A Sense of Proportion

Reporting of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s last-ditch effort to collar any Nazi war criminals that might still be alive, [BBC] Radio 4 asked a few German citizens how they felt about it. Predictably one (1) interviewee was heard saying that advanced age and frailty should never buy impunity and one (1) other that perhaps it’s time to quit picking at an old wound. All in strict accordance with journalistic etiquette – balance muss sein.
Suppose that those nonagenarians weren’t guilty of directing countless Jews and others to their deaths but instead of sexual intimacy with children. What would the vox-pop have sounded like then? I have no proof of course because the question wasn’t asked but somehow I think I can guess. And the answer, to me, is deeply depressing.
Admittedly “sexual intimacy” is something of a euphemism for what’s being unearthed in Catholic boarding schools worldwide but these two questions sound like a useful snap test to see if we should be even remotely interested in a given person’s moral views.
Organisations like the Simon Wiesenthal Centre have their work cut out and will probably still do so long after the last Nazi war criminal, Khmer Rouge or Rwandan génocidaire has turned to dust.

Wednesday 24 July 2013