Irak and Saddam Hussein's death (or... as if we don't have enough media violencie with the Saw trilogy, we now enjoy TELEVISED hangings)

I received an email from a friend today who was outraged by the fact that his very Christian family thought that Saddam Hussein's televised hanging was "the best thing ever." He was indignated 'cause he thought he lived in a civilized community respectful of human rights. But he lives in Kentucky, where the death penalty still finds a stronghold. He said: "It's bad enough they hanged the man, let alone televised it ... come ON...that's a bit ridiculous, don't you think? Who are we to pass such judgment...and then SHOW IT ON TV!!!...what are your thoughts?"

I am sure it had to be filmed because there had to be proof, a lot of people would need to see proof, and a lot of people would demand to see his hanging cadaver, or at least like to see it. To tell you the truth, since it wasn't notoriously televised here, I didn't feel personally 100% positive that it was true, that they did indeed hang him, until I saw the pictures on the NY Times. Before I did the research for this post, it felt like "yeah, right, I would have to see that with my own eyes to believe it." Yet, I don't think I want to see him or anybody truly being hanged. Here's when the dehumanization I always talk about comes in.

Let me fill you in. My mother was very particular about allowing me and my sister to observe violence on tv or otherwhere. We had a strong curfew and censorship when it came to what the media brought to our brains. We never owned a video game, and Barbie was frowned upon. The results where impressive. We should be a case for a psych study. I mean, we were always busy with gymnastics, dance, music, etc. and didn't watch much tv anyway. Nowadays, there is only one old tv (cableless, as always) in my mom's room, so I assume my sister doesn't watch tv. I don't own a tv, haven't for years. I had one for a while over two years ago and I found I'd rather spend my free time reading and writing than staring at it. Do you know anybody who's never played a video game? I'm gonna raise my hand: us. Well, ok, it's not like NEVER, our neighbor had a Nintendo 64. Since it was forbidden fruit in our house, we went through this period, over 10 years ago, when we were very exited about getting to play with it. But as unaccostumed as we were to videogames, it didn't last at all. I am incapable of coordinatedly playing with a control that has more than four buttons, let alone two joysticks! I feel uncomfortable just holding it. I have a lot of difficulty playing a movie in a playstation. Makes me feel like an alien how unfamiliar I am with the damn things. But the interesting thing is that I cannot even watch other people playing games where they kill other people (which is most of the games.) I close my eyes and shriek with old two-dimensional computer games where the little man falls unto a bunch of sticking blades, producing a paint-like red pool. Imagine modern, horribly realistic, war games with real shotgun noises and disgustingly depictive deaths. Goodness, I can't even take ... whatever the name of that video game with the dreaded "fatality" was. As you may already suspect, I have a lot of trouble watching any sort of action movie. I appreciate my bliss, when I truly think about. Imagine, for example, exposing someone from, say, X indigenous tribe in Y part of the world, who has never watched tv to the oh-so-typical image of the bad guy being shot in the heart, and falling down with a horrific cry of pain, bleeding. You really think he wouldn't be seriously shocked? Of course he would! Problem is we are exposed to such things so often since so early in our lives, we don't think anything of it anymore.

So the point is, I would get the creeps from watching someone being hanged in a movie, knowing that it's not true, imagine a real hanging! But most westerners are so used to watching this stuff on TV, their brains probably couldn't tell the difference and they could have been peacefully eating popcorn watching Saddam being hanged, or a serial killer being electrocuted - whether it was real footage or a movie-, or Saw 3.

Everyone seems to agree, that out of all three, the last Saw is definitely the most violent, abominable, bloody, outrageously death-filled, and dreadfully shocking - and I tried to watch this movie! [pause... I'm not saying the movie sucks, they've got a good point with the story behind it ... but for gods' sake, the images! After The Passion of Christ, I didn't think I was ever going to find another movie from which people found as much morbid pleasure in watching other people's suffering.] So, I started eating my popcorn during the commercials and the beginning credits. One minute into the first scene my right hand (the one that usually goes automatically from the popcorn to my mouth) stopped moving. I put the popcorn in the floor and didn't touch it again (I know, the waste!) I could barely watch the screen, let alone eat while watching these horrid images. I'd close my eyes/cover my face/hide in my date's chest for every fucking-hard-to-watch scene. Twenty minutes into the movie, I had my eyes closed more than they were open. I got up and left the theater. But it was too late to save me from the nightmares that night. I was too impressed.

So, learning from experience, I have refused to watch the hanging footage that is apparently available all over the internet. Nevertheless, here is a written detailed description of the hanging.

He was put to death to fulfill a death by hanging sentence over the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys, a minor crime compared to many other important genocide cases, such as that of the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds, in which he is accused of unleashing mass killings and chemical attacks that killed tens of thousands of villagers; or the crushing of an uprising that killed thousands of Shiites. These trials will have to go on without his testimony, and he will never be judged for those crimes. Needless to say, there was strong Kurdish opposition in Iraq to the hasty hanging. “The truth of what happened in al-Anfal and who took part in it has been buried,” said Abu Abdul Rahman, a 38-year-old Kurdish taxi driver.

