A code of honor

A long time since my last post! Been feeling kind of nostalgic. It's been exactly a year since I first came to this campus for my interview. That sure was a defining moment in my life :)

About this post, this was somewhat inspired by a couple of Mario Puzo books I read a long while back. They got me thinking about crime and its perpetrators. So, what does define crime? Non adherence to rules of society, perhaps. How do these rules get their holy sanction? A possible reason could be that they have been accepted and followed through the years. And they ensure, to the greatest possible extent, liberty and justice for all. Diverting to a parallel track, would the existence of another and an auxiliary government be illegal?

For long, almost since its inception, the Italian mafia has been labeled as a criminal organization. Digging through to its origins, we find that it was born at a time when justice was denied to the poor and helpless. It came into existence, primarily, to provide that same justice that the poor deserved. The group was not one of senseless savages with ill intentions, rather it was a well organized system of intelligent people who were dissatisfied with the powerful rich and decided to institute their own set of rules.

Within the organization, there was tremendous law and order and a well established system of punishment. There was a way to ask permission or for justice. The head of the family was omnipotent and held sacred. Payment for favors was made in the form of money or a favor held, to be returned later. A promise once made was never reneged. Revenge taken, kills made followed the existing traditions. Never did anyone dare put a toe out of the line, not even the family, as it was punishable by death. That was their law, and they held it sacred, holier than their own lives and their loves.

There was an organized hierarchy, to preserve secrecy and protect themselves. The hierarchy did not shield a group of crazed and immoral criminals. Rather, they were, as they believed themselves to be, keepers of a parallel system of justice. The question here being: does mere disregard for and dissatisfaction with existing regulations, and adherence to a separate law and order system, one guided by your conscience, qualify as criminal behavior. Of course, at a later stage, the mafia did indulge in purposeless criminal activities.

Then, again I ask, is it wrong to blame one, repeatedly denied justice and freedom, if he takes to punishing those who have wronged him. He hurts not those who are innocent in his eyes. He believes only in eradication of criminals who have obviously erred and been forgiven by the system. Would killing a killer be a wrongful murder? Would stealing from the opulent, who take from the commoners, only to give back wealth and equality to their rightful owners, be very wrong? Would punishing those who lie to, steal from, kill and beguile the innocent be mindless and criminal? Is revenge or punishment wrong and purposeless??