harm’s way

As Kevin and I were walking down Wicklow Street tonight, I saw a young man crouched in a doorway, holding a big handkerchief up to his eyebrow. We walked on past, but something seemed really wrong to me, and I expressed this to Kevin. We decided to go back to him. When we returned, he was in the same position, and up close, I saw that his twenty-odd year old face had a lot of blood on it – the source being a large wound in his left eyebrow. His left eyebrow and lid had swollen so that his eye had involuntarily shut. He had bruises on his face and, judging by his body language, under his clothes. Kevin asked him if he needed help, and at first he insisted profusely that he was fine. We asked if we could take him to a hospital, or to the gardaí, and he eventually, with tears pouring down his face, admitted that five men had attacked him without provocation while he was sitting in a doorway. His name was Aaron. He wasn’t drunk, or high, or aggressive (not that these attributes would provide an excuse for assault); in fact he was an obviously vulnerable character.

The men had approached him looking for a cigarette, and as he had a packet of tobacco for roll-ups and a bit of sense, he just handed them over. The natural result of this was for the group to begin kicking and punching him en masse. He managed to hang onto his bag which is just as well – it contains everything he owns.

There’s a lot more to this man, as we found out over the only thing he did ask for – some company. There are days like today when I can hardly breathe for my rage at the casual depravity with which we live. Sure, we can denounce the thugs who beat him up for fun as scum, but what about each and every person who walked past as they did it? It was around 8pm, on a very busy thoroughfare – early enough for everyone to be sober and late enough that nobody was rushing home from work. As we talked to him, people slowed down to see what was happening, and some of them even laughed. Laughed? What the fuck are you laughing at?

When you’re a Christian, scripture encourages you to pray for your enemies. I talked to Kevin about this on the way home. Everything in me screams in protest at the thought of praying for the five men who attacked Aaron. “Fuck them; they can burn in hell,” -  that about sums up my position. But this position of mine only serves to continue the spiral of hatred further and exposes my own depravity and desire, not for justice, but for revenge. The reality is that if you assault for recreation you are deeply, deeply damaged. I’m not going to pretend I have sympathy for these people; I’m not some kind of pinko-liberal. But if I am going to acknowledge the humanity of Aaron, and my humanity, I’ve also got to acknowledge the humanity of the men who did this. If they were not human beings but, say, dogs, there would be nothing to be angry about. How can they learn to behave as men ought if we view them only as the animals like which they behave?

Something is very, very wrong with the world. And it isn’t about education: we are as savage now as we ever were. I recall a night this summer having coffee with Lydia, at Kaffe Moka (now gone, LAMENT), across from the nightclub, Break For The Border. We saw a group of businessmen in suits blunder drunkenly up towards the club. Outside, there’s a small concrete bench with flowerbeds behind it, and a homeless man, obviously a heroin-addict, was sitting slumped there. A large man from the group of businessmen ran up to the homeless man and punched him squarely in the face, and his friends cheered, before heading into the nightclub to continue their good times. Lydia and I spent the rest of the evening talking to gardaí who could do nothing, because the heroin addict had left, for fear of being taken in by the police for possession.

Why am I angry about this stuff, particularly if, at base, I am no better than these bullies? It’s not because my parents denounced violence as I grew up: they didn’t. The motto in our house was “Look out for number one”. I was advised, when punched, to punch back twice as hard. I did, and nobody ever picked on me again, so I have a certain sympathy towards this position. And all that school taught me was how to coast and do as little as possible to gain maximum benefit.

So, again, why so angry? I think it’s because we’ve got a natural compass inside us that, while not fine-tuned, works so as it can point, clumsily at least, to gross injustices. And while differing societies hold differing moral practices, they rarely hold differing moral values. Also, what is it that makes us lament as kids, “It’s not fair!” when our brother snatches the ball away from us?

I think it because there is something deep inside of us that wants things to be better and righter and fairer than they are, and we did not place that desire there through education or upbringing or whatever other nonsense one can imagine. Many of us lament homelessness, hunger etc. when we are children, and faced with a sense of helplessness, give up on the issue. Forget about it, what can I do? It reminds me of the Simpsons scene where Ned Flanders’ parents are visitng with a psychiatrist for his advice on young Ned’s out-of-control behaviour: “We’ve tried nothing, Doc, and we’re all out of ideas.” What I’m trying to say is, perhaps our moral compass gets rustier and rustier the more we ignore it.

Yes, the world has a problem. The problem is sin. And believe me, no amount of education, good breeding, civilized living or fun, happiness or pleasure can remove this stain from a person: I’m speaking from experience here. What is the solution? Repentance. But I guess you’ve got to have some evidence that there is a One to repent to – better yet, a loving one, with a sense of justice.

Perhaps some evidence to consider for this One might be in fact that rusty compass inside each of us?