Speak No Evil

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/23banville.html

This article is by an Irish man, who talks about the recent publishing of a report that details the abuse piled on children in insititutions like orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories from the 1930's to 90's in Ireland. It talks about a horror deeper than the sexual and physical abuse suffered by children at these places, but about the fact that the general population knew that these children were suffering and did nothing, in a way that the author compares it to the people of Nazi Germany or the people of Rwanda and Armenia during their respective genocides. As the author says they knew and yet they did not know, they allowed themselves ot be blind to the truth by reasoning that somehow the victims deserved it, and that therefore it should not be mentioned. It really sort of horrifies me that people can be so deliberately yet so unknowingly cruel, and that we continue to see an ever growing expansion of the human capacity for evil. Why do we stay silent when we know somethign is wrong? Even in Colombia people who knew of paramilitary actions said nothing and I have heard and witnessed cases of people knowing about child abuse and saying nothing. It is like a cushioned "Genovese effect" named for a woman, Kitty Genovese who was raped and murdered outside her apartment building. Her neighbors heard everything and some of them even watched. But no one did a single thing to help her. Every day I hope I won't get overwhelmed by the sentiment that we can simply shrug off abuse to others because it does not fall on us directly. This is a hope I hold for all mankind.