Redefining Justice

This past Monday, 89-year old John Demjanjuk began a trial in Munich on the accusation that he helped force 27,900 Jews to death during the Holocaust. This is his second trial as an accused Nazi. The first, in 1988, in which he was convicted and sentenced to death, was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993 after concluding it was a case of mistaken identity. This case arrives at the end of a long, global manhunt, spanning over 70 years, of finding those guilty of terrible Nazi war crimes and holding them to account.

The problem is, this seemingly justifiable and avenging act is sending us the wrong message about justice.

We're taught at an early age that vengeance is the wrong kind of justice. While an effective way to keep playground brawls at a minimum, this phrase doesn't capture just how wrong it is. At the heart of vengeance is something much more repulsive—a blind, emotional, selfish motivation that has utter disrespect not only for themselves as the victim, but for society around them.

Here in London, I work with a Member of Parliament (MP) who serves a constituency with a myriad of social problems, such as high teenage pregnancy, broken families, and everything else in between. I visited the constituency recently and heard from a mother a shocking story. For as long as she could remember there was a young boy who walked by her house, who looked “sullen and dangerous”. She learned that he was from a broken family right across the street that didn't care for him “in the slightest”. Ten years went by, and one day her neighbor's 15-year old son was murdered in his own home—by this same sullen and dangerous boy.

Like John Demjanjuk, the boy will receive scathing media coverage and negative public response decrying him as a monster to society—all before he is convicted, of course—and then sent to prison. The state's job is then done; they've done all they can in their effort to bring boys like him to justice and avenge the life of the innocent victim. These two cases relate because both approaches society takes to resolve their crimes does not take into account the larger picture. When we talk about the Holocaust, why don't we talk about the British, French, and even American governments, who not only knew about concentration camps and Hitler's “Final Solution” plans, but in some cases praised him for it? When we talk about the boy murderer, why are we ignoring the fact his parents didn't raise him properly, or that the UK government spends more money on prosecuting and imprisoning than education or social support?

People may say “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. Little do they know just how blind it makes us to the disrespect and injustice that this mentality fosters. It is beyond disrespectful, to the victims of any serious crime, to treat the wrongdoers with an approach that does nothing to prevent that situation from happening again—to you, me, or anyone else. Vengeance is a reaction to an individual, not a prevention for the future. To take revenge, then, is despicably selfish, considering the mentality doesn't care if it happens again somewhere else—as long as “they get what they deserve”.

In contrast, proactive justice makes more sense in preventing injustice. In Germany, it is mandatory for all students to visit the concentration camps and learn of their grandparents' mistakes (I visited recently, and fell in awe of just how aware Germans were to their history). In my MP's constituency, schools and social centers are implementing what they label as Early Intervention measures, which targets children 0-6 in the effort to provide them the support and stability needed to prevent them from falling into a socially instable situation. Seventy years after the Holocaust, Germany is internationally renowned for tolerance and openness to immigrants and diversity; barely a decade after my MP's Early Intervention programs have started, crime is on the decline and education on the rise.

In Germany, Britain, and at LMU, it's up to us—society—to redefine what justice is. If that seems like too big a task, yes it is: because it's how we interpret cases like John Demjanjuk and the boy from Britain that determines how our society sees justice. The more we react selfishly, the more vengeful and blind we will be, and injustice will go about business as usual. The more we take steps to stop injustice where it begins, the more effective we will be in keeping society safe—because, with both our eyes intact, we can see just how connected and interdependent we all are.

Education of the Whole Palin

Nearly a year after President Obama was voted into office, Sarah Palin has returned. I've never been more thankful to be as far away as possible from the US, where I'm sure there is a media maelstrom of cheesy interviews and winking every five seconds at Barbara Walters. But then I realize how much my revulsion is rooted in a deeper fear I have for the US—that “going rogue” will drive us insane.

There are a great deal of Americans who belong to a re-surging minority of populism—a narrow, twofold worldview in which one, that America at home should glorify the Average Joe-Six-Packs and “ordinary people”; and two, that America abroad is the sole shining light of the world, always right and always just, incapable of doing any wrong.

If that sounds like Sarah Palin, you're catching my drift. For whatever reason John McCain picked Palin, she came on the scene when the time was ripe for a politician like her. The populists were down and out for the count this time last year. Bush and the Republican Party had become swear words, a liberal President was about to be elected on a mandate of change, and the economic crisis had questioned a core virtue of populism, capitalism. The populists trembled. Eight years under Bush had made them too comfortable; they weren't prepared to live in a country that was going to put aside the “Average Joe” for the real average American—the average American who couldn't afford a suburb and have a stay-at-home mom take the kids to soccer practice.

So when Palin received the VP nod, the populists rejoiced—and mobilized. A year later, the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks have stoked the fires of populism that Palin ignited. President Obama has made it ambitiously clear that he wants to start a national dialogue to reform the most broken parts of our society, like immigration, homelessness, and poverty. Hopefully he knows what he's wading into, because those are the issues the populists will feed on. People like Palin are enraged by such initiatives because in their worldview, they, being the “hardworking backbone” and “heartland” of America, see themselves as deserving the most attention from the government.

Why care about populism? First, it just doesn't add up. America and white picket fences are yeah, great, but we're far from perfect. Why see America as the shining light of the world, when we have people starving on our streets and have over two million people living homeless every night? The essence of populism involves refusing to acknowledge the harder facts of life when you yourself have it good. I've yet to hear a good argument saying this attitude makes our society the best in the world.

Which is why my next point will really make you cringe: being LMU students, we have an obligation to fight against populism and not ignore it. Populism exists because people don't want to step outside their comfort zone, and populism gains momentum when we think it's a harmless thing. The great thing about our education here is that, done right, it challenges the foundations of how we see and interact with the world. This University's greatest asset is its ability to make us thrive outside of our comfort zones. So it makes sense to say that with our $200,000 education of the whole person, we have a personal obligation to, in whatever our futures, challenge others and open their minds.

Let me be clear and say that we are not evangelists. Like fighting fire with fire, we cannot fight populism with another ideology or belief, because it only makes those who are populist narrow their worldviews even more. No; our weapon is that beautiful LMU mission: education. Open-mindedness. Encouragement of people to go outside their comfort zones to try and understand the complexity of the world. Populism is defeated when we use stories and personal experiences to show that life can be led in a different way.

Which is why populism is so easy to believe in: the world is full of perspectives and overwhelming complexity, and it's so much easier to stay behind the white picket fence and live life with one pair of eyes. But that is why the LMU graduate is as far away from populism as possible: they're afraid of understanding that complexity. We're not.