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Oct 08, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
It was the great German philosopher (who was a student of the profound 20th century philosopher, Martin Heidegger, author of one of the most brilliant philosophy texts, “Being and Time”) Hannah Arendt, who adumbrated a powerful explanation of what evil means.
After witnessing the trial in Israel in 1961, of Adolf Eichmann, one of the most brutal killers of the Nazi regime, Arendt invented the concept of “the banality of evil.” The theory sparked a raging controversy that even to this day arouses strong disagreements among academics.
For me, I accept her multi-dimensional meaning of evil. Arendt broke with the existing tradition of the definition of evil by arguing that evil acts are not confined to violent people, psychopaths, sadists, cunning, aggressive leaders. Arendt contended that the most innocuous, self-effacing, quiet, normal person can commit unspeakable evil. She cited Eichmann as a poignant example.
At the time many Jews were mad with her, and scholars were annoyed, because they felt that what she did could engender understanding for the action of Eichmann. But Arendt was a trained philosopher whose purpose was to research the nature and meaning of knowledge, of life and of people. She stuck to her concept of the banality of evil.
Despite the rage it gave rise to, the banality of evil has taken its rightful place in the lexicon of philosophy. I could say without even a thread of doubt, I have seen the banality of evil in people that you would not think for moment can do what they did. If any reader out there knows my daughter, they can ask her whether I have drilled into her head the awareness that she must not draw a philosophical line between a quiet, unassuming person and the loud talking, gesticulating human. The loud person can be full of principles and warmth while the quiet person can be a devil.
Arendt said that once we are driven to accept tasks and we become slaves to orders and edict, evil lurks, because we are devoid of thought and when thought goes, replaced by routine, then, a regimented person can be forced to commit unspeakable evil and would honestly believe he/she is simply doing what they are told. In other words, evil becomes banal.
Here is a pointed example of how evil can come about. There is a cashier at the moment at Survival Supermarket on Sheriff Street. My bill came up to $1196. My change was four dollars. She said she didn’t have four single dollar coins. I then told her to give me a five-dollar coin. She explained that her instruction is to give customers their exact change. She was serious. There was no way she could be moved.
Croal Street could be under a million feet of water; the guard at the Charlotte Street entrance would not let you in to the High Court compound. They tell you that their instruction is that members of the public cannot access that entrance. Both the cashier and the guard have the potential to commit evil if instructed. This is what Arendt meant by the banality of evil. To let citizens swim in dirty water to enter the High Court and to refuse to give a dollar coin as an extra to a customer can be classified as potential for doing evil.
This is what Cheddi Jagan did to the PPP. He indoctrinated every single PPP first-level and second-level cadre with the belief that he, his wife and the PPP were destined to rule Guyana. He indoctrinated all of them with the belief that the PPP’s greatness will never be accepted by the Guyanese nation, and armed with that knowledge they must resist any and all attempts to stop the PPP from ruling.
This kind of indoctrination is what made ordinary people like Eichmann commit unimaginable crimes. A comparison with PNC big wigs from 1968 to 1985 when Burnham died, and PPP big wigs for the same period when the PPP was in opposition, will show that the PPP leaders came across as more quiet-spoken, withdrawn, simple people. In a comparison of PNC leaders from 1968 to 1985 with PPP leaders from 1993 to 2014, the banality of evil is far more applicable to the PPP pyramid.
In applying the banality of evil to the PPP regime and the Burnham Government, I say without fear of contradiction, the PNC had no one in its leadership whose flawed political architecture matches the description of Bharrat Jagdeo, Roger Luncheon and Gail Teixeira. The PNC never produced a character like Reepu Daman Persaud. Cheddi Jagan’s creations certainly embodied the banality of evil.
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