Denying Evil

At the current Karachi meeting of the World Social Forum, that dispicable peace-quest bunch of anti-reality, pro-Socialist, America-hating global hangers-on established in 2001 to counter the World Ecomomic Forum, evil-denial and misdircted blame was rampant:

Delegates accused the United States of creating Osama Bin Laden and his terror icon Al-Qaeda.

At a WSF workshop on “Bin Laden Constructing New Politics of Terror,” speakers described the Saudi-born terrorist as “a symbol of evil in the world politics.”

“Al-Qaeda and Osama are the creation of the US and its Central Investigation [sic] Agency (CIA)” to suit their hegemonic designs, Sehba Khattak, a leading Pakistani human rights activist from North Western Frontier Province said. She alleged that Osama was created as part of a US global policy to have “elements of instability on the world map” that could allow US involvement in regional affairs.

Reading this in Arab News, I get goosebumps because I just read a deep analysis of this level of denial by Pat Santy on Dr. Sanity. She was writing about the Christian Peacemakers, but she might as well have been writing about Sehba Khattak and her ilk. She writes:

Think of it this way--these are people (both my patient and the peace activists) [and the WSF loonies] who not only are incapable of looking directly into the eyes of evil and recognizing its guilt; but they are equally incapable of looking into the eyes of the good and appreciating its innocence. And for good measure, they haven't been able to look in the mirror for a very very long time.

They have been lying to themselves for years; avoiding acknowledging their own feelings or taking responsibility for their own lives or actions; and projecting all their unacceptable feelings onto others. Both Western culture--America in particular; and the "system" are handy dandy repositories for those unacceptable feelings.

Some part of them recognizes that something dreadful is going on in the world, but they cannot face it directly because it is too threatening to their worldview and their holy scripture; and facing the truth might make them have to go into their heart of hearts to examine the origins of that dreadful terror. Hence the need to displace their anxiety to a less threatening authority figure (e.g., Bush or America; or even those that rescue them from death) is easier than facing the dread source of their anxiety.

Three psychological defense mechanisms (projection, denial, and displacement) are the source almost all human suffering--from the individual misery of my patient all the way to the societal miseries that result from racism, anti-semitism, sexism and genocide; as well as the brutal and fanatical terrorism that we now see all over the world.

If the peace activists and others of their ilk want to understand the wellspring of man's inhumanity to man, then they need to take a good, long look in the mirror.

Yup.

hat-tip for Dr. Sanity: The Anchoress
Tags: Peacemakers, World Social Forum, bin Laden