Are These People Human?

A 23-year old woman is held captive by a gang of six, During her week long ordeal, she is sexually assaulted, stabbed four times in the leg, beaten, forced to eat dog and rat feces, choked with a cable cord and doused with hot water. Surprisingly, she survives and is eventually rescued by the authorities.

Reading the above, one would shake one’s head in disgust; and assume that this unspeakable atrocity was perpetrated by crazed, bloodthirsty savages in Darfour or Rwanda. One would be wrong. This happened in a small town in West Virginia. Even more shocking is the fact that two of the abductors were women. The perpetrators are white. The victim is black.

The barbaric brutality of the act itself does not shock me so much, per se. As the Nazis, Genghis Khan and other warlords throughout history have shown, humans are capable of evil that sometimes beggar the imagination. Besides, unforgivable though it may be, there is a perverse motive underlying the cruelty - to vanquish, or to gain information. What happened in West Virginia was apparently a random act, fuelled by sheer sadism. Even worse, in happened in America – presumably one of the most civilized countries in the world; and the most prosperous.

It causes me to wonder if there is something in a few inhabitants of rich nations – where basic needs of food, clothing and shelter are taken for granted – that compels them to seek out new thrills, new perversions. When survival is no longer an issue, does the human mind – especially one cursed with minimal intelligence and conditioned to hate – instinctively turn to sadism? Does it get some perverse gratification from inflicting unbearable pain on another human being – simply to watch the victim suffer?

It would be convenient – and somewhat comforting – for ‘normal’ persons to explain away such cruelty as an aberration – an outpouring of a sick and diseased mind. Except that, this was a group of people of different age groups – and two of them were mothers. One of them had a daughter (she participated in the torture) of around the same age as the victim. Even if racism had been a motive, they would have put the Klu Klux Klan to shame.

And yet, these mothers – far from trying to stop the bestiality – actively took part in it. It was almost as if they were consumed by a kind of blood lust. What is also appalling is that they probably had no real grudge against their victim – it was a random selection. Their sole intention was to inflict pain and intense humiliation on the young woman. Even a wild animal does not deserve the unspeakable torture they inflicted on her.

It will be interesting to follow the trial of these perverts. In all probability, they will demonstrate no remorse for their actions. A clever lawyer may even succeed in lessening their sentence. My only comfort is that I know for sure there is a special place in hell reserved for them.