NOT IN MY NAME!

The previous post (here) touched upon one’s duties, responsibilities and moral accountability. Can the burden of Karma – of accountability for one’s actions – be transferred to another by the ties of marriage, family, clan, friendship, business, money, politics … or whatever else?

The answer is, ‘NO. Karma is strictly an individual matter’. But, as we know, a desperate person will try anything to avoid the inevitable payback for his wrong actions, including attempts to deflect the payback to others.

This post is about persons who try to cheat on the inexorable payback of Karma. The behaviour of a free garden rat is different from that of a caged rat, and a similar difference exists between a person with a clear conscience and a person who has much to hide. This post aims to throw some light on behaviour of the latter kind – the contortions produced in attempts to hide the truth.

When we see a show of bluff, bluster and bravado, we must wonder: Why? What is sought to be hidden behind all that loud verbiage?

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Let us start with a simple example.

A novice gang member commits a crime to impress the gang leader and improve his standing within the gang. The cunning gang leader understands the novice’s weakness well, and exploits it cynically towards his own benefit. The gang leader is unconcerned with what happens to the novice, as long as his – the gang leader’s – goal is achieved; the novice is an expendable tool.

If the novice comes from a rich family, the gang leader knows how to wrangle extra benefits from the youngster or from his family. Of course, these antics will not turn out well for either of them. When each one’s time comes, the novice and the gang leader will face their Karma individually.

Let us now move up the scale of criminal activity, from high school to the true master’s level – the level of a seasoned and hardened criminal. Such a criminal develops to a fine art the tricks of his trade to avoid or deflect the payback for his dark deeds. A few examples:

• Engage lackeys for all dark deeds, keeping his own hands clean;
• Build social cover as a ‘philanthropist’;
• Hire a PR/media agency and the best lawyers;
• Threaten and/or suborn victims and witnesses;
• Be seen with celebrities, businessmen and politicians.

These are cunning but common strategies, with which we are familiar.

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But there is one other strategy which beats all of these in cunning and shamelessness – namely, dragging others into the picture to obfuscate the crime and politicize the issue. The trick is to make cynical and shameless protestations that those holding the criminal accountable are prejudiced against the criminal’s entire race.

That amounts to saying, in effect: ‘I am innocent, but these lying accusers who are prejudiced against my whole race are creating all these phoney problems’. The blame is thus sought to be shifted from the criminal to his accusers.

Every race – or community – in the world has ‘good apples’, ‘bad apples’, and many others in-between. The majority of people of any race in the world are distinguished neither by their goodness nor by their meanness. An objective look at any race yields such an overall view. Therefore any allegation by a criminal of wholesale racial prejudice must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Examples of such behaviour are not at all uncommon in India.

A prominent criminal is charged and arrested. Promptly, he arranges for many people of his community to protest in the streets, with sympathetic interviews in the media pointing out how he has been a great benefactor to the needy. People may not understand that the criminal had helped the needy with the precise aim of having a ‘human shield’ around if he is caught.

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Such examples are not limited to India. They are also seen – albeit in somewhat more ‘refined’ form – in so-called ‘advanced’ societies.

Jewish people are known around the world for their intelligence, ambition, the spirit of enterprise and old traditions. The Jewish diaspora has spread in almost all the countries of the world, where they have proved their talent. Spinoza, Einstein, Schrodinger, Simone Weil – these are the names of just a few renowned Jewish persons from the recent past. Indeed, this remarkable community has a long record of remarkable achievements.

Zionism, on the other hand, is a hard-line political movement with a goal to establish a permanent homeland in Palestine for Jews from around the world. It is not correct to identify Zionism with Judaism, or with Jewish life and culture. It is not self-evident that a Jewish family happily settled somewhere else in the world would want to shift wholesale to Israel. Many US and Russian immigrants in Israel have dual-passports, indicating that the spirit of Zionism does not uproot a person from his deep roots elsewhere.

In the attempt to achieve their proclaimed goal of an exclusive Jewish homeland in Palestine, Zionists choose to adopt extremist methods. But clear-thinking Jews elsewhere in the world may not wish to associate with Zionist methods they see as being unwise, cruel – or perhaps even self-defeating.

As a cynical, political ploy, the Zionists’ conflate any criticism of their extreme methods with criticism of all Jews. But most Jews in the world have in fact been living for generations in multiracial societies. Jews in the US protest ‘NOT IN MY NAME!’ when Zionists in Israel adopt inhuman practices against Palestinians, because their values are totally at odds with those of the extreme Zionists. The common factor of Judaism is being used by Zionists to create a false halo of solidarity and shared fate where in fact no such thing exists.

Did Cain not kill Abel even though they worshipped the same God? Clearly, there are fairly narrow limits to which protestations of religious ties will either deter – or protect – a hardened criminal.

Things can get much worse. A scoundrel politician tries to drag the whole country into his dirty enterprise by shouting from rooftops about the ‘the enemy’. In 1775, the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels’. Fortunately, there are far more patriots than scoundrels in the world. Nonetheless, what Johnson said is true. It is not difficult for a scoundrel to find in faked patriotism a cover for his deeds.

Current example: Many politicians in the US shouting: ‘Russia! Russia!’

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Now imagine a true Robin Hood type person, a folk hero, anywhere in the world. He has for long helped a huge number of simple, poor people, but is caught one day by so-called ‘officers of the law’. Will this heroic person deflect blame on to the people he has helped? NO! He will he say: ‘Officer, take me to jail. But leave these simple people alone. They have done no wrong.’

Will a cad or a scoundrel ever behave like that?

It helps to understand how cads and scoundrels take advantage of decent, well-meaning people, and to recognize the relevant traits. Non-stop protestations and self-justifications of such people are aimed to trap gullible people.

One must think: Why does so-and-so make such loud protestations? How badly must his inner self be compromised? What is he trying to hide?

Recall Shakespeare’s famous line: ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’. Or remember this simple advice: In a marketplace, the person shouting the loudest about being honest is in fact exactly the opposite.

[To be continued …]