An Inquiry into Evil
From Martin LeFevre in California
I finally finished Romeo Dallaire's book, "Shake Hands with
the Devil," about the Rwandan genocide. Often I could only read a few pages at a
time. The horror of it, and the relentless spiritual and philosophical questions
it implicitly raises, have remained with and haunted me.
Consider this passage, in which Dallaire, the Force Commander for the UN
Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) quotes Shaharyar Khan, the Pakistani
diplomat who was the special representative of the then Secretary General,
Boutros-Ghali: "The Interahamwe made a habit of killing young Tutsi children, in
front of their parents, by first cutting off one arm, then the other. They would
then gash the neck with a machete to bleed the child slowly to death but, while
they were still alive, they would cut off the private parts and throw them at
the faces of the terrified parents, who would then be murdered with slightly
greater dispatch."
Can ordinary people face such evil? If it is human, yes. Certainly evil is not a
supernatural phenomenon, but rather the worst byproduct of
thought-consciousness. Therefore it is human. But what does evil want? Are
particular people or peoples its only targets, simply as objects of bottomless
hatred? No, psychologically and metaphysically, unspeakable brutality serves
another, much wider and more diabolical purpose.
Clearly, the metaphysical targets of evil are not parents watching their
children being mutilated and murdered, anymore than the psychological targets
are slaughtered children. Metaphysically, evil has other intentions. Evil means
to be known but not faced, so as to whisper through our deepest fears and eat
away at the hearts of living individuals all over the world.
The intentional darkness in human consciousness wants every person to believe in
our hearts that there is nothing we can do about evil, and that we may as well
inwardly quit and give free reign to self-centeredness. Then it achieves its
goal: our hearts turn to stone.
In America, where self-interest has long been viewed as the highest good anyway,
the vast majority of people have become broken and inwardly dead. People are
often 'nice,' but there is an immense emptiness here that makes people slaves to
the forces of darkness behind our government. People don't know, and don't want
to know that "the US government actively worked against an effective UNAMIR and
only got involved to aid the same Hutu refugee population and genocidaires,
leaving the genocide survivors to flounder and suffer."
Collective darkness is as real in general consciousness as the self is in
individual consciousness. That is to say, it materially exists, though its roots
in psychological separation are illusory. Since it is a global society now, the
spread of inward deadness is the gravest threat to the human spirit in the
evolutionary history of humanity.
One has to face what Alexis de Tocqueville called "religious terror," but
self-knowing provides protection from and the antidote to evil. Rigorous
self-knowing also turns the tables on collective darkness, by transmuting the
material of one's own content of darkness into the light of understanding. In
the end, darkness makes us sub-human, or, facing it, we grow into human beings.
Rain pelted the windows all night, fell steadily all morning, and came down in
furious squalls, accompanied by thunder and lightening, this afternoon. A couple
hours before sunset the weather began to clear, and I seized the opportunity to
get out into the parkland.
The creek, needless to say, was a torrent, and the trails a muddy mess, though
it felt good to stride through the muck. Every bough and leaf dripped from the
daylong deluge. The park was nearly empty. Then a runner's footfalls echoed
across the wooden slats of a footbridge a short distance behind me.
A small Cooper's hawk screeched, flew across the stream, and alighted at the top
of one of the innumerable oak trees that grace the land here. Later, a much
larger woodland hawk flew over, its brief presence leaving a lasting impression.
A merganser, paddling almost as if it thought it would be sucked under,
nervously negotiated the rapids under the footbridge.
A meditative state ignited in the undivided observation. Shifts in consciousness
are never the goal; there is simply the intent to watch what is, and learn. That
intent, plus a quickness and intensity of self-awareness in the current of
consciousness, naturally bring about awakened consciousness.
martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net
The author welcomes comments.
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