Good makes evil

It is now. Talk about freedom and equality. It is but an excuse to exploit those who have neither. Wars are fought, havoc is wrought, yet promises of good pertain to evil. Innocent girls are promised jobs and then sold to prostitution. Young boys are taken abroad for a good life, only to end up as camel jockeys. Foods are poisoned with harmful chemicals in the name of making delightful dishes. Widows, older people, children on the streets, and, of course, voters in democratic nations are regularly suckered by the promises of brining bounties of good.

Hence, my conclusion: good makes evil. This doesn't mean there will be no standards or rules to guide us through our daily routines. Standards are set to make things work, more as pragmatism than as value judgement. For a man who wants to walk, let him walk. Others might wish to have transportation because they don't have the strength to withstand the hardship. Which one is better? Uh-huh! Just don't ask that dreadful question. It's not a solution. It's value judgment.

Let people do what they like so long as they don't hurt others. No moral judgement here. It's common sense that if you hurt others, others will hurt you. Anybody who is willing to take that risk, let him do it at his own cost. We can't stop such people anyway. Let self-interest take the driving seat and let society define the traffic rules. There will be a few violations, no matter what. But it will save many people from having moral crashes.

Good and evil build expectations and create opportunities for pretension. Moral judgment is like make-up, because cosmetic touches can make something what it is not. Good is the existence of evil, just as light pronounces darkness. But good is as much room for evil as it is other way around. A tiger hides in sheep's cloak, crooks hide in police uniform. It happens because it works. Good shelters its own nemesis.

Once, Israel was anathema to the Muslim world, the incarnation of evil for oppressing the Palestinian Muslims. Now Pakistan is talking to Israel, the foreign ministers of the two countries having met already. Don't be surprised. The two countries have been talking since early 1990s. The second largest Muslim country is Indonesia, which has been talking to Israel since early 1980s. Former President Suharto is said to have used Israeli military assistance to quash his opposition.

See, nothing is fixed in life, everything shifts! What is good if it keeps changing? These days, parents are less concerned if their kids smoke or drink as long as they stay away from drugs. Good is relative, and so is evil. How do you shoot at moving targets? Two trains going in opposite directions can't tell which one is running away from the other.

Once there was a lot of talk about what was good for the poor countries. Rich countries were pushing aid and trade as if poverty was a disease to be cured by those two medicines only. Now the evil has changed its face and good has a new meaning. Poor countries need good governance and transparency. Corruption constitutes its own obstacle. How can it be good if good itself is evil?

That happens a lot, tucked inside diplomacy, international business and so much rubbish. A London-based activist group called Global Witness has found that oil corruption in Angola is supported by the Western oil companies who pay to the Angolan government. They have other stories to tell as well. The Westerners buy diamonds and gems from rebels in Africa, which help them finance their atrocities. The Indonesian operation of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, a US mining firm, paid large sums to individual police and military officers, including $247,705 to a general with an uncertain human rights record. Does the name Niko ring a familiar bell on our home front?

Good makes evil in a thousand ways. Good food, good time, good taste, good feeling, and you can go to a good length before you exhaust the list. But good always walks in the shadow of evil. What excites you deprives somebody else. Your plenty is someone's paucity. Your pleasure is someone's pain. And try being a good boy, which basically means you are obedient and quiet. You don't interfere with another man's evil.

Sometimes good has its evil charm. Politicians use a lot of it, their dress and diction, carefully chosen to hide monsters behind innocent fronts. And they can do it again and again, because good has this beguiling power to repeat its charm like history.

Much of evil originates when people walk into the trap laid by good, when they trust someone and let down their guard, making themselves vulnerable and weak.

If you can forget good, you can also forget evil. Humanitarian work is often pretext to convert people to a new faith. A very nice stranger can be harbinger of bad news. Good is often too good to be true, because it's laced with poison. The dyes used to color fabrics made sweetmeats look colourful. Evil is good until you know. Watch out I tell you!

That is why it shocks you when you learn that someone you trusted has stabbed you in the back. That is why you are disappointed when a devout man is found engaged in a despicable act. It's the concept of good that creates the confusion. You feel relaxed, you feel composed under the influence of what is no more than a tranquilising thought. Then you are shocked in your shell when that influence is disrupted and you realise that good was nothing but a drunken spree of evil.

Good doesn't exist. It is indifference, inaction, and in some cases fear of reprisals, that constrain people to treat others well. You will find goodness in the weak, the meek, the poor, and the cowardly. Others simply pretend, priming you up with their good nature until you are ready for the kill.

Good and evil are relative terms, and you don't know they exist until you compare. Peel the onion to the nub and good is the foundation of evil. Greed makes need and need makes greed, but how can you not notice their connection? People give money to charity because they feel good. They say their prayers because it relieves them of the guilt that builds up in their daily infractions. Good is evil's alter ego, standing in for evil where it needs to sit down.

Good makes evil and our familiar world is made between them. Friends and foes, angels and devils, kind and cruel, love and hate. All our relationships, all our transactions are bound by the dilemma that sways between two extremes. But these extremes are two ends of the same stick, which can change its sides if you flip it in the wind.

Life is short. Live it well. Principles can unite, faiths always divide. Manners manage, morality messes up. Don't worry about good and evil. Respect others. You will be safe. That is the only good that fights all evil.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.