No height left to fall
NO fall is more precipitous than the fall of a man in his own eyes. Former South Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun took that fall when he hurled himself from a hill that ended his life. He was under investigation for corruption at the time of his death, and didn't wish to wait for a verdict on him. In one final fall, Roh put an end to the misery of falling everyday into the perilous gorges of moral compunctions. He may have jumped from a height, but the fall was entirely worked out inside his mind.
A scandal is when a naughty man runs out of luck. Roh was lucky no doubt. He came from an impoverished background, a self-taught lawyer who never attended college. The same luck, which threw him down to his death, had earlier shot him to power and fame. He was once impeached, removed from power for several months and then reinstated. It was as if he was lifted one last time so that his fate could increase the impact of the imminent fall. In the end, like most naughty men, a scandal ran him out, first of luck, then of life.
For us it must be difficult to fathom the significance of that fall, since our minds are focused only on the rise. We have no idea that morality works like a watch, that the gear train turned by a coil spring powers the balance wheel, everything controlled by an escapement mechanism that delivers the hour within its time. Roh failed to escape that escapement, which at last ticked him towards the hour of moral reckoning and forced him to reap as he sowed.
Interesting that it doesn't work for us. Somehow our moral clock has a different escapement either because the spring is loose or the gear is jammed. The hour comes too soon or it never does. In countries like South Korea and Japan, it's honorable for men to take their lives in acceptance of guilt. Suicide is confession to them. Confession is suicide to us.
May be that news never traveled to Roh. He would have been safe in this country and he didn't have to die. He would have been sentenced, the rest of it being as smooth as flicking hair from a knob of butter. He would have surrendered in court, and gone to jail. In a day or two he was going to be diagnosed with diabetes or blood pressure or both, and transferred to a hospital for care and treatment. By the time he was nursed back to "good health", his lawyer would have come with the bail.
There must be a good number of people in this country who are scratching their heads. It doesn't make sense to them that a former president should take his life over a meager $6 million scam. Many of these men have survived multiple scams that included extortion, bribery, murder and rape. No big deal if one should break a few eggs to make an omelet.
If the former South Korean president had a chance to talk to these men, they would have surely advised him not to take that plunge. They would have told him the harrowing tales of their days in prison, when they were tortured and interrogated to give up information about their ill-gotten wealth. They bent a little, broke a little, not to say that the pain of it, not the shame of it, occasionally forced them to contemplate suicide. But they knew something Roh should have known better: He, who endures, shall conquer.
But Roh did neither. Instead he succumbed to his unwavering conscience, the manufactory of moral impulses, which recycles shame into pain. Not long ago we took a scattershot attempt in this country to root out corruption. Not long ago we rounded up the rich and famous on bizarre charges that included, amongst other things, misappropriation of relief goods.
Then nothing happened to them. Yes, some of them are still ticking the box. They are surrendering in court, going to jail and getting the bail, pretty much like getting a clean bill of health at the end of annual checkup. Not one of them did anything silly (touch wood), like leaping to his death or taking his life by any other means. We may have raised some filthy rich people, but not any fools.
Daniel Webster, a leading American lawyer in the 19th century, said in a famous murder case that there was no refuge from confession but suicide. That tells something about us. When guilt doesn't hurt, there is no confession. When there is no confession, there is no suicide. When there is no suicide, there is no conscience.
Perhaps we have fallen so far down that there is no height left to fall.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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