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Violence
By Monika Banczerowska
Reading Jonathan Swift „Gulliver’s Travels” I came accross such a stirring statement: I cannot but conclude the bulk of people to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. Strong, polemic but not ungrounded. The history of people seems to be a record of mindless, uncontrollable violence. The images of populations in the throes of war, ruthless terrorists gambling with human lives, dismembered bodies immersed in pools of blood, half-starved children with hungry eyes have all become commonplace. The embarrassing truth is that whichever of these crimes is committed there always is a human being behind it. The twentieth century’s most gruesome evidence of inflicting unbearable pain and suffering on people by people, the rape camps in Bosnia, fierce tribal warfare in Rwanda, the Holocaust, attests to human despicability, to their disregard for human life and to the culture of death they are creating. This hardens the suspicion that the bulk of people is the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that has ever crawled upon the surface of the earth. It appears that people would stop at nothing to achieve their objectives. During the Balkan War in Yugoslavia, Serbs turned to rape as a weapon of war and made it an extension of the battle. The systematic violation and killing of Bosnian women in rape camps scattered all over Bosnia was documented by the UN special reporter, Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Sweeping through the Bosnian territory, the Serbian soldiers employed, among other tactics, the enforced impregnation of Muslim women1 to ethnically cleanse the land of people of Muslim origin. Seemingly, the violation of women was regarded as a legitimate method of undermining Muslim society fabric and morale, demonstrating control and power, and “demasculinizing” the enemies Serbs were conquering by raping their women. Men were tied up and forced to watch their wives and daughters being gang-raped. Once again, people let the cause suppress human emotions such as pity and compassion, shattering human solidarity. They transformed into brutish slaves to their goals and classified rape in the same category as looting and pillaging.
Furthermore, people are savage and indiscriminate in their cruelty. The Rwandan horror bears witness to human brutality and moral stupor. This barbarous orgy of tribal violence cost over a million lives. At first, scores of civilians were butchered in the onslaughts intended to be only a warning, a mere indication of what was going to happen if one of the sides in the conflict did not surrender. The killing of noncombatants became a litmus test for the enemy’s endurance: How many more lives it was necessary to take in order to break the opponent’s spirit? Soon, homes and villages turned into heaps of debris. The odor of death permeated the land. The fear of subsequent bloodbaths seized the nation. Contempt for human life and dignity was triumphant. They were also victorous during World War II when the Nazis exterminated millions of people. First in the line to execution gas chambers were the old, the sick and children - unable to work and, thus, redundant. The rest were spared until they became, through hard work and rough treatment, ill and weak. Mercy was nowhere in sight at that time and, apparently, it is still not here. Moreover, people seemingly take pleasure in violence. Magazines which specialize in crime-reporting enjoy enormous circulations. It is as if death fascination and ravenous appetite for bloody stories drove people in flocks to buy such magazines. The editorial staff of „Detective”, one of the most popular Polish crime magazines, has recently admitted that the bulk of letters they receive are requests for minute and vivid descriptions of crimes, for all the gory details of the most sophisticated torture. Similarly, blood-and-thunder movies have always been riding the waves of popularity among screen-fans. Blood-spattered scenes, stories of grisly murders and omnipresent violence are regarded as one of the most favored and widespread forms of entertainment. The evidence of human atrocity and unfeeling is overwhelming and disturbing. The Bosnian rape camps, the Rwandan duty dance with death, the era of gas chambers and enormous popularity of bloodcurdling crime stories are a powerful statement of omnipresent indiscriminate violence. The facts confirm that whenever people are in a position to shed blood, terrorize and shatter dreams, they hardly ever decline the opportunity. Therefore, people are growing used to human indignity, to disregard for human life, and to the sight of the old, the sick and the helpless being ill-treated. They are plunging deeper and deeper into moral and emotional anaesthesia from which there is no going back unless people decide, in their hearts, that things must change and resume the burden of being human. |
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Well, raping and pillaging are nothing new. The reason you have quite a few blond and blue-eyed Arabs is because of all the raping and pillaging they did in Europe over the centuries. What's really surprising is that people are naive enough to think that something as primeval and visceral as war can happen WITHOUT raping and pillaging. It's probably a primary reason why young men voluntarily enlist in the first place. I don't think any red-blooded male hasn't entertained the fantasy of raping and pillaging without having to suffer the consequences. It's genetic, really. Whether human-on-human violence justifies categorization of humans as odious vermin, however, I am not so sure. They sure are vermin in the way they are overrunning the planet, that I can agree with.
 | | nick May 4, 2009 19:24 | |
What you've written is all true, but there's always another side. During every war or atrocity, there are people who will risk their lives and everything they own to help victims live, escape, or even just to document what's happening. There will always be those who violent and savage and we cannot ignore them, but the news and entertainment industry needs to report on the good as well as the bad. This imbalance of negative reporting is desensitizing people.
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