The ‘Boiling Frog’ Theory
“Hi, I’d like to order one pepperoni pizza, please.”
“Ma’am, this is the police. You dialed 911”
“Yes, one large pizza, please.”
And she hung up.
Under Canadian laws, the police are required to arrive at the location from which a telephone call was made regardless of the absurdity or peculiarity of the phone call. The conversation described above illustrates a true incident that occurred in Canada: A woman was being physically abused by her husband. She pretended to order a pizza in order to covertly call the police in the presence of her husband. Indeed, the police did arrive at her home after she made the call and she was saved. In fact, under Canadian domestic abuse law, the police will automatically arrest the accused and allow for a pending formal trial. Furthermore, there need only be a possibility of domestic abuse for the police to lawfully arrest the accused. In this case, her husband was immediately arrested, found guilty and put in jail. This woman was protected by the laws enforced upon the police force and by her own rights under the law. She continues to be protected by a community that recognizes the right to life. All these factors helped a woman avert, what could have been, a life full of pain, tragedy and maybe even death. Justice was served.
Juxtaposing the story above to the recent and tragic death of Georges Al-Rif, and many other Lebanese citizens that suffered a similar fate, it is clear that Tarik Yatim was not the only person that killed Georges. The government and the police force in our country also killed Georges. Georges was denied his basic right to life, as well as his right to safety and protection by the state. Clearly there are no laws or procedures put in place to deal with situations like that of Georges. When Georges’ wife called the police for help, they replied by saying that there was no one available to assist her. So then, why do we have a police force? Who is accountable for us and for our rights?
It is important to note that murders like Yatim exist everywhere, even in the most organized of societies. In July 2011, in Norway, a country with one of the highest living standards worldwide, Andres Behring Breivik single-handedly massacred 77 innocent people, most of them eye-to-eye. This crazed man committed a heinous act within an institutionalized environment characterised by harmony, prosperity, peace and functionality. The psychology of killers like Breivik and Yatim is not something new to humankind. Tarik Yatim is not an anomaly. Georges’ death is a manifestation of a much larger problem, much larger than Yatim. It is a manifestation of anarchy. It is a manifestation of a war culture.
A war culture arises when a community encourages or enjoins acts of murder. Murder is against human nature and to engage it requires an immense amount of distance between the killer and their target, ultimately resulting in the dehumanization of the latter. For example, the brutal acts committed against humankind by ISIS did not arise because its proponents are ‘simply evil’ but rather because the society that ISIS was built on lost the mechanisms ascribed to a civilized society. Such mechanisms are described clearly by Karl Ove Knausgaard: “I am thinking of the bonds among people, the presence of the other in ourselves, and the responsiveness around which every community and culture is built, which reveals itself in the commandment we see in the faces of others: do not kill.”
What makes the state of our political and legal systems different than that of ISIS? Well, ours is a facade. The fancy government buildings in Beirut are hollow and paralysed by sectarian strife. They are part of a great illusion that ‘we have some sort of system in place’ and that ‘we are not in a state of anarchy, unlike our barbaric neighbors in the north.’ However, we too live in a culture of war just as much as they do, except our war culture is disguised and simmering underneath the surface with potentially fatal consequences. The Boiling Frog theory adequately describes the situation: If you place a frog in hot boiling water it will immediately jump out, but if you place it in cold water and slowly heat the water then the frog will slowly be cooked to death. Of the two scenarios, I think it is fairly obvious which one we fall under.
Some people don’t care whether or not we collectively exist in anarchy. Those people are protected by the political sect they subscribe to. It shocks me, though, how sustainable these people think such a system can be. Power does not last forever, not even for the political groups that these dogmatists hold on so tightly to.
What lasts? Community, rights, and justice.
Nour Chehabeddine
“Hi, I’d like to order one pepperoni pizza, please.”
“Ma’am, this is the police. You dialed 911”
“Yes, one large pizza, please.”
And she hung up.
Under Canadian laws, the police are required to arrive at the location from which a telephone call was made regardless of the absurdity or peculiarity of the phone call. The conversation described above illustrates a true incident that occurred in Canada: A woman was being physically abused by her husband. She pretended to order a pizza in order to covertly call the police in the presence of her husband. Indeed, the police did arrive at her home after she made the call and she was saved. In fact, under Canadian domestic abuse law, the police will automatically arrest the accused and allow for a pending formal trial. Furthermore, there need only be a possibility of domestic abuse for the police to lawfully arrest the accused. In this case, her husband was immediately arrested, found guilty and put in jail. This woman was protected by the laws enforced upon the police force and by her own rights under the law. She continues to be protected by a community that recognizes the right to life. All these factors helped a woman avert, what could have been, a life full of pain, tragedy and maybe even death. Justice was served.
Juxtaposing the story above to the recent and tragic death of Georges Al-Rif, and many other Lebanese citizens that suffered a similar fate, it is clear that Tarik Yatim was not the only person that killed Georges. The government and the police force in our country also killed Georges. Georges was denied his basic right to life, as well as his right to safety and protection by the state. Clearly there are no laws or procedures put in place to deal with situations like that of Georges. When Georges’ wife called the police for help, they replied by saying that there was no one available to assist her. So then, why do we have a police force? Who is accountable for us and for our rights?
It is important to note that murders like Yatim exist everywhere, even in the most organized of societies. In July 2011, in Norway, a country with one of the highest living standards worldwide, Andres Behring Breivik single-handedly massacred 77 innocent people, most of them eye-to-eye. This crazed man committed a heinous act within an institutionalized environment characterised by harmony, prosperity, peace and functionality. The psychology of killers like Breivik and Yatim is not something new to humankind. Tarik Yatim is not an anomaly. Georges’ death is a manifestation of a much larger problem, much larger than Yatim. It is a manifestation of anarchy. It is a manifestation of a war culture.
A war culture arises when a community encourages or enjoins acts of murder. Murder is against human nature and to engage it requires an immense amount of distance between the killer and their target, ultimately resulting in the dehumanization of the latter. For example, the brutal acts committed against humankind by ISIS did not arise because its proponents are ‘simply evil’ but rather because the society that ISIS was built on lost the mechanisms ascribed to a civilized society. Such mechanisms are described clearly by Karl Ove Knausgaard: “I am thinking of the bonds among people, the presence of the other in ourselves, and the responsiveness around which every community and culture is built, which reveals itself in the commandment we see in the faces of others: do not kill.”
What makes the state of our political and legal systems different than that of ISIS? Well, ours is a facade. The fancy government buildings in Beirut are hollow and paralysed by sectarian strife. They are part of a great illusion that ‘we have some sort of system in place’ and that ‘we are not in a state of anarchy, unlike our barbaric neighbors in the north.’ However, we too live in a culture of war just as much as they do, except our war culture is disguised and simmering underneath the surface with potentially fatal consequences. The Boiling Frog theory adequately describes the situation: If you place a frog in hot boiling water it will immediately jump out, but if you place it in cold water and slowly heat the water then the frog will slowly be cooked to death. Of the two scenarios, I think it is fairly obvious which one we fall under.
Some people don’t care whether or not we collectively exist in anarchy. Those people are protected by the political sect they subscribe to. It shocks me, though, how sustainable these people think such a system can be. Power does not last forever, not even for the political groups that these dogmatists hold on so tightly to.
What lasts? Community, rights, and justice.
Nour Chehabeddine