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213 26 Killing an Innocent Person Can Never Be Justified K illing an innocent person is unjustifiable, not only from the point of view of morality but from the point of view of mere rationality. To shed innocent blood is both morally reprehensible and irrational. It is even doubtful whether it is morally right and rational to shed uninnocent blood. In other words, it is doubtful whether it is right or even rational to kill, say, certain criminals. That is why the campaign against capital punishment has gained currency in many parts of the world today. This campaign would have been completely victorious were it not that it is very hard to defend the right to life of certain criminals such as those, precisely, who shed innocent blood with levity. It is also morally reprehensible and irrational to inflict unnecessary pain on any sentient creature. Only pure sadism can be responsible for the infliction of such needless pain on any creature with the capacity to suffer, complimented by the capacity to experience pleasure and joy. That is why torture is morally wrong and irrational and the United Nations and Human Rights Organisations the world over have tried to abolish it all over the world. I don’t want to start re-reading for you the final chapters of The Past Tense of Shit (Book One) nor do I want to believe that we are about to start re-living the year 1992 which I believed and still hope is already firmly buried in our shitty past. But the recent acts of terrorism in the North West Province should give all of us cause for grave concern. Violence can never solve any human problems; it creates and complicates them. If violence could solve human problems, it would long have solved the problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Middle East. But there is no doubt that after all the violence and innocent killings, after all the waste, the problems of the Middle East, the problems of “God’s own chosen people’’ would be solved, if at all, by simple reconciliatory dialogue, by a simple return to rationality. If violence 214 Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy could solve any human problems, it would surely have solved the problems of Algeria which, since the 1950’s, has claimed thousands of innocent lives. But, as I am writing this, there is news about the brutal massacre again of over 80 people, mostly women and children, in Algeria. What problem can be solved by beheading an innocent child with a chain saw? If violence could solve any problems, Nelson Mandela and P. W. de Klerk would not have needed reconciliatory dialogue to achieve what they have achieved for South Africa. The causes of irrational immorality which manifests itself through violence, the shedding of innocent blood and the infliction of needless pain are not far to seek. They are, variously, blatant injustice, arrogant oppression and suppression, the will to power and domination. The will to power and domination of Adolf Hitler and the small circle of his German supporters led directly to the Second World War whose effects have made the modern world what it is. Some of such effects are the “might is right” syndrome and the consequent emphasis on production and proliferation of deadly weapons. Blatant injustice and arrogant oppression and suppression always elicit violence, even self-destructive violence, as the only possible response. Any situation that can push anybody into a suicidal response as the only way of making a point should make us all to stop and think again. A public and speedy unmasking of the terrorists who operated in the North West Province recently is really desirable. It is equally desirable that the incidents should not be used as an excuse to traumatise ordinary and evidently innocent citizens. A man comes out of his house to urinate in his cassava farm and is arrested and taken into detention. Someone going from one village to sell cocoyams in another is arrested and taken into detention as a suspect because s/he does not have his/her identity card or has only an expired one. A market crowd is herded like cattle and left standing like corn in the rain for hours for a crime they have not even heard about. These things traumatise a community. Only two official allegations have been adduced, so far, to explain the recent terrorism in the North West Province. The first was that it...

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