Good or bad

On the journey between my children's home and school there is a sign in large letters that says: violent beware! Just seeing it always arouses an infinite number of thoughts in me. We have all grown up in a culture that heavily admires those who fearlessly defend the rights of the weakest. No one calls someone a loser who defends a friend from bullies or helps an old lady cross the street; We all know who the bad guy is, Mother Teresa or Pol Pot! But despite this our feelings are always at war with each other.

On the other side of the moon, when as a child King Arthur said in a film: «There is a peace that lies beyond war, and if that battle must come I will fight it!». I was exalted and swore within myself loyalty to the king, dreaming of being Sir Lancelot!
Imagine if I wasn't (and am) alongside Liam Neeson who, on the phone with the person who kidnapped his daughter to sell her in the sex market, tells the bad guys: "I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you." In these situations we are all avangers.

But I wonder: will there ever be a world in which, outside the house, someone will write on the wall: violent, I forgive you? Without this sounding anachronistic, like those who call for a white flag for a greater good? I believe it would be truly heroic if entire populations decided to forgive, with the awareness that forgiveness would take on the face of thousands of old women who could still cross many roads for a long time to come. It is then a question of choosing between a world with life or without. The right answer, in theory, we all know.

Andrea Gotico
NP May 2024