Shantaram-Part 3

"The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men and a hundred million coward. The evil men are the power-the rich men, and the politicians, and the fanatics of religion-whose decisions rule the world, and set it on its course of greed and destruction. There are only one million of them, the truly evil men, the the whole world. The very rich and the very powerful, whose decisions rally count-they only number one million. the stupid men, who number ten million, are the soldiers and policemen who enforce the rule of the evil men. They are the standing armies of the twelve key countries, and the police forces of those and twenty more. In total, there are only ten million of them with any real power or consequence. They are often brave, I'm sure, but they are stupid, too, because they give their lives for governments and causes that use their flesh and blood as mere chess pieces. Those governments always betray them or let them down or abandon them, in the long run. Nations neglect no men more shamefully than the heroes of their wars." "And the hundred million cowards, they are the bureaucrats and paper shufflers and pen-pushers who permit the rule of the evil men, and look the other way. They are the head of this department, and the secretary of that committee, and the president of the other associations. They are managers, and officials, and mayors, and officers of the court. They always defend themselves by saying that they are just following orders, or just doing their job, and it's nothing personal, and if they don't do it, someone else surely will. They are the hundred million cowards who know what is going on, but say nothing, while they sign the paper that puts one man before a firing squad, or condemns one million men to the slower death of a famine.""This formula-the one million, the ten million, the hundred million-this is the real truth of all politics. Marx was wrong. It is not a question of classes, you see, because all the classes are in the hands of this tiny few. This set of numbers is the cause of empire and rebellion. This is the formula that has generated our civilisations for the last ten thousand years. This built the pyramids. This launched your Crusades. This put the world at war, and this formula has the power to impose the peace."

Joseph choosing to stay in prison and not accept help persuade anyone to his reasons for committing his crime.. "Joseph turned to look into my eyes. His face was fixed between a smile and a frown. His eyes were burning, and glistening beneath the tight brows of his frown, while his lips held a happy smile. He couldn't know it of coarse: but with that simple nod of his head, he had answered the question that had remained with me, as a dull ache of doubt, since the prison. Joseph was saved. That was the look simmering in his eyes as he nodded his head. It was the fever of salvation. That look, that frowning smile, combined shame and exultation because both are essential-shame gives exultation its purpose, and exultation gives shame its reward. We'd saved his as much by joining in his exultation as we had by witnessing his shame. And all of it depended upon our action, our interference in his life, because no man is saved without love. What characterises the human race more, Karla once asked me, cruelty or the capacity to feel shame for it? I'm lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn't cruelty or shame that characterises the human race. It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."

"Prisions are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate."