Justice between mercy and violence

Mercy is not merely a value; it is also a feeling. In fact, it is one of the most fundamental feelings loaded into human beings, the one that keeps the world standing. The minimum mercy that people show toward those close to them also prevents them, in any case, from turning into wolves against one another.

However, there are also cases where this minimum feeling is reduced to the barest minimum, or reaches a high level in society. The mercy that people content themselves with showing only toward their own kin, toward those close to them through blood, race, religion or other kinds of ties, adds nothing to the level of humanity. Because all biological creatures already do this with the feelings produced by the bond of the womb.

What matters is to be full of mercy also toward those with whom we do not have this bond of the womb. To be able to regard them as a servant created by God, a living being, a part of nature; to bear a feeling of mercy toward all human beings, all living beings and nature, knowing that they are under the mercy of God, who is the Merciful...

It is related that Abraham, famous for his hospitality, found it strange that someone who came to him as a guest began the meal he set before him without saying the basmala. Because of this, God warned him: "We have never withheld the sustenance of this servant of Ours since he was born, regardless of whether he said the basmala or not; do you want a reward for a meal you will feed?" It is said that it was upon this warning that Abraham, the prophet of tawhid, who was famous for his table, opened his table to people without making any distinction and without expecting any return.

It is clear that many of the problems from which the world suffers today point to a serious problem of injustice. That is why everyone puts the whole emphasis on justice. Justice is always a concept and discourse that has a very serious counterpart in political discourse as well. Injustice in income, injustice in opportunity, in participation, in sharing, injustice in the judiciary, injustice in the distribution of duties according to qualification and merit, according to wage and burden, and so on.

The injustices current in the world in all these matters, at a level that would pull the pin out of the world, lead justice to be the fundamental subject of politics as well. The search for justice turns into the magic word for all the problems people are living through, and after a while it begins to share the final fate of all these concepts: Fetishization.

One reason why the concept of justice loses its real weight and meaning by being fetishized and reified is, in fact, that its bond with mercy is being neglected.

To put a justice whose axle has slipped back in its place is hard, even a task requiring force-violence. This is a place that requires thinking once more about "being against violence no matter what". To the extent that establishing justice requires punishment and sanctions, its application ultimately also includes a violence that targets the human being, even if guilty. Violence and mercy are, in a way, opposites, but each is a necessary component of a world standing in its proper place on the basis of justice.

Justice cannot be without mercy, but it cannot be without violence either.

It is not possible to have a mechanism of justice without penal sanctions. Nevertheless, even where it has been violated, there is a way of re-establishing justice that sets violence aside, and that is forgiving, waiving a claim.

In most of the places where justice needs violence, one immediately notices that there is a lost mercy. Where the feeling of mercy functions effectively, on the other hand, justice works by itself. Since there is no way other than hardship to keep standing a mechanism of justice produced in a world that excludes mercy, demeaning it by coding it as a needless feeling, it produces in total far greater pains and injustices.

Our esteemed friend Erol Göka, who has started a fine discussion at parting on the relationship between mercy and justice, also showed very well that justice cannot be sustained by institutional and legal measures alone.

For instance, regarding the incidents we call "femicides", there are probably more than enough regulations made by way of preventive measures

, with nothing lacking. It can be said that even excess has been committed in legal measures that could protect women against the violence of thuggish men, and even deter them from this violence. Despite this, it is observed that, in proportion to these legal measures, murders or incidents of violence increase in parallel. For instance, can we not attribute the reason for this to the growing mercilessness of both sides toward each other?

Might all these developments not be a consequence of ignoring that the human being is a being that also bears compassion, mercy and responsibility toward others, and of loading all the precaution onto a fetishized justice?

Is this not also a question worth thinking about?