Saturday 26 March 2016

I watched Radovan Karadzic

as he was being sentenced. The camera crew had their cameras steadily trained on his face. It was impassive, seemingly devoid of emotion.
Despite that I had the sense that he felt nothing but contempt for the proceedings. He was still arrogant. He hasn't changed.
I wonder about people like this. What are they thinking? Do they know what they have done? Do they remember? Do they look back with regret or pleasure? How did they justify it then? Do they still try and justify it now? What do they dream at night?
Karadzic will die in prison but he will still be better off than hundreds of thousands of others. He will be fed. His surroundings, if spartan, will be clean. He will receive medical treatment. I have little doubt he will still try to issue orders - and he will expect to have them obeyed. 
It will cost a great deal to keep him there. One of my colleagues left me an email which I read this morning, "It would be cheaper to hang the bastard  but that would makes us no better than he is."
Yes, he's right. I don't want to see anyone hung, or given a lethal injection, or shot by firing squad, or murdered in any other way. There is no point in hating people. I don't have to like them but I don't have to hate them either. I can loathe and hate what they have done but that's something else.
I look at someone like Karadzic though and it is hard not to feel the same sort of loathing and contempt that I suspect he feels towards others.  Perhaps he still sees himself as some sort of hero? I don't know.
But wouldn't it be better for everyone if you cared about other people?

 

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