The Acceptable Face of Evil.

As a father and granda, I watched and listened with some unease and disbelief at the reports on the 10 and 11 year old boys who unleashed a vile and vicious 90 minute attack on two similarly aged boys! The actions of these young offenders beggars belief as it contains violence on a major scale, sustained for a long hour and a half on two unsuspecting victims who were lured to their place of intended execution on the pretext of being shown a dead fox. The young boys were very fortunate to escape with their lives. When asked why they did this, the attackers said, they were bored! When they were asked why they stopped after 90 minutes, they said, because their arms ached. It is significant that they didn't say they felt sorry for their actions, and regretted it. What would have been the outcome if their arms hadn't been sore? This is hard to take in, considering the young age of the boys involved.


Remember the 'Bulger' case a few years ago? A young boy died in circumstances not unlike this one. There are common threads, like, a very broken home where parents constantly fought and argued, and violence was normal between the adults, and to the children. Violent 18 rated horror videos were watched by parents and children alike. The neighbourhood was well aware of the family, and their anti social behaviour. (The parents in this case put a sign on their gate which read, 'beware of the children', and the neighbours lived in a fear of their lives and property). The attacks were premeditated, even at such early ages, and their victims were taken to a secluded spot to be attacked mercilessly and ruthlessly.


Politicians at the time of the Jamie Bulger case, made all sorts of statements and promises, and said things like, 'we have to ensure this kind of thing doesn't happen again'. Well it has. In this case, I sympathise with any person or agency who has to deal with anyone who has this kind of unacceptable behaviour, and I think we would do well to remember that there is something else we should take note of, which in our advanced and progressive society, we tend to ignore. Evil! We shy away from it because we think we are above that, and anyway how can we label two young mistreated children as evil. Why are we afraid to recognise this word anymore? It goes straight to the heart, yes the heart, of the problem. 


These children were never shown, or taught, right from wrong. We are sometimes frowned on for speaking about morality, but it does play a part in our everyday lives. I am reminded of my own obligations to my family to show a good life, lived with high morals, and maybe help to instill such a sense of good, that they will know what evil is, and how to avoid it. I don't think it is a difficult thing to do, and after all its what most of us want for our children, but as demonstrated in this case, most is not good enough! It didn't help our two young victims. 


We have wrongly labelled our social services as 'do gooders'. They are more like 'allow harmers' and then we might step in. After all, these bad people have rights too! I link this story in my mind to another smaller story today, where the Glasgow Education department (who probably sit very close to the Social Work Department) will issue a letter to all teachers with instructions NOT to step in and stop a playground fight, or argument. Presumably, the teachers will then go in when and if there is a casualty, but NOT to prevent it. The link? We are afraid of stepping on too many toes by encroaching into other people's lives. After all aren't children just little adults?


There will always be bad behaviour, there will always be evil, and we have to accept that as fact. We try to deal with bad behaviour, but it will only be when we start to deal with the other side of the problem, evil, that we will get somewhere as individuals, and as a society. Are we going to be grown up enough to admit the present 'acceptable face of evil', and try to do something about it at our level?