Over the holidays one of the books I read was “An Ordinary Man” by Paul Rusesabagina. His real life experience as the general manager of the Hotel Mille Collines during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, was the inspiration for the film “Hotel Rwanda“.

One of the issues he discusses, which I found to be profound, was the question of whether the true nature of human beings was more geared towards doing evil than good? As a species, do we fall primarily under the Darwinian law of “survival of the fittest”, the resulting by-product of which are the wars, conflicts, genocides and other atrocities which we continually face throughout the ages, the present and into the future? Are we engaged in a losing battle against the very nature of humankind, i.e., the “so-called” 7 deadly sins: pride, jealousy, greed, gluttony, lust, anger, laziness… when we put forth the effort to be humble, supportive, generous, sharing, exercise self-control, forgiving and responsible? Are the virtues of justice, equality, liberty, integrity, charity, kindness, mercy, etc., figments of our imaginations and delusions of our spirit? And if doing “evil” is not the natural state of humankind, then what is it, why aren’t we doing it and how do we get there? 

To participate in this carnival, post an essay on this topic on your blog page and then forward the link of your post to Afrospear@hotmail.com, by Sunday 13 January. The carnival date will be Monday 14 January when all the links will be posted here.