Over the last few weeks, the world has looked on as a smartly-dressed Caucasian man has appeared in a South African court accused of murder. It seems that everyone has an opinion of Oscar Pistorius, who claims to have accidentally shot and killed his former girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of 14th February last year. For Reeva’s grieving family and friends, the previous year has been a nightmare. No number of condolences will bring back from the grave one whose life was tragically cut short; and whatever verdict Oscar eventually receives, be it murder or manslaughter, will offer little in the way of consolation.
While many view the sprinter in a negative light, no one knows exactly what took place that morning – no one, that is, except the man standing in the dock. But that has not stopped observers from viewing Oscar’s testifying in court with deep suspicion. If anything, many consider his performance in court, which has seen the alpha male burst into tears and vomit on occasion, as an attempt to manipulate public opinion in his favour. In a sense, that view would be correct: Pistorius’ lawyers have had months to prepare for this trial and would have drilled their client in countless mock trials to make sure he would be able to explain his version of events – and without contradicting himself – in court, with the prosecutor and the world media looking on, hoping to expose him for the murderer they believe him to be.
But the approach that his defence team has adopted is to be expected. Whether they succeed at portraying their client as an honourable, law abiding citizen – who became unwittingly involved in a terrible accident – can mean the difference between a long prison sentence and a slightly shorter one. But for those who dislike artifice, Oscar is a liar, and every word and utterance proceeding from his mouth would serve only to confirm their conviction that he is not to be trusted.
But in light of this high stakes trial, let us entertain a major counterfactual: what if Mr Pistorius hadn’t cried in court? What if, upon seeing pictures of his fatally wounded girlfriend, he hadn’t vomited? What if he hadn’t said that the events of that fatal morning haunt him to this day? Instead, what if the Oscar we see in court had claimed that the shooting was simply an incident; that having to testify in court was ‘annoying’; that he would much rather be at home watching television?
This hypothetical situation is worth imagining because it shares similarities with another murder trial involving a Caucasian man that took place so to speak on the African continent. This fictional trial is described in the novel The Stranger by French writer Albert Camus, which follows the life of Meursault, who appears in a court in French Algeria charged with murdering an Arab man. In Camus’ story, Meursault is the Stranger, a young man living with complete and utter detachment from his world and its preoccupations. What is spectacular about him is his inability and unwillingness to make judgements of the world around him – a characteristic that defines him as one of the most maddening characters in world literature. At the start of the novel, Meursault tells us of his mother passing away, but does not transmit the news to us with anything approaching emotion. Upon arriving at the elderly home where his mother’s corpse is being kept, he does not cry or reflect on the fragility of life; rather, he smokes in the presence of others, completely indifferent as to what they may be thinking. That evening, he goes to the cinema and spends the night with a young woman. And then a few days later, he shoots an Arab man dead. All of these facts he describes in almost autistic detail, making no attempt to portray himself or others in a positive light.
Standing in the courtroom, Meursault confesses to the shooting but does not show the faintest sign of remorse. He does not claim to have a motive for the killing and is not characterised by any strong emotions. In fact, earlier in the novel when Meursault describes the exact moment he kills the man, he seems to suggest that it is the overwhelming force of the sun’s radiance beating down on him that compels him pull the trigger – an action more sensuous than senseless. As far as Meursault is aware, the shooting isn’t a big deal: the Arab man’s life was bound to end at some point – and whether he was to die of natural causes or be pierced with a bullet makes not one iota of difference. Meursault defies our expectations as to how a defendant ought to act in court; not surprisingly, he wins him little sympathy from the jury.
When it is the prosecutor’s turn to speak, however, what is notable is that the prosecutor focuses his attention less on the incident that resulted in a man’s death, and more on the person that is Meursault. Evidence of the protagonist’s nonchalant attitude towards his mother’s death – as seen in his failing to grieve and in his involvement in an “irregular liaison” with a young woman – are heard in court, testifying to his lacking in human decency. This attempt at portraying the defendant as a heartless monster is ultimately successful, for despite the subsequent efforts of Meursault’s lawyer to paint him as an honest, hardworking citizen, Meursault’s fate has been sealed. Convicted of murder, he is to be guillotined in public.
The Stranger is a fascinating novel because it illuminates a fundamental truth: for us humans, there is always a right emotion to feel for every occasion. Even if the consequences of a wicked act may never be reversed, it is still comforting to see the perpetrator face retribution in the form of feeling bad for the wrongs they had wrought. One of the most infamous criminals in recorded history, Judas Iscariot, felt terrible for betraying Jesus, and subsequently killed himself. In some ways, the pangs of guilt, shame, and remorse that a criminal can feel are seen as a superior form of punishment to a jail sentence, because while the latter may constitute but the deprival of material comforts, the former involves the guilty parties subjecting themselves to self-torment – that is, a harrowing experience that afflicts their entire being. In this way, while the concept of corrective action appeals to our natural desire for vengeance, it is limited insofar as it does not guarantee the perpetrator of evil deeds undergoing a mental purgatory.
It is for this reason that Meursault suffers at the hands of the French judicial system, for he does not behave in the way expected of him. The fact that he views death in so carefree a way – as seen in how he handles the deaths of his mother and the Arab man he had shot – results in him losing any respectability in the eyes of the public. The jury had expected him to show sadness over their deaths – so his refusal to play by their rules offends their values, which they use to make sense of what Camus may consider a senseless universe, and leads inevitably to his public execution. Had he lied through his teeth and feigned sadness over the deaths, and had the prosecutor been less skilled at manipulating public opinion, perhaps his life would have been spared.
Going back to the hypothetical situation for Oscar Pistorius we imagined earlier, it does not take a genius to imagine what would ensue: his lawyers would be pinching themselves in disbelief; the news media would become even more caught up in their feeding frenzy; everyone following the case would be moved with indignation. Oscar would be subject to the most ferocious attempts at character assassination: he would be branded a scoundrel, incapable of neither sympathy nor empathy. With his reputation as a human being in tatters, some may even call for the death penalty to be reinstated. His name would live long in infamy, his testimony synonymous with moral depravity. Ladies and gentlemen: the Anti-Christ is among us.
Over-the-top though this scenario may seem, it falls well within the realms of possibility. Human nature is such that if a man fails to cry at his mother’s funeral, he is bound to face the public’s wrath. But of course, what society is really taking offence at is a man’s comfort with the possibility of his and their lives having no meaning other than the ones they have constructed for themselves. Meursault is handed a death sentence not because he is proven to be evil – but because he challenges the legitimacy of society’s code of ethics. And because society needs a common morality that they can abide by and regulate, society gets rid of all those who bring the legitimacy of its morality into question. That is why every criminal trial must necessarily feature the sort of ingratiating behaviour Oscar Pistorius is currently engaging in, lest his name be tarnished more than it already is. This may well be an uncomfortable truth; then again, to paraphrase a well-known saying: in the courtroom, the first victim is truth.
Samedi Quelquechose 