Man’s Inhumanity to Man

THE scene​—a country in West Africa, 1961. Military police with fixed bayonets suddenly interrupt a peaceful Christian meeting. They handcuff the men present and then brutally beat them into “little more than a pile of flesh.” The conductor of the meeting receives so many blows with a club that he vomits blood for 90 days. The police expect the men to die.

“Man’s inhumanity to man” is a grim, recurring theme of history. The ancient Assyrians impaled their war prisoners on stakes that were run up through the abdomen into the chest. The Romans had their own way of using the stake. Their victims were first scourged so severely that flesh was often stripped from the bones. Then they were tied or nailed to upright stakes and left to die​—slowly, agonizingly.

Shocking callousness and cruelty have often been shown by priests. The Aztecs of Mexico made human sacrifices to their god Huitzilopochtli by ripping out the hearts of their living victims. In the 16th century, though, Hernán Cortés of Spain conquered the Aztecs. Was his religion any better? In those days the Spanish Inquisition operated ghastly torture chambers and burned “heretics” to death. The rack, a common form of torture, stretched the victims’ limbs until they came out of joint. Other methods were even more grisly​—but we spare you.

‘But that’s all in the past,’ some people think. ‘People are more humane and civilized today.’ Is that so?

Torture is by no means obsolete. True, the horrible public burnings that once regaled sadistic, callous crowds and clergy are a thing of the past. But in the secrecy of prison cells, torture is still regularly and frequently practiced​—often with sophisticated methods that do not even leave a trace of evidence. In a South American country, a victim who had undergone the modern torture of violent electric shocks had this to say: “The only thing that comes to mind is: they’re ripping apart my flesh. But they didn’t rip apart my flesh. . . . They didn’t even leave marks.”

One press report claims that many countries are “notorious for torture and death of political prisoners.” The report continues: “People have also ‘disappeared’ after arrests​—never to be seen again.” The United Nations Human Rights Committee has blacklisted as “villains of oppression and tyranny” more than a hundred UN member states.

Massacres have been frequent throughout this 20th century. In 1915-16 an invading army was used to deport forcibly most of the Armenian population, during which operation possibly a million Armenians were slaughtered. It is calculated that as a result of the revolution in Russia, 14 million civilians died between 1914 and 1926. In China, from 1949 to 1958, between 15 and 30 million perished in “political liquidation campaigns.” Massacres of Jews have been frequent for many centuries; but none were so starkly cold-blooded or extensive as the slaughter of over six million Jews under Hitler’s regime.

However, there are sins of omission as well as of commission. Inhumanity can reveal itself by simply turning a blind eye to those in trouble. In a recent test case in South Africa, a woman lay motionless beside her car on the edge of a highway to see if anyone would stop and help. No one did in two days.

Inhumanity is also apparent in countries enjoying a glut of food. What happens to it? Much is destroyed. And yet, according to a 1982 UN report, 40,000 young children die from malnutrition and infection​—every day!

“Man’s inhumanity to man,” therefore, continues even in our “enlightened” age. But how did it all start? Can anybody stop it?