When Humanity Failed—and Individuals Did Not

Disasters happen. But it seems to me that we can all learn from our own mistakes. A little honest reflection can allow even a catastrophe in our lives to become a pivotal moment: a point at which we change our behaviour or take a different direction. Yet when we confront mass killings, the horror can be so overwhelming that we do not want to look, listen or read about it. We turn away. Some even deny that it happened.

On 14 December 2012, a gunman murdered twenty children, all aged six or seven, and six members of staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Afterwards, the American broadcaster Alex Jones promoted the false claim that the massacre was staged and that grieving relatives were actors. Families already suffering an unimaginable loss were subjected to harassment and threats by people who believed these lies.

Relatives brought civil proceedings against Jones and were awarded substantial damages. Yet, according to reporting in August 2026, they had still collected no money from him, while he continued broadcasting on other platforms. Nearly fourteen years after the shooting, their grief had been compounded by years of abuse and legal battles. It hurts the heart to think of them. What can one say—and what on earth has been learned?

Justice matters. When the scale of suffering beggars belief, we must resist the temptation to avert our eyes. Examining what happened gives us a chance to recognise warning signs, confront failures and prevent further harm. Otherwise, history becomes a dreadful repeating record, and we seem continually surprised to hear it playing again.

On 11 January 1994, General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, sent an urgent cable to his superiors. Drawing on information from an insider in the Interahamwe militia, he warned of preparations for attacks on Tutsis, political assassinations and the killing of Belgian peacekeepers to provoke Belgium’s withdrawal. The informant reported being ordered to register Tutsis and suspected that this was preparation for their extermination. This was almost three months before the genocide began.

The warning did not produce an effective preventive response. Worse still, after the killing had begun, the UN Security Council voted on 21 April to reduce the peacekeeping force drastically. At the very moment civilians most desperately needed protection, international support was being withdrawn.

The genocide unfolded on the night of 6 April and into 7 April 1994, following the shooting down of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s aircraft. Habyarimana was Hutu and had signed a peace agreement providing for power-sharing with the predominantly Tutsi rebel movement and opposition parties. Hutu extremists opposed that settlement. Within half an hour of the aircraft’s destruction, roadblocks were being established to identify Tutsis. The assassination became the trigger for organised mass killing.

An estimated 800,000 people were killed over roughly one hundred days. The principal targets were Tutsis, but moderate Hutus and others who opposed the extremists were also murdered. Extremist radio broadcasts spread hatred, encouraged killing and helped direct the violence.

Yet alongside this terrible history are accounts of extraordinary courage. Those stories deserve to be remembered too.

General Dallaire remained in Rwanda with a greatly reduced peacekeeping contingent, trying to protect civilians amid the slaughter. Their efforts are credited with saving approximately 32,000 people. That was no small achievement. Nevertheless, he returned to Canada deeply traumatised and developed severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He has spoken openly about surviving four suicide attempts. With treatment and support, he went on to serve as a Canadian senator, write about his experiences and campaign for veterans’ mental health and the prevention of the recruitment of child soldiers.

Another courageous figure was Damas Gisimba, a Rwandan orphanage director who turned his family’s orphanage in Kigali into a refuge for more than four hundred people, mostly children. Despite shortages and repeated threats, he worked to protect those sheltering there. His commitment to vulnerable children continued long after the genocide.

Then there was Zura Karuhimbi, a Hutu woman who sheltered more than one hundred people, mainly Tutsis, in and around her home. About sixty-nine at the time, she exploited the attackers’ fear of witchcraft, pretending that supernatural forces would punish anyone who harmed those in her protection. It was an ingenious way for an unarmed woman to confront armed killers. In 2006, she received Rwanda’s Campaign Against Genocide Medal, although she continued to live in poverty. She died in 2018, aged approximately ninety-three. 

We cannot undo these atrocities. But we can listen to warnings, challenge lies and refuse to look away. These stories reveal how cruel human beings can become—and how astonishingly courageous others can be. Remembering both matters. Perhaps the most useful lesson is that, even in terrible circumstances, the choices individuals make can save lives.

Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.

 Bahá’u’lláh

Religion, Rooster Cogburn and a lack of grit

In searching for progress we are sometimes nudged gradually, painfully in certain directions.  For me one of the earliest turning points occurred during my confirmation classes at my local Church of Ireland.  The clergyman when alone with a dozen 13 year olds, instead of preparing us spiritually, engaged in a bit of indoctrination instead.  He lectured us on the disgusting betrayal marriage to Catholics would entail.  He then proceeded to spout a narrow minded evangelistic agenda that even I, a fairly naïve 13 year old girl from the high on the Sperrin mountains, could not tolerate. 

