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by Chandra Edirisuriya

Crime was almost non-existent in simple self-contained societies where there was no want or competition among human beings. Man's only need was food and clothing and shelter were needed owing to climatic factors. The life of contentment that man led left no room for quarrels leading to causing injury and death to others or for rape or theft the most widespread of basic crimes today.

As man went through the stone, bronze and iron ages, life became more complex. In the streets of Athens the Greeks listened to the greatest of all Greeks, Socrates. He was a poor man, the son of a stone cutter. He tried hard by his questions to improve the individual citizen upon whom the greatness of Athens rested. But his questions left the citizens in doubt about many things including the old Greek gods.

So Socrates was tried and put to death (399 BC). The story of his death is told by his most famous pupil Plato. When Socrates addressed the jury he told them that the man that is good for anything ought not to calculate the chances of living and dying.

He ought only to consider whether he is doing anything right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or a bad. The putting to death of Socrates by giving him the cup of hemlock to drink is considered as one of the first judicial homicides in history. Jesus Christ was crucified and put to death under similar circumstances.

Today the world is so advanced in every way that if leaders of society pay heed to the views of learned men who are true intellectuals our children could be prevented from committing crime. One such intellectual in our country was the late Munidasa Cumaratunga. Dr. D. V. S. Harishcandra, Consultant Psychiatrist Teaching Hospital, Galle and Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Ruhuna University delivering the keynote speech at the 114th birth anniversary of Munidasa Cumaratunga said, "Cumaratunga being a master of child psychology had designed his literary work in the form of poems and stories for children masterfully to evoke the correct and appropriate emotions in children.

He expected to have for his motherland a generation of disciplined and cultured children who would be an asset to the nation."

Apart from religion and philosophic bent of mind that instils courage to endure hardship and discourages unrealisable ambition an aesthetic temperament will guide individuals to enjoy the beauty of nature and be content. In this context I am reminded of what the principal of the school I was once teaching at, told students of Grade VI-VIII, put in my charge. Addressing these students in the age group of 12 to 16 years, at the daily assembly, he said, "If you can go to the beach and enjoy the beauty of the sunset you'll never be criminals."

The bounty and diversity of nature has sufficient richness to give solace and provide nourishment to all mankind. I can never forget what our beloved master whom we called 'bassa' (owl) because of his wisdom and professorial look, who taught us English literature in Form V at my alma mater Ananda College, Colombo, wrote in my autograph album, which is now misplaced. Quoting R. L. Stevenson of 'Treasure Island' fame he had written the following two lines:

The world is so full of a number of things

I am sure we will all be able to live as happy as kings.

If the state guides the children properly, early in their lives with no discrimination to the vast majority of poor children, it would be the best and the most fruitful way to curb crime of every sort.

One of the first political crimes recorded in history was the assassination of the "Julius Caesar who made himself the first sole master of the Roman-Greek world on the Ides (15th) of March in 44 BC by Brutus, Cassius and others who hated the name and power of kings". (R. G. Ikin's 'A Pageant of World History). Brutus said, "I killed Caesar not that I loved him less but that I loved Rome more."

The French Revolution (1789) saw the killing of the King of France Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette and their eldest son (8) the Dauphin. The king and the queen were 'tried' for conspiring against the republic and were guillotined in 1793. Sir J. A. R. Marriott in 'The Evolution of Modern Europe' says 'the mob became impatient and demanded the death of the tyrant. Louis was found guilty by a narrow majority (of the national convention) on January 18 and executed on 21. He was no tyrant; but though personally well-meaning he was wholly lacking in initiative and was unequal to the crisis he was called upon to face.

Not long afterwards Ehelepola Kumarihamy and her infant children were put to death by a tyrant, Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe the last king of Kandy. S. M. D. Dolapihilla in his memorable work based on information coming down from his ancestors, 'The last days of Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe' says that the people of Kandy were so aggrieved by this gruesome killing when the king got the gahalaya, the executioner, to force Ehelepola Kumarihamy to kill her own children by pounding them in a mortar with a pestle and later she herself was thrown into the lake with a stone tied to her neck, that no smoke came from the chimneys in the kitchens of their houses for a number of days.

On June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand after attending the Bosnian manoeuvres as Inspector General of the Army paid a visit with his consort to Serajevo, the Bosnian capital and the husband and wife were assassinated. The murderers though Bosnian subjects were by birth Serbs. That it was an act of political revenge for the annexation of the Slav province by Austria cannot be questioned, but apart from that the circumstances of the crime were and are mysterious. It was this incident that triggered off the First World War.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 Czar Nicholas II was shot dead and his family was murdered. Vladimir Ilych Lenin Ulyanov (1870-1924) who launched the revolution was himself shot at Albeih he did not die instantly. Political assassinations have tarnished the history of the human kind and are still taking place uninterrupted.

