August 29, 2016

Another demonstration of evil

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

In 1755, an earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon. It was possibly the single most significant event in Europe in the 18th Century. The event not only killed tens of thousands of people (estimates range from 10-100 thousand), the event sent a deep shock through the increasingly rational philosophies of the time. Indeed, such was the devastation caused by the quake (Portugal pretty much gave up on colonialism after it, its main city and political institutions having been literally, destroyed; Leaving the way for the UK and Spain to really sink their teeth into the globe), that philosophers, thinkers, writers and politicians began calling the earthquake an 'evil' event.

What did they mean by it? Briefly, something that causes human suffering.

We tend not to think of this category of event and cause and emotion as evil - earthquakes, eruptions, hurricanes etc. cause human suffering, but they are natural disasters. If we do think of evil or something like it, badness or corruption, immorality or psycopathy, we tend to think the act was basically intentional.

It's interesting, and perhaps deeply moving then, that the most recent earthquake in Italy, which has left an estimated 400 casualties since last week, is already being spoken of in connection with evil.

"Franco Roberti, the head of Italy’s national anti-mafia directorate, said organised crime operations had been notorious for infiltrating construction contracts after the 1980 Irpinia earthquake near Naples in which more than 2,400 people died. He said steps must be taken to ensure this did not occur after the 6.2-magnitude quake that devastated central Italian towns including Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto last week."

The idea that victims of an natural disaster will be exploited for the gain of a criminal organisation is abhorrent to us, and Roberti's warning strikes us with the vivid freshness we probably require when thinking about climate change and mass migrations. These two things are probably directly correlated - when the climate makes a place uninhabitable or at least very difficult to live, people move away, en masse. This will happen more and more frequently in the future - and one thing we can be sure of, is that the victims of natural disasters are, and will be, also the victims of something we can call evil. They are, and will be, exploited by predatory groups and gangs - human trafficking, sexual abuse, slavery, crime - these people don't 'bring' these into a country with them, as someone like Donald Trump thinks - rather they are the first victims.

To read more about climate change, mass migrations and criminality, check out our dossier on Escape.