This passage after the destruction of the Chechen village really struck me:
No one spoke of hatred for the Russians. The feeling experienced by all the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate. It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings; but it was repulsion, disgust, and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures, that the desire to exterminate them — like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders, or wolves — was as natural an instinct as that of self-preservation.
You almost can't help thinking about current conflicts, like the Palestinians and Israel, or the American war on terror.
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Yeah, I was really struck by that passage too. (I noticed that the guy on the cover of the edition you picked is a modern soldier — a modern Chechen "rebel"?)
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting that the Russians are thought of as inhuman beasts. It's almost like a coping mechanism because who could acknowledge that human beings could be so awful and yet still have the faith necessary to strive for a human life worth living? It sort of reminded me of how in Art Spiegelman's "Maus" all the different nationalities are portrayed as different animals — so much easier to make sense of conflict that way than to admit that we are all human beings: one species preying on itself in horrible ways.
Great point, kc. And yet humans are capable of such high and noble deeds too - MLK Jr. comes to mind, for example.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis: "Everything is good when it looks to God and bad when it turns from him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels."
Shanxi, that Lewis quote reminds me of Milton's Satan from "Paradise Lost" being a beautiful fallen angel and the idea of ego as a driving force behind evil. Satan surmises, "better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven," which makes me think of Shamil and the Russian leaders as contrasted with Hadji, who seems driven not by ego, not by the will to rule, but by simpler, deeper notions of justice and devotion.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, you guys. Lovely.
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