Aung San Suu Kyi’s appearance before the International Court of Justice showed what the “banality of evil” looks like

By Fareed Khan

Many have heard the term “the banality of evil".  It was coined by Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany as Hitler rose to power, and it was the title of her 1963 book about the trial of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. Her premise was that not just fanatics or sociopaths commit acts of extreme evil.

The banality of evil is what the world witnessed as Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi tried to justify her nation’s crimes against the Rohingya before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on December 11th and 12th.  Her lack of reaction or expressions of remorse as the genocidal crimes were described by Gambia’s representatives, and her defense of what Myanmar did, epitomized Arendt’s hypothesis in practice.

This theory is also evident in how national leaders respond to acts of evil.  In the case of Canada, the US and other Western nations, the banality of evil was present in the lack of action by the international community to halt the Rohingya genocide.  The fact that no nations took action to halt the atrocities, particularly Western nations that claim to be defenders of human rights and the rule of law, is evidence to support Arendt’s views.

Eventually it was the small African nation of Gambia that decided to hold Myanmar accountable for its crimes by filing a case at the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention.  Why it was left to a nation with limited legal resources to launch the genocide case against Myanmar is a question that needs answering, especially since Rohingya rights activists in North American and Europe have repeatedly called for a genocide case to be filed against Myanmar at the ICJ since early 2018.

The West’s failure to prevent genocide when there was sufficient warning it was going to occur, the failure to stop it when it was happening, and the failure to act to prosecute the perpetrators when ample evidence is available, means that Western claims to be defenders of the rule of law and the international order are disingenuous.

To see other examples of the banality of evil in the world today we need look no further than China’s genocide against the Uyghurs, India’s human rights atrocities and violence targeting Kashmiris and other Muslim minority communities in that nation, and the more than 50 years of oppression, atrocities, mass murder and Apartheid committed by Israel against Palestinians.  In addition, it is evident in the international community’s lack of urgent action to these egregious criminal violations of international law, and the public's unwillingness to hold governments accountable for not standing up for the values we claim to uphold, that we are collectively complicit in the crimes.

These are just a few examples which show that humanity seems to be reliving the dark parts of history, particularly the rise in the ideology of hate, that led up to the horrors of World War 2.  Yet Justin Trudeau and other world leaders do little or nothing to keep it from recurring. It is like being on the Titanic, knowing it will hit an iceberg, but the captain does nothing to change the deadly outcome.

Around the world political leaders are getting away with committing acts of evil with impunity.  People like Aung San Suu Kyi, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu epitomize the banality of evil because they see nothing wrong  when the governments they lead commit crimes against humanity, mass murder, and even genocide. 

Yet Trudeau, and leaders of other nations claiming to defend international human rights and the rule of law, are willing to ignore these monstrous crimes, and only pay lip service to calls for justice for the victims.  Witnessing this is not only hard to believe but also infuriating, particularly given the annual public displays of “remorse” by politicians on occasions like Victims of Genocide Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Martin Luther King Jr. said the greatest sin of our time is not the destruction of the good around us by the few but the apathy of the vast majority who do nothing to stop it as it happens.  By this measure Trudeau, along with other leaders of nations claiming to be defenders of human rights, committed sins on an unimaginable scale.  

We should remember this as we come to end of the Christmas season, the season of “Peace on Earth” and showing goodwill.  And for the New Year let’s wish for a future that is far less banal, and work towards achieving it. 

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