By Jamie Kanter
Arizona Daily Wildcat
December 3, 1997

Winnie the Pooh and murder, too

Arizona Daily Wildcat Jamie Kanter

So you thought apartheid was yesterday's news. So did I.

Then I read this story in The New York Times (an all-too-rare occurrence) about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela. It seems that she has thrown her hat into the political ring of South Africa and, in so doing, has opened herself to numerous character attacks and government probes into her past.

And what did they find? Murder, corruption, coercion, kidnapping, assault - you know, the usual stuff.

Scary as it may sound, the seemingly honorable first lady of South Africa is not playing well with others. More than 20 people, including some of her closest advisers, have come forward to testify to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel examining the offenses of apartheid. They claim that they saw her plunging a pair of scissors into the body of a boy whom she had kidnapped and that she organized several "disappearances."

And why did she do that? Well, it seems that the lady was acting on a simple little impulse we like to call "vengeance." She was angry about the atrocities committed during the era of apartheid in South Africa and she took it upon herself to right those wrongs.

Nothing was off-limits, either. Mandela maintained a stable of hired killers, affectionately referred to as the Mandela United Football Club (a clever euphemism, or a really frightening soccer team). She was convicted of assaulting and kidnapping the aforementioned scissors boy. She also ordered a doctor killed when he refused to help her embarrass a white priest by claiming that he was having sex with young boys. What a pistol she is.

In theory, these crimes sound atrocious. In a socio-political context, it seems almost natural that Mandela would want to lash out at her people's oppressors. We might even try to justify her actions by claiming that she was simply returning the favor of so many years of hardship. Those bastards probably deserved it anyway.

We tend to say that a little too much for my liking. We like to justify crimes against humanity by saying that the bad guys were so bad that they deserve whatever punishment they receive. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We sit on the moral high ground of justice and morality, dishing out heaping spoonfuls of the Truth. We decide who is right and who is wrong.

In this country, we opt for capital punishment. If someone commits a murder, then they should be murdered. It's brilliant in its simplicity.

There's only one small problem that I see with our plan - it's wrong. I don't care how many Bible verses contradict what I say nor do I care how much it costs to keep a prisoner in prison for the rest of his life, even though that cost is less than the cost of countless appeals. The fact of the matter is that killing is wrong, no matter the circumstances.

What is so atrocious about murder? Most of you would probably say that the murderer unfairly ends the life of another. I agree. The thing that I don't get about folks like Winnie Mandela and her ilk is that they kill to make up for killing. While I'm sure that vengeance fills one with a great sense of accomplishment, the feeling must be an empty one.

If you murder a murderer, you become a murderer. Whether you are justified in your desire for revenge is inconsequential; you are a murderer. If society kills a murderer, then society is a murderer. There is no gray area, no room for interpretation.

Some claim that society is better off without these awful killers. Sure it is, but that should not give society a right to take the lives of its citizens. If we want punishment, we can give the criminal a life sentence with no possibility of parole. Many murderers, given the option, would choose death over a certain life sentence. Life in prison clearly punishes the criminal, and capital punishment is nothing short of murder. We sink to the level of the murderer if we choose to murder. It is only a matter of time before vigilantism is accepted as proper behavior. And then, who knows?

Perhaps Judd Nelson said it best: "It'll be anarchy."

As I look at the issue of vengeance in the world today, I see a lot of misguided people out there. They all have good intentions, but we know where that leads. There is simply no way to say that committing a moral crime to avenge a moral crime is right.

I am reminded of some great advice that my mom gave me on more than one occasion - two wrongs don't make a right.

My mother's a pretty smart lady.

Jamie Kanter is a senior majoring in Spanish and psychology.