Love and Hatred

Yesterday, I received a sms which said, "There are men who cannot bear to see the happiness of others". It was in reply to a quote from Mencius, "All men have a mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others".

Coincidentally, when I got the message, I was reading about Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 suicide bomber. The book was "The Cell', by John Miller.

Mohammed Atta was born in a family that was moving upward in the social scale. He was driven towards academic excellence. He was a bright student, but not with much imagination. He trained to be an Architect, but found it difficult to be creative. He grew up relatively secluded, a protective upbringing. His father complained that he was growing up like a girl, and used to exhort, "Toughen up, boy!'. He was sensitive, and empathised with the suffering of others, 

especially that of the poor, in Egypt and in Palestine.

Yet we know what he did. Why was he driven to do what he did?

He hated the Western way of life. He thought Western values had brought injustice and oppression to his homeland, and the western way of life, especially those that involved women, were dangerous, and threatened the world. He hated independent, free women, who smiled at strangers, who dressed skimpily, uncovering their arms, and who did not hesitate to shake hands, touch the men in the shoulders.

So, even in the same heart, there can be compassion and cruelty. We can do without cruelty, but we cannot do without love.

People who embrace evil, don't renounce goodness. It is just that instead of trying to alleviate the suffering you see in front of you, you banish happiness to a different time, a different place.

The love you have, is removed far away, it is in another time and another land. With that vision in your head, you turn your heart to stone, kill your wife with a word, stifle your son with a stare or crash a plane into a wall.