Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
[The Public Protector must investigate complaints] with an open and enquiring mind. That state of mind is one that is open to all possibilities and reflects upon whether the truth has been told. It is not one that is unduly suspicious but it is also not one that is unduly believing. It asks whether the pieces that have been presented fit into place. If at first they do not then it asks questions and seeks out information until they do. It is also not a state of mind that remains static. If the pieces remain out of place after further enquiry then it might progress to being a suspicious mind. And if the pieces still do not fit then it might progress to conviction that there is deceit. How it progresses will vary with the exigencies of the particular case. One question might lead to another, and that question to yet another, and so it might go on.
