic injustice and threats to security, even when imagined, enable amoral leaders to wage war, and in the process send thousands of their own people - often young men with few prospects - to pointless, needless deaths.
What about the American Civil War? I hear you ask: that wasn’t about economic security; it was about race, and a desire on the part of the Confederacy to continue slavery.
But slavery is entirely an economic issue. Slavery is indentured labour. Slavery enables slave owners to live comfortable lives without making any serious contribution to the creation of the wealth off which they live. The Civil War was about maintaining a system of gross economic inequality based on racial differences. The historical record is replete with examples of slave owners committing the most awful atrocities. And while the legacy of slavery persists, its abolition is an example of how, sometimes, human society is able to take great moral strides forward.
Carne Ross also points up the importance of ‘othering’ in enabling warmongers to recruit troops to fight, and in generating the requisite political support to go to war:
Indeed the very notion of race - of difference itself - originated in the colonial era as a justification for domination, exploitation and the theft of territory and destruction of culture. It was a political, or social, construction - created to justify violent conquest and eradication of native populations - in other words, genocide.
It’s true that historical economically-motivated conquest was nearly always dressed up in the ideology of white supremacy. But when European fleets set sail in the 15th Century, the economies of western Africa and eastern India were more developed that those of Europe. The Africans and Indians had simply not seen fit to invest their surpluses in fleets of ships, or other means by which they might defend their territory from the marauding gangsters sent by Lisbon or London.
Today it can feel as if conflict between different groups is exclusively driven by beliefs about racial, cultural or religious superiority. But such ideas are always rooted in competition for economic resources, and the determination of autocratic leaders to remain in power. We have largely solved the problem of economic scarcity (although in the process we have brought down on ourselves an even greater ecological one) but we have made little progress when it comes to keeping psychopaths out of power, even in well-established democracies.
The extent to which the psyche of many individuals, regardless of their level of education, leaves them vulnerable to brainwashing about the supposed superiority of their group, and the ease with which so many are willing to identify primarily with group interests, rather than common interests, or even their own personal interests (the thousands of young Russian men slaughtered needlessly in Ukraine) suggests we still have a long way to go.
Only when people are able to avoid acquiring this sense of tribal belonging - a sense they’re not born with but one that is inculcated - in much larger numbers than they are now, will humankind finally escape the endless wars that blight the lives of so many people.
Building a fairer, more inclusive world is the surest of way of preventing the herd-like retreat into tribal sentiment that becomes the refuge from an insecure world for so many. As long as we ignore that imperative, the conditions in which psychotic leaders assume power and are able to recruit the foot soldiers to do their dirty work, will continue to arise.
It may be that our collective capacity to transcend tribalism is limited by something that happens psychologically when enough people invest so much of themselves in group identity. But there are plenty of examples of individuals being able to escape the compulsion to identify tribally: generally they are people who benefit from growing up in a loving and secure environment and have access to viable economic opportunities in adult life.
Perhaps tribalism, a force so strong that it appears to be innate, will prove the final nail in the coffin of civilisation. But we have been here before. And previously we have always found ways to move forward. History, and what we have learned about the factors that determine human behaviour, offer us many positive lessons. We urgently need to start learning them.