Evil is something that is extremely harmful or immoral. Examples of evils are genocide which is the mass killing of a group of people such as minority race or religion in order to arbitrate it. This is usually done by a group of people belonging to the majority. There may be serial killings done by one or two persons for no apparent justification.
In religion, evil is linked with a supernatural creation called Satan. The Bible says evil started in the Garden of Eden where Adam and his wife ate the forbidden fruit and that, thereafter, human beings were born sinners albeit the blood of Jesus upon the Cross redeemed them. Later on, the Bible stated a new source of evil when St. Paul said the love of money is the root of evil.
Possibly lust for money would be a better translation. Lust suggests you want something to an unreasonable extent, and you go about causing injury to other people. The obvious example at the moment is the killing of people with albinism by people who want to have wealth the easy way. Even people who engaged in the Cashgate can be classified as both criminals and evil-doers.
Psychologist Ervin Staub, an American Jew who escaped the Holocaust in Hungary, states: “Although the starting point for evil is usually the frustration of human basic needs, evil actions are made possible by some or all of the following lacks or loss of concern with the welfare of other people, a lack of empathy with people – both lack of empathy feeling and lack of understanding how others feel , lack of self-awareness, the ability to understand one’s own motives , having a negative view of others, a sense of entitlement, a focus on one’s own rights and devaluation fear of and hostility towards some or all human beings.”
It is a long list. Each evil done has to be understood in the context of a certain environment and the historic background of the miscreant or group of haters.
Frustration during childhood has been identified as the cause of evil people such as those who engage in mass killing of innocent people. A child who is treated harshly is likely to grow up with anti-social feelings.
Shaka the Zulu King was ill-treated together with his mother during childhood. Later as king, he ordered the killing of foes and friends alike. But as it is written that lives by the spear die by the spear, Shaka was killed by his half-brother Dinani.
People who kill persons with albinism are psychologically queer. They hardly appreciate the feeling of their victims. All they care about are their own interests. They are said to be anti-social.
Mass wickedness or evil in recent was the genocide in Rwanda whose government was dominated by the Hutu tribe. The government ordered Hutus to eliminate Tutsis and their Hutu friends.
Worldwide the best known genocide is the murdering of six million Jews during World War II. Those who commit genocide or mass killings always blame their victims. Jews were very successful businesspeople. The Nazi believed that they were using their wealth to frustrate German war efforts and that German defeat in World War I had been orchestrated by Jews.
In Rwanda, the Tutsi are more successful economically than Hutus. The Hutu attributed their failures and difficulties to the alleged wickedness of the Tutsi and that they had been responsible for shooting down the aeroplane which killed their president.
Where genocide takes place, hatred has been simmering over a long period. It is usually men and women of the middle class who incite hatred and violence. Those who fail in business say that the wealthy minority race is using unfair trading practices and the members of the majority race will never achieve their potential unless the wicked minority is eliminated. The persecuted hardly take into account the feelings of the minority.
Hitler said if a cat eats a rat, it is the cat’s fault, nature has decreed that the strong should prey on the weak. Anne Frank in her diary noted that when a Christian committed a crime, they alone were condemned. It is this injustice that later morphed into a holocaust.
Not all evils are violent. Sexual relationship between father and daughter or brother and sister is known as incest, and is deemed evil. Some wealthy people overseas have hired people here in Malawi and elsewhere to convert Africans to the view that homosexual is not evil. If incest and homosexuality are not immoral and evil, the word ‘immoral’ will have to be expunged from the English dictionary.
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