Plucking mercy from a fruitless justice tree…
View(s):Punctuality is not the politeness of princes. Or so those tardy paupers and the poor-in-spirit legalists say. The only problem with being punctual is that usually there is no one else there in time enough to appreciate it. This does not stop the punctilious, such as your obsessive-compulsive scribe, from trying. It is habit, a stubborn insidious peccadillo, that dies hard.
Imagine my consternation, then, when a truly diluvian downpour conspired to make me run late for an irregular night at the theatre (not much worth giving good money out to take in these days). There were blankets of dry gusty wind and wild wet sheets of rain… what witty forecasters would call ‘bed’ weather (very punny, dears!). Not a sky in the clouds – and with an internal atmosphere to match, this thespian grimly negotiated the unforgiving potholes and sundry paving mantraps with gritted teeth and clenched fists.
Speaking of internal atmosphere… my train of thought made interesting (to me) introspection as I hurried and scurried to be at the play on time. The engine of my perambulation was a desire to arrive early. It was a selfish locomotion that would fuel my self-righteous ability to look down my patrician nose at those plebeian latecomers who would inevitably slink in sorry, late, and wet. But a mental roadblock (rail junction?) had set up a switch and crossing-point on the same track ahead. What if I was unable to get there before the third and final bell rang… and the curtain went up and the lights down, before I made it to the warm safe interior of the welcome, well-lit auditorium?
Well, friends, it’ll be confession time in the college chapel’s cloisters before I admit that being late could derail my sense of justice and send me screaming altar-wards for mercy. When early, one tends to behave in a superior, supercilious manner. When late, we cringe, act nonchalantly, and make a long-train-running’s worth of excuses – anxiously hoping no one notices. When right, we trumpet it from the rooftops; when wrong, silently bury the dead selves of our mistakes. When good, we seek public reward and recognition; when evil, silence and anonymity is all. When other people (hell is other people, after all – at least to the damned) are bad, late, or wrong, we desire our pound of flesh. I mean theirs. We are ready at hand to weigh, size, cut; everything helpful, really, in this crisis of outraged conscience.
I guess what I am trying to say in my own convoluted way is that humankind cannot bear too much honesty, humility, etc. We demand justice for others. We insist on mercy for ourselves.
History is replete with such hypocrisy. The Greeks loved philosophy, but politely invited Socrates to drain his hemlock down to the dregs when he thought too much for – and possibly of – himself. The Romans were high on law and order; which is probably not why in Palestine of yore, a far-flung part of their Pax Romana-trumpeting empire, they wrongfully crucified an entirely innocent Man. The Inquisition burnt witches at the stake, while covens of wizards worshipping simony and concubinage were burnished in their strongholds. The Nazis made Jews their subhuman scapegoats, while the all-too-human Austrian not-so-Aryan dictator survived his own diabolical holocaust. You get the point. Or do you? Not until we drop the story of the coconut crime mentality in your comfy Sunday laps…
Crime pays in a little tropical island republic which shall remain nameless for the nonce. Everyone knows it, the reality being the best kept public secret in coconut tree land. Not a day goes by when taxpayers’ shekels are not raked off somewhere to fill those empty state coffers, or public funds stuff some dubious bureaucrat’s purse. That master criminals get off scot-free while minions are plucked at by petty corruption-busting cops is most citizens’ suspicion. There are drug lords, robber barons, and white-collar-crime bosses coming out of the capital’s ears. These denizens of our republic have nothing but the approbation of their peers, the kind indulgence of the establishment, the grateful thanks of their peers, and a permanent place in the country’s corporate halls of fame. In this ghoulish milieu, a girlish mistake of misappropriating a few miserly coconuts to meet her poverty-oppressed pressing need warrants arrest and bail of half a lakh… alas, alack!
What’s that, dears? They’ve dropped the case? After the grossly outraged public’s great outcry? So you want me to drop it, too? Very well, then, noblesse oblige (although, let me point out that a big part of the problem in these parts is that the noblesse does not oblige les misérables often enough!). Methinks we need a new take on GDP: Grace, Decency, and a sense of Proportion… myself included!!
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