THE history of the human race is oft stained by the inhumane actions of evil men, a blotch on the pages of our past – untenable, undeniable and unbelievable.
Of the acts of cruelty and violence against others, many of the world’s leaders can be found guilty of casting away the robes of protector, becoming the goaler.
Hitler ordered the deaths of millions of Jews. American cotton farmers kept gangs of black slaves bound in shackles as they worked their lands.
Slavers stole men and women from Africa to be sold as slaves, passed from one owner to the next.
A most marked trait of humans has been their ability to be inhumane.
Sadly, the small corner of the world we call Zululand is not exempt.
Just last week a shocking story of child abuse and rape was splashed across our front page, distraught families appealing to the greater good for justice.
Young boys were beaten, humiliated and paraded naked in front of their peers and abusers.
The video evidence is enough to make grown men go pale.
The fact that someone had the audacity to record such an act is even more mind-numbing.
Rape, torture and murder – it has become part of our daily lives.
The life of a grandmother destined to be nothing more than a two paragraph footnote on a news page.
There comes a turning point in every history ever written. A point where honest and good people of the time could take the evil and inhumanity no longer.
They would act, often meeting violence with violence.
If history has taught us anything, if there is one caveat we have chosen to stoically ignore, it’s that the human race has always been governed by bloodshed.
How much further before we reach that breaking point, before blood is spilled in the streets?
There is no simple answer to validate the decline of social standards in our community or the world.
We are very near to our breaking point.
The question is only which act of evil will spur on the good men and women to finally take action.
Just as those boys were raped and forced to do unspeakable things, so too have we, those who do not act, raped the very essence of our humanity.
