Measuring morals in an immoral world - Phillip Morris
Moral proportionality is something with which I often wrestle. What is truly immoral?
I don't fully understand the calculus of injustice or the role that economics or proximity should play in calibrating rage.
It's taking me a while, for instance, to figure out the fury that accompanied the Michael Vick story. I originally approached that sordid story looking for a sense of proportion.
Wrong approach, I learned.
Yes, Vick sponsored fighting dogs and personally killed some of his losers. That's evil on both counts.
But what I didn't quite understand was why a vocal minority was able to elevate Vick's crimes to the top of the national agenda for weeks running, eclipsing other stories of significance.
Why did a powerful special interest group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the national media push this story as if it were the second coming?
One possible answer occurred to me over the weekend, while reading a story about rape in Africa. It's possible that we care more about American dogs than international women. (Perhaps that's because we believe we can save the dogs.)
Vick, of course, received saturation coverage solely because he was ridiculously accessible. He symbolized everything PETA abhorred and had the necessary celebrity to attract international media. He was low-hanging fruit.
Unfortunately, there is no convenient face to chronicle the epidemic of sadistic rape and murder occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is no obvious target to damn.
There is no PETA-like group agitating for the Ethical Treatment of Congolese Women. So here in our Western, civilized setting, we largely ignore the rot coming out of Africa.
But our humanity shouldn't allow it.
A recent U.N. report chronicled the phenomenon of rape that has become a daily part of being female in the Central African nation. Congolese females - age doesn't matter - are being sexually attacked, and mutilated, in numbers that have never before been seen.
Females are frequently attacked by roving gangs in front of their families and in public. In some cases, males are forced to participate at gunpoint in the rape of their own daughters, mothers or sisters. In other cases, the males themselves are raped.
After the attacks, many of the women are killed or held as slaves. The attackers often wear the uniforms of the local police or government soldiers.
"The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity - it's appalling," John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, says in the U.N. report.
There are few prosecutions and even fewer convictions.
Amnesty International has for years sounded the alarm on the Congo. And now the United Nations has weighed in with another mind-bending report.
As usual, these sick reports make one or two news cycles. Then we return our attention to the safety of our homes - and to the comfort of our dogs.
That's how we keep our sanity. Besides, Africa never seems to change.
The moral calculus says we must also remember the Congolese female, however. We work to save their valuable rain forest. Shouldn't we work to save their girls?
To reach Phillip Morris:
pfmorris@plaind.com, 216-999-5086
