meegannie
Blue Crack Addict
indra said:
I don't think anyone here is forgiving him. Some are capable of seeing however, that he was human no matter how evil his actions.
Honestly I didn't think this was such a hard concept to grasp, but I guess I was wrong.
I think there's a danger in demonizing a person or group of people and regarding them as something less than human and something "other" than us. That kind of thinking is exactly what we (well, most of us, I'd imagine) condemn, and it's what leads people to feel little or no compunction about the humiliation, torture or even murder of an individual or entire group of people. If we see people like Saddam as some sort of aberrant, larger than life evil, we increase the likelihood of the same sort of atrocities happening again because we run the risk of missing warning signs in others and even ourselves. I don't think we should whitewash his (or anyone else's) life just because he's dead, but I also don't think we should just dismiss his deeds as the actions of an animal or a devil. It's not about sentimentality or approval of his actions; it's about taking the moral high ground, respect for humanity and the belief in basic human rights. I don't see how becoming (to any degree) what we abhor will do anything other than perpetuate a cycle that we're supposedly trying to stop.