The face of evil

By Kodwo BRUMPON

“If evil lasts for a long time it will become a tradition.” – Igbo Proverb

As a child, one of the baffling puzzles that haunted me was how our forefathers watched on for the Slave Trade to thrive. Why were they silent? Why did they not fight back? Could they not have mounted sabotages along the slave routes? The more I asked ‘why,’ the more the nightmares haunted me.

It took many years of seeking answers to agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian that “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” The Slave Trade thrived because our forefathers lost their sense of evil or deadened their conscience.

Fast forward to our age, and the attitude of our forefathers has re-surfaced. There is so much evil around us, and beyond our lamentation on social media platforms, we stop short of doing anything about it.

The worst culprits being the educated elite. We sit, drink and dine with the perpetrators of evil and we cannot even prick their conscience. We are so preoccupied with ourselves and what we can get out of the situation, we do not realise we have become lovers of evil. If you continue to enjoy the company of those perpetrating evil against society, then your sense of wrong is no longer acute and you simply do not think that there is any good out there worth standing up for.

What is the value of our education, or of our social status if we maintain silence in the face of evil men or women? Evil is flourishing in our society, and it is not the exorcism type of evil. It is the evil of our hearts being far from the lips. We talk the need for justice, yet our actions are full of bias, inequalities and unreasonableness.

We talk about dignifying the poor and yet we engage in unethical activities by telling ourselves everyone is doing it or why bother since nobody seems to be able to change the status quo. We talk about building a future, and yet when we are warned that the galamsey menace is destroying that future, we shrug our shoulders and murmur that the ‘kingpins’ involved are being supported by our ‘leaders’ and so why bother?

Such is the evil proliferating in our society.  It is about individuals who for reasons unknown esteem themselves so poorly, they have come to believe that they are small and insignificant. It is about the greater numbers living with the primary assumption that, nothing will change.

How we sunk this low is a discussion for another time. Today, we need to understand that “the face of evil is always the face of total need.” We are living in challenging times, and we need good persons. A refusal to be counted can only be a testament of your inclination.

Yes, it is understandable that many of us have taken a respectful distance so that we do not come across as judgmental. But is the reality not because you do not walk your talk and thus your refusal to pontificate? The “who am I to judge” stance is only an excuse. The reality is that you have a credibility deficit, which is proof of your hypocrisy, if evilness is a strong term.

Let us understand that if our fear of being labelled “hypocrites” is why we are being silent about evil, then in effect, we have really become the hypocrites we fear to be. We should not let our individual and collective failures stop us from rising from the ashes.

Whatever mistakes we made should not define how we stand against evil today. We have been silent for a few decades, but if we begin today, standing up against evil, we can be assured that our society will grow and flourish within a decade.

A little light breaks the darkness. That is all that is being asked of you. Let the light in you, shine. Bring the good inside of you to the table and evil will be defeated instantly.

 

While it is true that evil individuals do not care who they hurt and they are willing to do anything to profit for themselves, one thing they crave for is attention. They are obsessed by how powerful they look to others.

This yearning is also their bigger weakness. Thus, if we can cut off that which feeds their egos, we will start winning the battle for good. Our power lies in not giving them that attention they seek. We ought to live in such a way that good is not an empty cause, but instead a life-giving force. And we do not need to be perfect individuals to do that.

All it takes is for us to start mininising the evil in us, by avoiding the company of every people and talking often about goodness and its themes.

It is what we are missing in our society, and that is what would be needed in the future if we are to survive. Let us be quick to highlight the good that people do. And let us start pushing ‘good’ people to the front for them to propagate the good in them. Let us do that knowing that our descendants and the generations after us will judge us, just as we judged our fathers and mothers who lived in the time of the Slave Trade…

Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.

Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at [email protected]

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