I always thought killing was a sin until I read in an magazine (onboard to US , 1999) that
The Savanna grasslands of Africa are home to gazelles and cheetahs. Every morning, each gazelle wakes up praying he be given strength to outrun the fastest cheetah that day to survive or get eaten up. Same morning, each cheetah wakes up praying that it can outrun the slowest gazelle for food or face starvation and extinction. Justice is served in the Savannas because no matter what you are , a cheetah or a gazelle, when morning breaks, you better be running!
It is important to realize there is no point in pitying the gazelle and hating the cheetah here. Talking about killing, i guess with the exception of man, all animals except man kills for only food. Man alone kills for pleasure. Some men i mean. If you have seen the 'Dances with the wolves' you would know what i mean. But we are hear to discuss justice.
Look at the skewed sense of justice we have developed. Our sense of justice recommends a tit-for-tat remedy to the problem of crime. Someone kills another, the killer is hanged, though all we have achieved is lose two lives in the bargain. Could the killer be spared and transformed. The possibility definitely exists but for a society to survive, to strongly discourage such acts of crime, it was perhaps thought prudent to instill fear than pardon or correction.
Modern Justice is designed to be blind (like the blind lady holding the balance). We seek objective justice, based on facts and evidence alone. But we were humane once.
In 2004, I had the good fortune to invite one of my English teachers to my wedding. Among many things that we discussed, was a question ‘How things have deteriorated over the years?”. He thought for a while and narrated his old experiences in Nigeria. It was a rare insight.
Well, I actually fell in love with Africa after seeing the movie “Out of Africa”. A gripping story. Redford and Streep. You can’t ask for more. But it is the of charm of Africa that fills you. Silences you.
Anyway when my teacher arrived in Nigeria, it was a backward place. Yet he cited examples to describe that heaven. Once he had tried to lock the car and a missionary told him that is not needed in Nigeria! Nobody locks their houses. Stealing was unheard of , he said. That’s like a fairy tale, right?
Then again, once his car broke down and he was left stranded with his wife and it was getting dark. Before long, two guys coming along in a bicycle. They took to a safe place and also cycled all the way to the next village to fetch help. That’s was Nigeria.
What made it interesting was the “Laws and Sense of Justice” of the people of Nigeria. See, their village, if a man steals a banana if he is hungry it’s not a crime but if you pocket it, it is punishable!
My teacher concludes with even a stranger irony. Nigeria was such a heaven and then an interesting ‘Development’ happened, they struck gold, I mean OIL! With that came money, industrialization and development. But with that also came greed and corruption. Today we know what Nigeria is. Let's discuss this happens another time perhaps.
But I was struck by the humane aspect of the Nigerian Law. Their Justice had eyes of compassion. Laws that transcend mere objectivity! Alas, we lost all that. I think the justice being practiced now is largely influenced by the West. One cannot find fault with it. It has its gains. But one must acknowledge that this methodical evidence based objective approach is not complete. We human beings have something more. Unfortunately when we dissect with the knife of science, we lose another aspect which we can capable of sensing but not measuring or defining. Or maybe we lose that sensibility all together.
Let’s not blame those who framed them. In fact our current sense of Justice is only reflective of our times and values. Face it, modern man has become sophisticated. Corrupted. He has fallen. He no longer has any qualms to lie or cheat. He deserves the current sense of Justice he has devised.
But the sadness is in the fact that we had a much higher sense of Justice. Once. Even in remotes villages of Nigeria. And we lost it.
The Savanna grasslands of Africa are home to gazelles and cheetahs. Every morning, each gazelle wakes up praying he be given strength to outrun the fastest cheetah that day to survive or get eaten up. Same morning, each cheetah wakes up praying that it can outrun the slowest gazelle for food or face starvation and extinction. Justice is served in the Savannas because no matter what you are , a cheetah or a gazelle, when morning breaks, you better be running!
It is important to realize there is no point in pitying the gazelle and hating the cheetah here. Talking about killing, i guess with the exception of man, all animals except man kills for only food. Man alone kills for pleasure. Some men i mean. If you have seen the 'Dances with the wolves' you would know what i mean. But we are hear to discuss justice.
Look at the skewed sense of justice we have developed. Our sense of justice recommends a tit-for-tat remedy to the problem of crime. Someone kills another, the killer is hanged, though all we have achieved is lose two lives in the bargain. Could the killer be spared and transformed. The possibility definitely exists but for a society to survive, to strongly discourage such acts of crime, it was perhaps thought prudent to instill fear than pardon or correction.
Modern Justice is designed to be blind (like the blind lady holding the balance). We seek objective justice, based on facts and evidence alone. But we were humane once.
In 2004, I had the good fortune to invite one of my English teachers to my wedding. Among many things that we discussed, was a question ‘How things have deteriorated over the years?”. He thought for a while and narrated his old experiences in Nigeria. It was a rare insight.
Well, I actually fell in love with Africa after seeing the movie “Out of Africa”. A gripping story. Redford and Streep. You can’t ask for more. But it is the of charm of Africa that fills you. Silences you.
Anyway when my teacher arrived in Nigeria, it was a backward place. Yet he cited examples to describe that heaven. Once he had tried to lock the car and a missionary told him that is not needed in Nigeria! Nobody locks their houses. Stealing was unheard of , he said. That’s like a fairy tale, right?
Then again, once his car broke down and he was left stranded with his wife and it was getting dark. Before long, two guys coming along in a bicycle. They took to a safe place and also cycled all the way to the next village to fetch help. That’s was Nigeria.
What made it interesting was the “Laws and Sense of Justice” of the people of Nigeria. See, their village, if a man steals a banana if he is hungry it’s not a crime but if you pocket it, it is punishable!
My teacher concludes with even a stranger irony. Nigeria was such a heaven and then an interesting ‘Development’ happened, they struck gold, I mean OIL! With that came money, industrialization and development. But with that also came greed and corruption. Today we know what Nigeria is. Let's discuss this happens another time perhaps.
But I was struck by the humane aspect of the Nigerian Law. Their Justice had eyes of compassion. Laws that transcend mere objectivity! Alas, we lost all that. I think the justice being practiced now is largely influenced by the West. One cannot find fault with it. It has its gains. But one must acknowledge that this methodical evidence based objective approach is not complete. We human beings have something more. Unfortunately when we dissect with the knife of science, we lose another aspect which we can capable of sensing but not measuring or defining. Or maybe we lose that sensibility all together.
Let’s not blame those who framed them. In fact our current sense of Justice is only reflective of our times and values. Face it, modern man has become sophisticated. Corrupted. He has fallen. He no longer has any qualms to lie or cheat. He deserves the current sense of Justice he has devised.
But the sadness is in the fact that we had a much higher sense of Justice. Once. Even in remotes villages of Nigeria. And we lost it.
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