Canada under siege – "Deconstructing" the roots of evil By Murray Soupcoff A Canadian's first response to the murderous assault on our way of life… Yes it's true –after the recent murderous attack on the Canadian Parliament -- a small modicum of hindsight suggests that day was the metaphorical equivalent of Canada's "9/11": the realization that we have indeed lost our innocence (and complacency), and that we are no longer immune from the murder and mayhem that terrorists have inflicted on our European counterparts (like Britain & France) for so long. Of course, being a resident of Toronto Canada, I know that we still have a lot to be thankful for today: Thanks to the most courageous hero of the parliamentary security debacle -- 58-year-old Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers (who single handedly blocked the terrorist intruder and killed him with a single gunshot)– we wake up knowing that the most morally principled & resolute enemy of radical Islamo-fascism in the Western world (along with Australia's Prime Minister Greg Abbot) is still alive and well: Canada's Conservative Prime Minister, Steven Harper. Whether it's a question of candidly uttering the T word ("terrorism"), or bringing economic prosperity to his nation (by renouncing "socialism" and embracing a true free-enterprise model of capitalism, as envisaged by Adam Smith), Steven Harper has unintentionally morphed into the "Anti-Obama" -- potentially feared by such discredited American luminaries as Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Shultz Wasserman. But unlike Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Wasserman, you don't expect lies from Mr. Harper every time he moves his lips. And most important, unlike his leadership counterpart in the United States (Barack Obama), Steven Harper also lives sufficiently in the real word (and not a fantasy world of wishful thinking), so that he frequently utters the "E" word: recognizing that today's radical Islamist jihadists are evil . After all, in response to the recent beheadings of two American journalists, even America's most politically-correct media outlets (for example, CNN, The NY Times and even The Washington Post) have begun to use the biblical term, "evil", to describe Islamist jihadists' actions. And in terms of the psychological & socio-cultural underpinnings of this global jihadist movement, how would I — long ago educated as a sociologist — define "evil" in such contexts? Well, as revealed to me -- by the latest Hollywood box-office vampire-film hit (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) -- teens in North America, these days, have become surprisingly (to me anyway) interested in vampires and zombies, and other forms of the so-called "Undead". And believe it or not, here is where I think we can get our first hint about the nature of good and evil: I call this potential "biblical-like" film inspiration: "The New Hollywood Testament". That's because, according to "Wikipedia", vampires and zombies exist in some twilight, indeterminate zone between life and death; and I suspect that the same can be said of those humans who are genuinely evil. Such evil forces of darkness (particularly today's fanatical Islamist jihadists) can only manage to live what I choose to call a quasi "inauthentic" life -- in which they derive life from their own sufferings (grievances) and from the sufferings they inflict on others (others who symbolically — in their minds anyway — represent those who inflicted wrongs against them). The Theory: And in such cases, I would hypothesize, these dark souls settle for an inner psychological experience of nothingness — an inability to live authentically – rather than risk the much more terrifying nothingness of having ceased to exist – actually dying! So, only by spreading chaos and nihilism in the world, are they able to fill the frightful vacuum at the center of their being. And following this line of thinking, perhaps some of those whom we recognize as "evil" are individuals who simply can't abide the empty vacuum of nothingness at their core: the hollow, empty humans that they are. And hence, to try to stifle this vacuum of "inauthenticity", they create even more NOTHINGNESS around them — in the form of murder, destruction, ethnic cleansing and even inhuman beheadings (in the case of today's Islamist jihadists). Certainly, if there is any truth to this analysis, then that would explain why extreme jihadist groups – which practice inhumane actions to intimidate their perceived enemies (or perceived heretics from their religion) find it so easy to recruit followers from abroad – followers who finally find a setting in which their own murderous instincts are accepted and legitimized. At last, these sociopaths -- from far-off lands -- find a "family" in which they feel comfortable (and are encouraged) to express their most heinous inclinations, including to murder, rape and even defile young girls – behavior which would be condemned by the rule of law in the hated "liberal democracies" of Europe & North America. Of course, today's fanatical jihadists frequently find their own version of evil in the world, embodied in some alien figures outside themselves: Jews, educated women, gays, or imperialist American foreigners. But acting violently — against those who embody your perception of evil — will not bring you any closer to murdering the non-being at the heart of yourself, since that personal ‘inauthenticy' is the core of your empty self. Wisdom From The Ancient Classics? But once on the subject of hated Western civilization (by radical Islam), why not metaphorically journey to its cultural origins to continue our "deconstruction" of the roots of evil in our world: "Am I now a man," Homer's classical god hero (Oedipus) asks, "only when I am now no longer human?" And from my perspective, what Homer perhaps implies, in his classic tale, is that to be stripped of our culture and civilization is perhaps to cease to be human altogether — because it's this civilized instinct which constitutes authentic humanity. Hence, the "moral" of Homer's story may be that today's "inhumans" (jihidists who fear the nothingness at the core of their being) may go to monstrous lengths to annihilate their sense of inauthentic self — and consequently annihilate every (perceived) human obstacle in their path! So take note President Obama, in waging your military "plan", of "containment", against America's newest enemies … What you don't know (about evil) may ultimately result in global Armageddon! Nuff said, I would think. Murray Soupcoff was the editor and co-author of "Good Buy Canada", and author of "Canada 1984". He was a founding member (and senior partner) of Ian Sone & Associates Ltd -- Canada's first independent social-research company specializing in the evaluations of federal, provincial & municipal government projects in Canada. He is also the publisher of the "Soupcoff Report" investment newsletter, whose distribution is partly subsidized by paid subscriptions from former research clients.
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