Evil
Mike Broadhurst
The United States is not the only country in the world holding elections in just a few weeks.
It is a presidential election year in Madagascar and the process is frighteningly painful.
The little semblance of order that exists in a non-election year is completely void now. The Malagasy constitution requires that if the acting president seeks re-election, he and his cabinet must step aside.
With that having occurred in September virtually every government office here is crippled because there is no recognized authority to enforce what few laws people here do respect. Chaos prevails.
In the United States we read about outrageous homicide reports in cities like Chicago, but for most of us there are no faces tied with the murders. Here, the violence is much closer to home.
If you have any business, big or small, or are perceived to have any kind of money, you are a target for robbery and murder. Some of our close friends have first-hand connection to six slayings in just three weeks.
Let us tell you about them:
· A man selling phone credits (my guess is he takes in about $12 a day) was shot through the head for not giving up what was in his pocket to a couple of thugs.
· In the span of one week, three community leaders who managed the proceeds from farm cooperatives were brutally slain over several nights. By the time federal law enforcement officials showed up the gang had vanished into the jungle. Being familiar with how cooperatives work, their lives were probably lost for not more than $1,000 each.
· An industrious farmer came from a nearby village to Toamasina to purchase supplies for his plantation. Thieves approached him in the middle of one of the city’s busiest bazaars, snatched his backpack and shot him dead.
· A deacon at one of the local churches came to another bazaar to purchase supplies for farmers in the bush. When his attackers were not happy with their haul, they killed the man.
There is little hope that perpetrators will be caught and prosecuted because most of the military and police have little direction from superiors to quell the violence. To put it bluntly, life here is cheap and personal integrity nearly non-existent.
Does the world care? In the Spring of this year the plague struck Madagascar and about 240 lives were lost. It was a sexy story. It was greeted with so much media fanfare that relatives in the U.S. were worried for our safety. We can assure you that by the time Madagascar elects a new president, many, many more than 240 lives will be lost to criminal activity in Madagascar. If you search the web (like I just did), you won’t find so much as a murmur.
We can’t even begin to fathom how many lives have been snuffed out in the last 30 days across this broad country (25 million inhabitants, 38% larger than California). The six deaths reported above come from close friends of ours directly linked to the victims. We can’t attest for the countless murders that are occurring in the bush, in the capital city Antananarivo or elsewhere. Yet, you won’t hear about any of this from the international news outlets.
Perhaps the most alarming part of all of this is the overwhelming response from the common Malagasy. Poverty has a way of draining people from any connection to hope. The man on the street may not condone murder, but there is a tacit empathy for the motives of theft.
The point of all this? Evil flourishes when there is a lack of discernible law. You don’t have to be an intellectual giant to see why it is so hard for the Malagasy to make progress. There is little in the social or cultural fabric to stimulate a different outlook. A nation that turns it back on the rule of law ultimately fades away into a pit of despair. And that, our friends, is incarnate evil.
It sounds bleak, and believe us, many vahasa come to Madagascar and conclude, “There’s no hope. Madagascar will never change.”
Two thousand years ago 12 men experienced and saw something so incredible and life-altering that they gave up what little they owned to tell the world. Their words, delivered in the face of great persecution, suffering and misery, ultimately freed millions of people from the heart and soul of the pernicious rule of the Roman Empire.
One of the apostles reduced The Messiah’s message to but three simple components: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
By faith Yvonne and I continue to work against the chaos that appears insurmountable. In hope we can see a future that puts desperation to death, once and for all. Powered by love, we are certain that God’s will, will be done.
With His help nothing is impossible.