Murder Most Foul (rant 100)

Hassan-i-Sabbah. The Old Man of the Mountain. The founder of the infamous sect of the Hashshashin – the Assassins or Hashish-eaters. Marco Polo’s Travels tell the tale of this atrocious figure. Astutely, old Hassan contrived a fantastic deception, whereby drugged youths believed themselves to be tasting the pleasures of Paradise. Duped by this hallucinatory experience, the Hashish-eaters submitted blindly to their master’s evil will. Ensconced in the impregnable mountain fortress of Alamut, in Northern Persia, Hassan struck terror throughout the Middle East. Many rulers, Muslim and Christian alike, fell under the dagger of fanatical hit-men. It fell to the invading Mongol hordes eventually to exterminate the lot.



Are the Assassins reborn, skulking in our midst? The murder most foul of Sweden’s beautiful Anna Lindh last week makes me wonder whether the Old Man might have slipped back. The senselessness of the stabbing could be only apparent. An occult, resurrected Order of Assassins (and indeed Hassan in Alamut had proclaimed the advent the Resurrection) is not beyond the bounds of possibility. And it seems to me in keeping with the Assassins’ cunning to have chosen placid, peaceful, permissive Sweden as the opening stage of their dark exploits.



Mmmm….A bit far-out, Fr Frank. You don’t really believe it, do you?



It depends. There is nothing self-contradictory about the idea. As the Queen once said to Princess Diana’s butler: “There are forces at work around us of which we have no knowledge.’ I bet Her Majesty knew what she was talking about.



Cripes, Fr Frank, this is pretty worrying. What are we to do then?



Praying, for one thing. But you can also take it in a generally symbolic way. Assassination, alas, is in the air. The Sunday Telegraph reports of a virulent anti-euro campaigner who has publically praised the murder of Anna Lindh. The same man is now inciting ‘patriots’ to do likewise to pro-Europe politicians. And the newspaper also carries an article significantly headlined ‘Why Israel is right to assassinate Hamas leaders’. Indeed, the Israeli government is said to have authorised the killing of Arafat himself.



Some would say violent times invite violent responses, Fr Frank, whether we like it or not.



Noble Jews like Martin Buber and Leo Baeck surely would counter that such actions are incompatible with the high ethical standards of Judaism. Besides, even adopting a utilitarian calculus, the deluge of evil the assassination of Arafat would unleash would greatly outweigh any purported ‘good’. But I reject moral consequentialism. Assimilating the Ten Commandments to cost-benefit reasoning makes a mockery of God.



So you don’t agree the end justifies the means?



Much as I admire Machiavelli’s genius (a fellow Italian – and a Tuscan, I say, proudly – my mummy was too), I do not. Christian ethics does not permit morally evil means – even if aimed at a good end. The direct, deliberate killing of the innocent is an intrinsically evil means. It can never be justified. Caiaphas’ notorious dictum – ‘let one man die for the good of the whole people’ – constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of that noxious brand of utilitarianism – especially when we remember whose judicial killing it was the High Priest was referring to.



Er…Fr Frank, forgive us, but…Arafat, Hamas & Co. – how innocent exactly are they?



Look, I have just attended a conference on ‘Palestine: what future?’. There I have heard Israeli Professor & peacenik Ilhan Pappe persuasively connect the violence in the Holy Land with the illegal occupation of the West Bank, as effect is to cause. How many times during our lifetime have we heard it repeated, mantra-like, that resistance to occupation is a moral imperative?



Regardless of the means?



No, of course not. I have just argued evils means are illicit. Even in destruction, there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits, as Albert Camus memorably wrote in his fine play about terrorism, Les Justes. I wish Palestinian resistance could be like Gandhi’s. Nonetheless, the question of unjust occupation still stands. With Professor Pappe, I am convinced only the community of nations can help at this critical stage – internationalise the conflict, that is.



Interesting. But where do we go from here?



The gift of prophecy God has not granted me. These are perilous times, when shadowy terrorist fraternities can strike worldwide, sovereign countries are unilaterally invaded and murder is advocated as matter of state policy. Navigating this fearful new ocean, it is vital we don’t lose sight of our moral compass. And states cannot do without ethical ballast, lest they drift into the very lawlessness they claim to combat. The philosopher Nietzsche asserted the chief of the ancient Hashshahshin was a nihilist – unbeknown to his besotted followers, the Old Man of the Mountain would believe in nothing. Or rather, he believed only in power. That’s unlikely – more a matter of wish-fulfilment than historical reality. (By the way, genuine Ismaili sources makes no mention of drug-usage.) Nietzsche’s obsession with his ‘re-evaluation of all values’, of going beyond good and evil, perhaps inclined him to view Hassan as an ideological forerunner. But I wonder whether the modern extoller of the Superman didn’t have a point – though not quite the point he thought he had.



Aargh! And what would that be, Fr Frank?



Power, sheer power, seems to be what many spokesmen for what used to be called (President Bush still does, quaintly) ‘the free world’ are falling back on. But power, of the Hobbesian variety, cannot of itself upheld the commonwealth of nations. Otherwise it’ll be a matter of miserable choice between different types of terror. As I prepare to watch tonight on BBC2 the second episode of The New Adventures of Superman, I have no doubt I’ll savour the final defeat of Tempus, the suave but megalomaniac alien sociopath who has seized control of America and banished Superman into unreality. Tempus’ lust for dominance is totally divorced from morality. The happy ending is de riguer these shallow times but, for once, I wonder whether the scriptwriter’s instincts be not basically sound. Might is not right, and murder does not pay. In fact, let me outrage all Realpolitikers: as Jesus preached on a mountain long ago, the awesome, life-giving truth must be that ‘the Meek will inherit the earth’.