Every killer was once a child.

Every warmonger was once a child.

Every man who orders a bomb was once a child who ran home when his mother called.

Every man who pulls a trigger once believed that the world was a safe place.

Somewhere along the way, things changed.

They lost something inside themselves.

They lost the innocence they once had.

They lost the ability to see another human being as another human being.

And, in doing so, they became a failure of all of us.

A child does not understand power.

A child does not understand greed.

A child does not dream of controlling other people.

Children play together.

They fight and make peace.

They go to school.

They exchange football stickers.

They swim together.

They return home tired.

They fall asleep in the back seat after a day out.

They believe that the dead are covered because they might feel cold.

They look at an aeroplane in the sky with wonder.

They point their fingers like pistols without understanding what a real gun can do.

They build little worlds out of almost nothing.

Then something happens.

They grow up.

Some retain that innocence.

Others lose it.

Some discover compassion.

Others discover power.

Some learn that money is a means to live.

Others learn to make money the purpose of living.

Some want to serve.

Others learn how useful the word "service" can be when it hides ambition.

And some discover that the easiest way to climb is to step on somebody else.

This is where humanity becomes difficult to understand.

We like to believe that evil is born evil.

That killers are somehow different from us.

That the man who orders a bombing, the soldier who massacres civilians, the terrorist who blows up a building and the dictator who sends thousands to their deaths were always destined to become monsters.

But all of them once were children.

That is perhaps the most uncomfortable truth.

Something happened between the child they were and the adult they became.

Perhaps it was hatred.

Perhaps humiliation.

Perhaps ideology.

Perhaps revenge.

Perhaps ambition.

Perhaps the intoxicating feeling of being powerful.

Perhaps it was simply the gradual acceptance that other people mattered less.

Because cruelty rarely arrives all at once.

It grows.

So does greed.

So does corruption.

So does the appetite for power.

A person takes a little more than they are entitled to.

Then a little more.

They discover that nobody stops them.

They understand that position offers protection.

Money offers influence.

Influence offers access.

Access offers power.

And power can become addictive.

Soon, principles become obstacles.

Rules become inconveniences.

Other people become numbers.

Citizens become votes.

Public money becomes an opportunity.

Public office becomes a private advantage.

And "serving the community" becomes a convenient phrase behind which selfish interests can hide.

This is not only about the obvious villains.

It is easy to condemn the dictator.

It is easy to condemn the terrorist.

It is easy to condemn the man who plants the bomb.

It is much harder to recognise the smaller forms of the same disease around us.

The person who abuses a position because nobody can challenge him.

The official who believes that public office gives him privileges.

The businessman who uses influence to get what others cannot.

The politician who talks about the common good while calculating only what benefits himself.

The powerful person who treats accountability as an insult.

None of these things may begin with bloodshed.

But they all begin with the same dangerous idea.

That other people are less important.

That my interests come first.

That my position entitles me to more.

That rules are for others.

That power is something to possess rather than something to use responsibly.

This is how societies create their lost men.

Not necessarily through one dramatic moment.

Sometimes through thousands of small concessions.

A conscience ignored here.

A lie accepted there.

An injustice tolerated.

A selfish act excused.

A powerful person protected because confronting him is inconvenient.

And eventually we wake up to discover that the child has disappeared.

In his place stands a man who can order another human being killed without losing sleep.

A man who can send young people to war while his own family remains safe.

A man who can watch a city disappear beneath bombs and call it strategy.

A man who can turn human beings into targets.

A man who can make money from misery.

A man who can sell death and call it business.

A man who can destroy lives and convince himself that he is serving a greater cause.

That is the tragedy.

But it is also an indictment of society.

Because these men do not exist in isolation.

They emerge from our societies.

We educate them.

We promote some of them.

We protect some of them.

We nourish their business.

We reward them.

We admire them.

We elect them.

The question is: Where did the children go?

Where did the child who believed that the dead should not be cold disappear to?

Where did the child who ran behind a ball disappear to?

Where did the child who waited for his mother to call him home disappear to?

Where did the child who could play with another child without caring about his wealth, nationality, religion or status disappear to?

And what became more important?

Lust for money?

Power?

Ambition without morality?

Perhaps the greatest failure of civilisation is not that such men exist.

It is that we have repeatedly failed to prevent them from becoming what they become.

We fail when we allow power to go unchecked.

We fail when wealth becomes more important than dignity.

We fail when political loyalty becomes more important than principle.

We fail when institutions become afraid of the powerful.

We fail when corruption becomes normal.

We fail when we accept vouchers, cheques and subsidies to look the other way.

And we fail most of all when we stop seeing the humanity of those we disagree with.

The real challenge of civilisation is to ensure that children do not grow into monsters.

To teach them that strength does not mean domination.

That wealth does not make one human being worth more than another.

That power is a responsibility.

That another person's life is never expendable.

That victory achieved through the suffering of others is not really victory.

And that no political cause, national interest, religious belief or financial reward can justify treating human beings as objects.

Every bomb that murders is a defeat.

Every innocent person killed is a defeat.

Every war launched is a defeat.

Every life destroyed for money or power is a defeat.

Not only for the victims.

For all of us.

Inspired by "Uomini Persi", Claudio Baglioni, 1985