Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
And the winner is…..
This Business Day cartoon sums up the election rather well. Maybe local government officials and politicians of both the DA and the ANC will now begin to treat people with dignity and respect. Maybe they have learnt from the toilet scandals that one cannot only tell people what they want and what is best for them, but that one must also listen to what they say and take their needs seriously. One lives in hope – despite evidence to the contrary.
