Dictum of the day, or on the banality of evil redux

The Court took all these factors into consideration when meting out the sentence, noting that it was completely ordinary and normal for a human being to have no ethnic bias, to root for a football club, to love children and to be a devout believer. This Panel, however, notes that what is most difficult to understand is the fact that in Srebrenica in July 1995, once again, numerous and most heinous crimes were committed by ordinary people with average intellect and moral values.

Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Radomir Vuković and Zoran Tomić, Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, First Instance Verdict, X-KR-06/180, 22 April 2010, para. 617.

Dictum of the day, or on the nature of hatred

...For many of us this means facing the uncomfortable truth that ordinary people are capable of committing genocide. What after all does it take? Perhaps unlike murder it takes a more complete indifference to a portion of humanity. The perpetrator must have the ability to forget that a specific portion of the population, of one's larger community, is human. It takes a consuming indifference to the fate of a member of this group. The very notion of indifference here goes beyond hate. Hate implies relationship, something many in this particular conflict had with neighbors, colleges, in-laws and schoolmates. But these relationships were also destroyed by the dehumanization that some, not all, embraced. While many resisted what they knew to be false, many did not and fell victim themselves to this propaganda. But once a person loses his humanity to indifference, genocide becomes a means to the end.

Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Milorad Trbić, First Instance Verdict, X-KR-07/386, 16 October 2009, para. 794.