TWENTY- FOUR YEARS AGO
About a quarter of a century ago, around 1974 , you were reading news dispatches detailing the execution of the Shah of Persia' ministers for "crimes of state" and "violations of divine in law" in Iran. The new rulers were executing the men who had held their office previously. They thought they were avenging the abuses and mis-uses of power and wanted to get rid of any remembered evils to assure the purity of their own newly acquired powers. And, such a procedure was not evident only in Iran, but in other disturbed nations as well.
We were not, without such feelings ourselves, because it had not been too many years since we executed Nazi criminals after World War II..
Scores of bombings are evident in our time as newcomers seek revenge on the vanquished or on those they, or we, hope to expel. That which we sometime call “murder” is often seen as a practical political tool. But, by ending a life one also puts an end to the search for truth. Justice is abruptly truncated by death, and the framework for suffering by that one so accused is allayed.
As long as individuals and governing bodies tend to think of capital punishment as an acceptable tool of government, they are going to try to find ways in which they can justify its use . Once used, it ceases to be a political tool however. It ceases to be a political matter. The political situation has been truncated. It is not there anymore. It is dead .Gone! But the basic evil on which it lived is still there and very much alive in a new self.
The Iranian political of twenty-some ago, gaining power which enabled him to so, killed the previous office holder, but not the evils of corruption he may have symbolized. He unwittingly took upon himself - directly, or through his appointees - much of the burdensome weight borne by the previous leader, which is not good politics anyway one looks at it.
I find myself wondered about those among us who proclaim loudly that the only way to solve our present situation is to arrange, one way or another - for the prompt death of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Ben Laden as soon as possible by whatever means can be quickly arranged.
Does that really solve the problems? It may be worth some second thoughts if one expect justice to be done.
A.L.M . March 3, 2003 [c419wds]
