Evil in our midst

ONE hears a lot about evil these days: the axis of evil, the evils of pornography, paedophilia, contract killings, etc.

But my own image of evil is the slaughterhouse. Of the many thousands of people with whom I have become acquainted throughout my life, very few, I am certain, would be capable of spending a day in a slaughterhouse, killing one animal after another, an entire day spent killing the innocent.

The unpleasant tasks we cannot bring ourselves to carry out, we allow others to do for us. No one really thinks about the slaughterhouse, the absolute terror of the animal, the ugly act of killing, the butchery that follows.