As I sit writing this in the outdoor garden restaurant of Singapore’s Changi prison chapel museum there is a calm sense of peacefulness in the air. The sun is shining and a balmy breeze blows while smiling bar staff and chefs bustle about. This is a stark contrast to what lies within the prison doors. The Changi prison was originally built by the British occupying government in 1936 to house Singapore’s criminals but in 1941 when the Japanese invaded Singapore it was taken over to house the allied POW’s including a number of Australians. The museum houses the history of the abhorrent conditions allied soldiers and Singaporean civilians were submitted to during this period, including stories of starvation, prostitution, beatings, torture, and mass killings.

 

Of course war and its inherent violence are nothing new but why, as humans with the capacity for love and benevolence, do we inflict so much violence on not only each other but ourselves, our animal brethren and even the planet itself? It’s easy to claim it’s just in our nature, but then again living in peace and harmony with our surroundings could also be said to be in our nature.

 

 

The fact is that violence does not exist outside of the social structures that we live in and create such as that of politics, religion, economics, sports, philosophy, psychology and the natural world to name a few. For example, one cannot dismiss the correlation between extreme poverty and violent behavior. This blight on humanity exists primarily as a result of inequitable economic structures. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out that when people are hungry they want to eat and may resort to violent means to support themselves and their families.

 

Although there has been a lot of literature written about violent behavior, there is no expert consensus as to why we are such a violent species. Interestingly, one theme that surfaces frequently is the fact that our violence towards others can quite often stem from a dislike of ourselves, that we project our inner contempt, dissatisfaction, fears and insecurities outwards towards a perceived ‘enemy’. It seems to be no coincidence that a lot of the violent behavior that our society experiences is directed inwards, such as incessant negative thoughts that manifest themselves as mental illnesses, destructive addictions, self harm, and the ultimate act of self hatred and despair; suicide.

 

 

Philosophers such as Socrates who urged us that reason ends inner warfare did so for good reasons. Yet it is an undeniable fact that we are a species of warriors, war metaphors are infused in everything we do - just look at the business section in any book store for an overdose of it, or pick up any history book or newspaper. But perhaps the problem is not our warrior instinct but what we do with that energy. The author John Bly talked a lot about this and believed that we can and must use our warrior instinct for creation and benevolence rather than evil and destruction. The revered Martin Luther King Jr described our options as this; ‘Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness’.

 

As I finish writing this I am preparing to fly out of Singapore to Cambodia, the previous home of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, one of the world’s most heinous regimes, a government that slaughtered and purged its people while the world’s international communities stood by, and in some cases even provided support to. I’m not sure how I will feel about the Killing Fields and the genocide museum but I have heard that the Cambodian people are generally an openly warm and peaceful community. I await the paradox.