His predecessor the reverent Wills had been a mild elderly man, with metal circular glasses, who lectured in his sermons with soft pleas for humanity and understanding of one’s neighbours.  My father had queried this gentle little man, during a visit to our home, to be more demanding in his sermons.  He asked him,

“Why don’t you tell them to not just love their neighbours, but tell them to love their Catholic neighbours in particular.  Don’t you think that’s what Christ meant?”

The tiny man had carefully wiped his glasses in his lap and said apologetically,

“Now, Mr Stringer, I have to be careful not to offend the congregation, you know yourself what people are like in these parts.”

Rev Wills raised his narrow shoulders in sympathy but continued,

“Sure, if I did anything like that, I’d be preaching to an empty church and what purpose would that serve?”

Having just watched John Wayne in True Grit, I listened to this conversation with disappointment and could not help thinking what the nice Reverent Wills lacked was grit.  I’d have preferred if he had mounted the pulpit, a bible in each hand, and blasted the church goers left right and centre (like Rooster Cogburn), whatever their particular prejudices.  

Unfortunately, his successor lacked the essential goodness of Rev Wills and his gentleness.  His sermons were full of hell and grinding of teeth for all sinners.  His children classes were sufficiently traumatic with their burning pits and devils with horns that I’m sure he kept psychologists/counsellors and psychiatrists in business for decades later.  I had been dragged, by my father, to Sunday School classes and services for years and had complained bitterly.  It was the confirmation classes perversely that really confirmed my suspicions that this man was not good.   So clearly did I articulate my abhorrence for the content of these confirmation classes my father accepted my decision never to enter church premises ever again.  I viewed this new clergyman with the distain I had previously reserved for villains in a Dicken’s novel.   It was hardly fair but adolescents are many things but not forgiving. 

When, I was obliged to attend weddings or funerals I did so out of politeness and respect.  However, I listened to the sermon like a literary critic finding satisfaction when he spouted something that I disagreed with.  When the clergyman asked the congregation to kneel or bow their heads in prayer, I refused to do either.  Instead, he and I would often find ourselves eyeballing each other across the bowed heads of the devout.  I cultivated an accusing stare while he had a bewildered look.  I was confident my stare told him exactly what I thought of him.  Hardly fair, I am sure he had more good qualities than I.  To my adolescent mind he had fallen short of St Francis’s standard and did not deserve my respect or ear.  Ah, the black and white clarity of youth.  There are not even greys, just right and wrong.  The good guys and the bad ones.  In a divided community between Catholic and Protestant I found myself examining both with forensic intensity.  There was so much this autopsy unearthed I felt like a coroner disengaged from both sides.  It was a blessing that my father read so widely as through him I had an appreciation of the Bible and knowledge of Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.  In our family, reading was an obsession, whether it was the Quran, the recently translated  Dead Sea Scrolls  or the writings of Zoroaster.   It has long shocked me how terrified people are to truly investigate.  To search for the truth.  To set aside petty prejudices and really look.  This independent investigation was a constant call to arms.  Truth becomes obscured by ignorance and gradually disclosed by rational effort.  It leds to an appreciated of the essential truths that all the main religions share.  It helps elucidate the qualities that are needed in society if we are to improve our civilisation.  There have been enough rises and falls of civilisations to chart the symptoms of deterioration.  Even without a historical perspective an examination of present day society would suffice to tell us we are on a downward curve. 

After fifty years I am no longer an adolescent and colours have entered my palate.  There are forces of disintegration all around and people’s lives are caught up in this old world order. That is being rolled up.  Look into any institution and you cannot fail to find the corruption just beneath the surface.  Even the most well-intentioned bodies are hounded to a standstill by persistent selfish agendas.  But, I am no longer hopeless or in despair.  There are worse days ahead I’m sure.  Human society will weather storms we cannot even guess at now.  The intensity of such catastrophes will serve to decrease the strange lethargy we are all afflicted with.  Perhaps, anything that serves to allow us to come forth from the sheath of self will transform not just us but society.   The degree to which we engage in building that noble society the happier and more positive our mind-set.  Fighting the forces of darkness is like trying to dam a flood.  Constructing our personal defences, uniting with others who share a vision for a better future is empowering.  Change is coming, we can choose to endure it or embrace the transformation it entails.  It had ever been so. 

In the second century the early Christians were the victims of persecution. Polycarp, the venerable bishop of Smyrna was arrested and imprisoned. While under guard he prayed so fervently and powerfully the guards regretted that they had been involved in his capture.  Later, called upon to recant his faith he refused. "Eighty and six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong", Polycarp goes on to say, “Bring forth what thou wilt."  This elderly gentle bishop in his nineties was burnt at the stake.  Talk about true grit!

I firmly believe we are designed to be noble.  To be better, than we can even possibly imagine.  In reaching that goal a new and better civilisation becomes inevitable.