The painting, Hope, by George Frederic Watts is a representation of the Greek mythological entity of Hope. Legend has it that Prometheus sealed Hope inside Pandora's box. When the evils were released from the box, Hope stayed. Although Hope is more of an idea than an actual figure it is sometimes personified as in Watts's Hope.
During the post election violence that gripped the country after the results of the 2007 presidential elections were announced, a question gripped me. It hasn’t let go ever since. Is evil something in us? Is it something we’re born with…something we have to conquer to gain redemption? Like killing off a piece of ourselves. Or is it something foreign? Something we have to acquire a taste for?
I was in bed that night and outside I could hear the heavy sound of footfall; marching around the estate. (I came from one of those areas where ‘sporadic unrest’ occurred.) I wasn’t afraid then because I’d spent the past few week s in a state of permanent terror. Fear had become a religion…and we sacrificed to it pieces of ourselves everyday. I was angry. Angry that these hoodlums without a cause could make me feel unsafe in my own home. Still, out of respect for self-preservation, I maintained a sound fear for my life.
So I lay in bed and through the deliberate footfalls, I could remember in abstraction, hazily, a discussion on the sources of evil in society from a previous C.R.E lesson in high school. (It’s surprising what can come to you when death is mark timing in shorts outside your door. Ps- see Mrs. Mureithi, I was actually paying attention!) Anyway, African tradition attributed evil to the external, to those things beyond our control; Christianity to man’s nature that is highly susceptible to evil. I much favoured the African approach because I do believe in our humanity. Shaky and sickly at times but it is there. My mother has tried to kill this ‘Ann Frank’ optimism but it’s an obdurate streak in me. It refuses to die. She thinks it criminal for someone my age to harbor this brand of naiveté.
But it was the night after Kiambaa, and my views on world goodness had changed considerably.
‘He who cannot live in society is either a god or a beast’: Aristotle.
Are we beasts? It scares me this line of thinking because I mirror myself in others. I look for myself, for my humanity in them. I look for in people the same thing I look for in food. I’m not a picky eater. Yes, yes. Sue me. I subscribe to these Hippie philosophies of humanity being a web. Step on a butterfly here; cause a tornado in China and all that. Chaos theory and then some… Like every other walking cliché, I’m secretly an optimist masquerading as a cynic. I also moonlight as a romantic…
But Kiambaa killed something in me, in all of us I guess. For me it was the right to believe in the inherent goodness of others. It was blind faith that didn’t need anything to anchor on, I’ve lost the right to practice that futile religion of hope, which much like my Christianity, I do not understand but practice anyway. The world isn’t black and white anymore. I see the shades of gray. Because people have such an amazing capacity to love, we must also appreciate that they can feel unadulterated hate. Because they can build, they can destroy.
In the wake of the discharge of the suspects of the Kiambaa killings due to insufficient evidence, I want to launch into some Dickensian rant about better hanging an innocent man than no man at all. But I resist the urge because I see how easy it is for one to paralyze one’s soul with hatred…and evil. I resist because evil, like apathy, is something we must resist. So let’s console ourselves with pointless truths that those who died were too good for the world and be awakened to the knowledge that evil is both around and in us. But these days I doubt that there’s much goodness left. Is there?
May 28, 2009 at 3:18 pm
me thinks you have outdone yourself….keep writing