Do we want justice or scapegoats?
Our cry for justice from the bottomless pit
This Tuesday afternoon, I was talking to a good friend, a Ladhaki, who was visiting Srinagar. He mentioned how beautiful and peaceful the place was. It was the tulip season. He said it is nothing like what they say in the media. Unfortunately, that sentiment is challenged after hearing the news of the killing of 26 tourists by terrorists.
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It is heart-wrenching to see the pain of the families. Families and newly married couples who have gone there to enjoy the beauty of Kashmir with their loved ones have encountered terror. What is beauty devoid of justice? Honestly, I did not have enough courage to watch those videos.
We are rightfully outraged, but are we truly seeking justice? We all want them hanged for what they have done. One leader even promised “punishment beyond imagination” to the perpetrators. Not administrating proportional punishment for the crime committed is certainly an injustice. In the criminal justice system, it is called retributive justice. So is justice a mere eye for an eye reaction?
This is a heinous crime because it violates the sacredness of human life. The value that human life is sacred and ought to be acknowledged and protected stems from the belief that we are image bearers of God who created us. Therefore, upholding the sacredness of human life and human dignity is justice.
So, are we as a society truly seeking to establish justice for all in every walk of life? If a society fails to uphold justice with integrity it will fail to see it.
Recently when hundreds of people in Manipur were brutally murdered, the society scapegoated Kukis and blamed them for it as a form of justification. No protest whatsoever except for a few. It is business as usual. When hundreds of Muslims were murdered in Delhi and UP we did the same. Choose silence when we see the travesty of justice in the high places. For generations as a society, we have ripped away human dignity from untouchables, valued them equal to rats and justified it. Be it caste, religion, race, colour, or gender, scapegoats are found everywhere.
Do we cry justice only when the scapegoats are guilty? It is our human nature to justify our behaviour or belief in every situation. That is how our mind works. This condition is called cognitive dissonance. In that process, we find a scapegoat to blame.
Right in Genesis, Eve hides her desire to become like God and blames the Serpent for it, likewise, Adam blamed Eve. This human behaviour still continues and will continue. However, our cry for justice still persists. There lies our hope or horror.
There is hope if we believe we are made to live justly. Otherwise, this cry will torment us forever.
Justice demands truth. Whereas lies make scapegoats. How honestly do we seek the truth? We call it the bitter truth. It is not just bitter, it can be dreadful because it brings us into the light. Can we stand the light? When the lights are switched on, what do we discover in our hands?
Do we truly want to uphold the truth that all human life is sacred? I don’t think so. Me included. We humans are notoriously unjust people. For most of us, only some human life is sacred.
Don’t ever think we are naturally just beings. For a naturalist, there is nothing sacred. However, when we are on the receiving end of evil, we can’t stop crying for justice.
How miserable it is to know our cry for justice can condemn us because everyone is guilty. What do we want? Justice or Scapegoats?
To hide our evil and restore peace within our evil society we have invented scapegoats. A scapegoat is someone or some group that is used to achieve a very specific purpose. People make scapegoats when there is some fundamental truth they don’t want to acknowledge. So a person or a society wants to transfer the blame onto them to expel or eliminate them and imagine the cause of all of their problems is gone.
The scapegoating mechanism feels good because it produces a sense of catharsis, relief, and healing. It is a way of protecting ourselves from our weaknesses. It also gives us group identity and helps unite us. That is why moments of terror can even be orchestrated to intensify scapegoating and drive unity.
How can we redeem ourselves from this bottomless pit of injustice, scapegoating and violence?
Well, many think we can save ourselves by rejecting the truth. Dismissing that there is no such thing as truth. Everyone can make their own truth. Sadly their own cry for justice demands truth and truth wants to expose their lies.
To save us from this bottomless pit, God who is Truth, chose to become our scapegoat. We remembered that day as Good Friday last week. We wanted a scapegoat to hide our sins, and he chose to take them on himself. Why did he do it? To do justice for us by graciously offering forgiveness so that we could be restored to his image as we walk in grace, love, and humility, leaving our evil ways and seeking justice in our relationships at home, work and society, even with our enemies.
If we continue to seek scapegoats, violence is what we get, and our cry for justice finds no answer.
