(The Nationalist, 4 April 2003)
The week before I left Zambia in 1997, I was staying at a mission in Sioma, a beautiful place by the banks of the Zambezi River. I heard a commotion outside and asked what it was about. I was told that two children were being brought to the mission health centre, a small clinic staffed by nurses. It turned out that they had been playing near their village a little distance away. One of them, a boy of about five, was surprised and delighted to find what he took to be a toy lying on the ground. He picked it up and began to play with it. His sister, a year older, came over to look. The “toy” blew up, killing the boy and splitting his sister’s stomach open; she died two days later.
The face of evil is often a face of routine. Evil doesn’t parade around in cloven hooves, with a spiky tail, pointed ears and bloodshot eyes. Mostly, it is ordinary and everyday. Consider, for example:
- The mechanical engineer who designed the landmine that killed those children, deliberately making it look like a toy, so that it would blast children to bloody mush. At the end of the day, he then goes home to a three-bedroomed semi-detached house in the suburbs, chats with his wife and children, has supper, watches TV and goes to bed.
- The family member who knows a child is being physically or sexually abused and does nothing about it in order to protect the family’s name.
- The corporate executive who puts such pressure on a supplier to lower his prices, and then delays payment until he receives a solicitor’s letter, that he drives the supplier out of business and perhaps to suicide. He sends a wreath to the funeral.
- The employer who exploits illegal immigrants, threatening to report them to the immigration office unless they accept low wages, and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.
- The person who expresses shock at the social indiscretion of someone who picks their nose in public, belches at a meal, slams a door, or smokes on a bus, while saying nothing to a person who violates the Ten Commandments, evading the challenge by saying it’s that person’s private business.
When we pray, ‘Deliver us from evil’ we’ve got to mean it, and to challenge it.