The Banality of Evil

By edentu OROSO

Nigerian Soldiers finetuning Strategies against Terrorists (Photo Credit: thestrategybridge.org)

Evil lurks everywhere. It rears its head in the dark. Even in the light, it bounces with vigour. Evil comes garbed in too many harried colours. Its victims are spread across the swathe of the earth. Never a day passes without a form of evil unleashed.

You hear the cries of anguish and despair here, and the splash of crimson blood over there. Wars take centre stage. The gory aftermath is human destruction. The yarns of war are weaved in religious intolerance. Political considerations breed wanton killings of innocent people, all in the bid to maintain the status quo.

Flights of inordinate ambitions are some of the priced kilns forging human destruction. Eyes see the machinations of evil etched everywhere. Ears hear of the drone of strumming drums from evil’s gnarled hands. Voices are silenced by the refusal of hearts to heed the pitched cries of anguish. So we twirl daily in the chasm of evil – always lurching towards the zone of escape but caught instead in its ever widening warp.

It becomes a dreary sentence to walk the length of life’s leash, not knowing what lurks ahead. The gnawing feeling of daily plodding in a whirlpool where evil holds sway, takes the thrill out of the walk. Since nature abhors a vacuum, we must continue with the walk even if it’s haunted, and find a way out of the morass humanity finds herself in. But how?

How did we get to this point where dirges are the only rhythms in the sky, and bloodbaths in the theatres of war are the only images glimpsed? How did we lose touch with our humanity? As Bob Marley once crooned, “Where did it all begin and where will it end? Well, it seems like total destruction is the only solution.”

The religious bigot who takes pride in snuffing out lives believing in his ascent to a sphere of influence (heaven or whatever you call it), may draw momentary strengthen from his delusions of grandeur, but he’s by far inferior in spirit and deeds to the one whose life he terminated abruptly, because in the divine scheme of things, no religion exists, and God places no premium on any soul above the other. They are all created out of His mercy and grace for His edification.

The politician who in moments of heady zeal aims his darts at the hearts of those he vowed to serve via draconian policies, or resorts to divisive tendencies, or deliberate mischief to acquire power and influence, or willingly accepts to be a tool of social in-cohesion in the hands of puppeteers, does so with the conviction that the end and not the means matter in the walk towards greatness. Such a man or woman reinforces the
misnomer, the banality of evil.

World leaders championing manipulative intelligence as a means for global dominance in a largely materialistic space, continue to contrive their ploys with the belief that it is their right to usurp the wealth of nations. The business man or woman who in the face of cutthroat competition indulges in voodoo to outsell the other. The sportsman who thinks his only chances at excelling and carting home laurels is by undoing his competitors through diabolical means other than talent.

The civil servant who relishes in using others to climb because he or she lacks talent or the skills set to shine. The bosses who harass their subordinates because they want to have access to their pants. Those who whip subordinates to submission through unwholesome tirades. A child rebelling against his or her parents. A parent testing the forbidden fruit of his or her own child. Jealous colleagues in the work environment.

Squabbles in polygamous settings. Siblings rivalries. Nations rising against nations in the spirit of dominance. Ritualists seeking souls to sacrifice to sate their quest for wealth and fame. Witchcraft jinxes. Cultism and the attendant mayhem. Pastors fleecing their flock dry in the name of God. All these and more, are the colours of evil.
Evil thrives because we almost always clear the fields for its seeds to grow.

Society is pregnant with evil because humans are its nurturing beds. In human hearts are evil’s gateways. The doors to the dark abyss are forever ajar in them. Greed, malice, unforgiveness, lust, hatred, inordinate pursuit of riches, power, influence, the good life, etc, are the pivots on which the world of evil revolves.

Evil breeds evil. Good thoughts inspire good deeds. Societies are built through positive action while the destruction of the same societies are a culmination of negative energies. Though the negative volition has always been expressed since the days of yore, the polarisation of human choices often brings it to the forefront of human actions. To incline towards the positive side of things is to be truly alive to our responsibilities as
rational beings, whereas a firmer hold onto the negative pole makes us all monsters in paradise.

The monster in us is given free rein in our thoughts and actions because of our debased value systems. As individuals, we seem no longer in tune with the values that we hitherto held sacred. As a society, we’ve made a precipitous descent into the mire of materialism, to the extent, our spiritual wellspring suffers. Societies are not sustained mainly on material dialectics but also on the fulcrum of robust spirituality, which is the
basis of progressive actions.

The greatest challenge humanity grapples with today and years to come is the banality of evil. While a world without evil is practically impossible to envision because of the diversity of human thoughts and emotions, its elimination to the barest minimum is feasible if we make the conscious effort to check how much space we are willing to give to the mind's leash towards the negative. Therein lies our power to choose the victory of good over evil. For the victory of the bad over the good is temporal, but that of the good over the bad is eternal.

By this clarion call, all religious leaders, the political class, leaders of thought, the business elite, and the entire citizenry of this country and the whole world at large, should eschew bitterness towards one another in their dealings, to live by the tenets of their faith which upholds love above every other thing, to be their brothers and sisters’ keepers, to uphold the sanctity of human life uppermost in their hearts, to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs and prejudices, and to cherish our common humanity.

Enough of the communion from the chalice of evil to which we’ve drunk to the fill. Enough of the shedding of blood in the name of God who daily frowns at our excesses. Enough of the entire gamut of madness in our grope through earth terrains. The time to say no to the banality of evil is now!