The Lucifer Effect in the Streets: The Tragic End of Sri Lankan Parliamentarian Amarakirthi Athukorala

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge 

The shocking murder of former Sri Lankan parliamentarian Amarakirthi Athukorala, along with his security officer, during ARAGALAYA in 2022,  raises profound questions regarding human behaviour and the darker aspects of human nature. According to the reports, the mob attacked the two men with poles and clubs. The post-mortem examination revealed that MP Athukorala died from multiple injuries, severe fractures, and internal bleeding. This tragic incident was not perpetrated by professional assassins but rather by ordinary individuals. In light of this tragic event, it is imperative to pose a critical question. What drives an average individual to commit murder? 

During ARAGALAYA, we observed that certain radical politicians, celebrities, intellectuals from universities, community leaders, and even some members of the clergy not only endorsed violence but also subtly encouraged the public to target those they deemed enemies of the people. This prompts us to an important inquiry: what led ordinary civilians to engage in such acts of brutality?

Reflecting on our recent history reveals a series of shocking incidents, including brutal acts of violence perpetrated by ordinary individuals. One particularly shocking event occurred in 1956 during the racial riots in Panadura, where a Hindu Poosari was tragically burned alive by a mob. This act of savagery was not carried out by seasoned criminals but rather by everyday people who succumbed to the chaos and hatred of the moment. 

In 1971, Rohana Wijewwera led an uprising and formed a group of child soldiers known as RATHU GATAV, or Red Youngsters. During the peak of this rebellion, a gruesome incident occurred involving a 16-year-old student from Tholangamuwa Madya Maha Vidyalaya, who brutally murdered an elderly man named Pabilis from the Kegalle District. The young school boy first struck the victim's head with a mamotee before burying him alive. Analyzing this incident, we ought to question how a schoolboy could exhibit such brutal behaviour.

On August 28, 1977, in Vavunikulam a group of 20 to 25 Tamils attacked a lorry transporting 15 Sinhalese fishermen and a police constable who had returned to collect their belongings. This violent incident resulted in the deaths of five fishermen and the constable, with their bodies later found inside the burned lorry. It is important to note that those responsible for this act were not the members of the LTTE but were Tamil civilians.

In 1983, a group of Lumpenproletariat in Wellawatta poured petrol onto a vehicle and ignited it during racial riots, resulting in the tragic deaths of several passengers who were trapped inside and burned alive. Notably, the individuals responsible for this heinous act had no prior history of barbarous violence. Some of them were street vendors.

During the Eelam war, a group of child soldiers from the LTTE launched an attack on a Sinhala village, murdering unarmed civilians. In a particularly horrific act, infants were brutally killed by the child soldiers, holding the babies by their legs and striking their heads against a wall. Many of these young child soldiers were schoolboys who had been indoctrinated into the ideology of Prabhakaran's racial separation.

This raises the question: how did these everyday people become capable of such abominable acts? The phenomenon of group dynamics/mob mentality plays a crucial role in this transformation, as it can strip away individual moral compasses and replace them with a collective impulse that often leads to violence and chaos.

In moments of heightened emotion and group dynamics, individuals may find themselves swept up in a tide of aggression, abandoning their personal ethics in favour of the group's actions. This unsettling reality compels us to examine the underlying psychological mechanisms that can turn ordinary citizens into participants in brutality, challenging our understanding of morality and the potential for savagery that exists within us all. This aspect was particularly significant in the case of Amarakirthi Athukorala.

The primary process that facilitates this transformation is deindividuation, a state where individuals lose their sense of self-awareness and personal responsibility while immersed in a group. Being part of a large crowd creates a "veil of anonymity". Individuals feel their personal identity is hidden, which reduces their fear of negative consequences or judgment, emboldening them to break social norms they would normally follow alone. 

Diffusion of Responsibility is another key factor. In a mob, the feeling of personal responsibility for an act is shared across the entire group. Emotions such as rage, fear, and excitement spread rapidly through a group, often bypassing rational thought. This "contagion" can create a hypnotic state or a crowd frenzy, in which individuals mimic the aggressive behaviours they observe.  

Dehumanization of the Victim make easy for them to unleash violence against them.  Mobs often justify violence by placing the victim "outside" the community's moral boundaries. By labelling a target as an enemy or a "criminal," the group neutralizes normal moral restraints against harming others. Group Norms and Peer Pressure too affect the mob mentality. 

Upon the announcement of the verdict in the case of Amarakirthi Athukorala and the murder of his bodyguards, many of the twelve convicted individuals were overcome with emotion, breaking into tears and wailing as the death sentences were pronounced. Some of the defendants protested loudly, asserting that they were innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of the crowd. No one accepted accountability for the situation.

We will now examine the dynamics involved in mob violence. Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon, a French polymath, indicated that crowds lose their personality and adopt a "collective mind" characterized by anonymity, contagion, and suggestibility. He believed that the dynamics of group behaviour can lead to a significant alteration in personal judgment and decision-making, often overriding individual rationality in favour of the prevailing sentiments of the crowd. 

In his influential work, The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, the English neurosurgeon Wilfred Trotter provides a profound analysis of how collective psychology can overshadow individual ethical principles. Trotter argues that when individuals become part of a crowd, their personal moral compass is often diminished, leading to behaviours that may contradict their own values. 

In 1922, Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of a "herd instinct," which describes a psychological phenomenon where individuals tend to follow a leader or a collective group without critical examination or skepticism.

Freud's concept of the "herd instinct" provides a compelling framework for understanding the psychological underpinnings of mob violence. This instinct refers to the innate tendency of individuals to conform to the behaviours and emotions of a larger group, often leading to a loss of personal identity and moral judgment. In a mob setting, individuals may feel a sense of anonymity and diminished personal responsibility, which can result in aggressive and irrational behaviour that they might not exhibit in isolation. The collective energy of the group can amplify emotions such as fear, anger, or excitement, creating a volatile environment where rational thought is overshadowed by primal instincts.

Despite the existence of various theories, an elusive element remains linked to group violence. Based on my discussions with the esteemed Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo, I encountered a different perspective. He emphasizes the Lucifer Effect, which illustrates how ordinary individuals, typically seen as good, can become agents of evil when subjected to particular situational and systemic influences. Zimbardo defines deindividuation as a state where individuals lose their sense of personal identity and self-awareness within a group.

Our final task - how do we prevent mob mentality and turning ordinary people into perpetrators of violence? Preventing mob mentality and the radicalization of everyday people requires a multi-layered approach that addresses individual psychology, group dynamics, and systemic failures. Its important to educate people about how they are carried away by mass hysteria in mob events. One critical objective is to dismantle the prevailing "culture of impunity" that frequently encourages mob behaviour. Also its important to be proactive bystanders who involve standing up for victims and confronting aggressive behaviour instead of succumbing to group mentality.