Other political figures assassinated include Charles Stuart (1600-1649) king of England, Scotland and Ireland. He ruled for 11 years without parliament until rebellion broke out in Scotland. Conflict with the Long parliament led to civil war and his defeat at Naseby (1645). He was executed by the English Army under Cromwell.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) US Republican Statesman 16th President of the US who saved the union in the civil war (1861-65) and emancipated slaves was assassinated by Booth.

Genocide committed by Adolf Hitler trying to Aryanise the world and other 'liberators' who have perpetrated mass murder are considered as war criminals. Hitler was instrumental in and responsible for killing a large number of Jews in a cruel manner hauling them up in concentration camps and gassing them to death in the most inhuman manner. Those who obeyed Hitler's orders and were responsible for the holocaust were tried as war criminals. Germany had to pay reperations to the affected countries for the folly of the Fuhrer.

The Second World War for which Hitler was responsible cost mankind over seven million lives. Hitler imprisoned the communists, deprived the Jews of German citizenship and forbade their marriage with Aryans. The years that followed 1934 were called the Years of Fear - the fear of yet another war with greater horrors than the world had yet known.

Recent political killings include that of Indira Priyadarshani Gandhi Prime Minister of India (1966-77), and (1980-84) Mohandas Karamchard Gandhi known as Mahatma Gandhi (1869/1948) Indian political and spiritual leader, Rajiv Gandhi, Indian Prime Minister (1984-89), Leon Trotsky Russian Revolutionist and a leader of the November Revolutions (1917), (assassinated by a stalinist agent), Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike (1956-59).

A cloud hangs over the death of Dag Hammarskjold (1905-61) Swedish statesman and Secretary General of the United Nations Organization of a plane crash in Africa when he was shuttling North-South to solve the Congo crisis that resulted in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of Independent Congo in 1961. Ernesto (Che) Guevara (1928-67) Latin American politician and soldier born in Argentina, who developed guerrilla warfare as a tool for revolution and who was instrumental in Castro's victory in Cuba (1959) was killed under equally mysterious and suspicious circumstances while training guerrillas in Bolivia.

Crimes also include suicide for it is an offence to attempt to commit suicide. It was reported recently that 58,000 committed suicide in this country last year (2002). Suicides become illegal even after the commission of the act unlike in the case of a revolution which becomes legal when if succeeds. If a government pensioner commits suicide his dependents forfeit the right to the widows and orphans pension payment. Premeditated murder is the worst of crimes. It is inconceivable and incomprehensible how a person or a group of persons can think of putting another person or a group of persons to death.

However we can see such criminal elements even in highly exalted positions with criminality written on their faces. Criminally arises out of non-realisation of misplaced political ambition; disappointment, disenchantment and frustration engendered by emotional devastation and hopelessness caused by mass economic and social injustice as manifest from the innumerable revolts, rebellions, revolutions and uprisings throughout human history.

Out of the basic crimes for murder the driving force has been man's inhumanity to man. If it is proved that there was the intention to kill under normal circumstances it is sufficient ground for a man to be found guilty of culpable homicide or murder. However in the case of theft dishonesty is the necessary ingredient.

A criminal, at the time of committing the crime foolishly thinks that he will not be caught. But sometimes a criminal can be caught in the act (red-handed). Some criminals do not know that the act they commit is illegal. But the law presumes everyone to know the law. This has found expression in the Latin tag 'Ignorantiam juris non excusat' (Ignorance of the law is no excuse). Once when a judge very sternly reminded an accused of this the accused quipped 'My Lord I did not know that even'.

Victor Hugo in his masterpiece 'Les Miserable' portrays the desperate situation of his character Jean Valjean who is forced by hunger to steal a loaf of bread just as Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment endeavoured to dissect the mind of a murderer in his character Raskolnikov.

In the light of the above the craving for power of politicians which has resulted in innumerable political crimes through the ages has to cease with civilisation, cultural, social and economic advancement. This is already visible and discernible in economically advanced countries where political crimes are at their minimum. With the advancement of the economic conditions of the people, generally, and with social engineering spearheaded by policy makers who fashion State policy, crime can be reduced.

The coming into existence of the poor or the have nots whose lives are necessarily disorganised and who are lacking in refinement could well be considered as the root cause of the proliferation of crime in society.

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