Fanaticism, forgiveness and "the Banality of Evil"

I was physically sick when I read of the 3 staff members of a bible publishing company in Turkey who were brutally attacked by an Islamic fundamentalist group. Unverified reports claim these animals filmed their heinous deeds on cellular phone as they proceeded to disembowel, dismember and repeatedly stab their helpless victims, before slitting their throats.

I struggle to understand how the human creature can intentionally kill another in cold blood, let alone barbarically torture for no reason other than incompatible religious beliefs. Psychologists would probably opt for the insanity defense, but given some of the perpetrators already owning up to the crime, I strongly suspect that this insult to civilized society was planned, psyched and executed with the full knowledge of what they were doing.

In attempting to understand I refer to philosopher Hannah Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil, where she argues that great evils, such as the holocaust, are not committed by fanatics and sociopaths, but rather by very ordinary people who having embraced certain common premises, participate with the view that their actions are normal and acceptable -- even ordinary.

Is it possible that these young, obviously impressionable and mutually motivated men thought their atrocities were acceptable, even normal? Is it possible that they were given credibility by their mutual disdain of a foreign religion? Are their actions much different from the insanity of the suicide bombers who are daily blowing up hundreds of their fellows in mutual contempt of an invading army?

On one side I see a religion which can so easily be construed to encourage mindless violence in the name of Jihad -- whether for preservation or proselytization. Yet on the other I see the Banality of Evil. It's everywhere. You don't need to look any further than South Africa -- which parades the second highest number of murders per capita in the world. We're only 'one-upped' by a country where kidnapping for ransom while growing some freakish narcotic is the national sport. Of the 150 children being raped per day in SA, 3 out of 5 of the mothers are aware of the abuse. Oh yes, South Africa is by far the world leader in rapes per capita. Without a doubt, there's a little Eichmann inside each of us, waiting to be released.

Amongst all this turmoil, there stands the wife of one those tortured and murdered in Turkey -- publicly forgiving these men, emulating those immortal words, "for they know not what they do".

This is a stark reminder of the choice that each one of us faces -- every moment, of every day.