Besides this political logistic reason, there was also opposition for a religious reason: Islamic and Iraqi law forbids hanging during the holidays, and Eid, the Islamic holiday which marks the end of Ramadan (the month of fasting,) started Saturday for the Sunnis and Sunday for the Shiites. Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “No one can deny that Saddam should have faced justice for his crimes against the people of Iraq and also his invasion of Iran and Kuwait. However, the fact that his trial took place while Iraq is still under occupation by foreign forces may mean that his execution, on the blessed day of Eid al-Adha, will be regarded as an insensitive and provocative act by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government and that far from contributing to a so-called healing process, it may serve to further intensify the sectarian divisions in Iraq.” According to the Al’JazeeraNetwork , many Muslims, especially Sunnis, making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca were outraged by the symbolism of hanging Saddam on the holiest day of the year at the start of Eid al-Adha. On the other hand, some Shia also said his death was a suitable gift from God. The New York Times quoted Ms. Abdul Aziz, a Sunni woman, saying: “Actually, I felt angry. It’s not a proper time. I assure you, those who are feeling that this is a good time and a good judgment, they are not Iraqis.” Those statements clearly represent the dichotomy that weighs on Iraq fragmented society.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the NYT puts it like this: “Iraqis of both sects attempt to draw circles around the chaos in their own minds. As a result, they tend to generalize about the other, coming up with conspiracy theories, to make the violence easier to explain and accept.” By both sects they mean, the Sunnis and the Shiites. (If you know your shit, you may skip this part.) The difference between them stems as far back as Mohammed’s death in 632 and to who should have been his successor in leadership. The Sunni Islam follows the line of nominated Caliphs; while Shi’a Islam follows a hereditary line of Imams. Iraq’s population is mostly Shi’a, but Saddam Hussein and his party where Sunni. We had a case then of an ethnic minority in power, and a very unpleased and suffering majority. Now the Shiites hold the most power in Iraq’s new “democratic” government. Nevertheless, the current Shiite president, leads a “unified” government which is supposed to represent all of Iraq’s sects and ethnicities. As such, he has had to make concessions that deviate from Shiite traditional stand points, and is, therefore, regarded by most Shiites as a traitor. Of course, he is not liked by the Sunnis either, who now feel repressed and blamed for all of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. The result of this has rendered him and his government powerless while vengeance runs wild in the streets and thousands of innocent lives are lost. The hatred between the sects it’s grown to the irrational point that when asked about a bomb which exploded in a Sunni neighbor, Shiites will reply that the Sunnis put it themselves killing their own people to be able to justify bombing the Shiite neighborhoods – and vice versa. Consequently, neutral neighborhoods are no longer safe, because they are easily accessed by both militia, so people are having to move to purely Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods where the civilian armies' presence are strong enough to protect them. The vicious cycle will only continue as the sons of the adults who saw Saddam’s military assassinate their parents, now watch their own parents attacking the defeated Sunnis, and then killed in vengeance, and feel rencorous and responsible for avenging them in turn. The number of guns and bomb explosions, and the amount of violence and hatred in Iraq’s streets, just like but much worse than our media, is dehumanizing.

Outside of Iraq, the countless voices that rose to oppose the hanging throughout the world echoed human right rationales. Politicians of the many countries that have outlawed capital punishment shunned Saddam’s death sentence. In a statement issued an hour after the execution, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, said: “I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. However, the British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation.” So, now they respect Iraq’s sovereignty! Erkki Tuomioja, the foreign minister of Finland, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said, “The E.U. has a very consistent stand on opposing the death penalty and it should not have been applied in this case either — even though there is no doubt about Saddam Hussein’s guilt over serious violations against human rights.” Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: “A capital punishment is always tragic news, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes. The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence.”

Besides the death penalty issue, the other international concern regarding Saddam’s death is the ill-fated consequences it may have in Iraq's already viciously violent sectarian urban warfare. The situation will most certainly be aggravated by the increased tension. The New York Times reported exactly that: “In one major insurgent stronghold, Ramadi, American troops were reported to have fired in the air to scatter demonstrators, who were marching through the streets hoisting portraits of Mr. Hussein and firing automatic weapons into the air. In Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said crowds of angry men took to the streets within 90 minutes of the hanging, attacking a police station and a courthouse and setting them ablaze.” All in all, the death of Saddam Hussein will only add to the cycle. In such a difficult situation, it is hard to believe he received a fair judgment, and Sunnis around the world will definitely think he didn’t. In fact, a spokesman of Hamas, a radical Islamic movement, condemned the execution as a “political assassination” that “violates all international laws.” “Saddam Hussein was a prisoner of war,” he said. He called the trial “unjust” and said the date of the execution was insulting, stating that “the Americans have launched threats to all the Arabs.” Go figure! They have gone and turned him into a martyr capable of rallying yet a lot more resentment and violence.

People celebrating








People protesting

Click here for more NYT images

He said “You look gorgeous in the morning light.”

“You look gorgeous in the morning light,” he said.
I was glowing happiness, cuddled in his arms.
We had watched the sun rise, stared at the bluest sky.
He said: “you look gorgeous in the morning light.”

“I want to hear your stories,” I whispered.
So, we filled the daybreak hours with words,
and the world slowly awoke as we talked,
‘till the morning sun shone high and bright.

He said: “Come lay by my side”,
“I want to see you naked”. I stripped down,
then dressed back up. But we had fallen,
could not pull away from each other.

He said: “I’m intoxicated with your scent.”
But he smelled of wine, and felt like dawn.
We hugged under the influence of cold.
“I’m inebriated with your love,” I thought.

He mumbled: “I could stay like this forever,”
as I settled in his arms, smiling satisfied.
He gave me kisses, butterflies, pleasure,
goose bumps, shivers, hickeys, orgasms.

He said: “I would love to worship you,”
his eyes onto mine, my back pressed to the wall.
From above the altar I knelt to him in weak ardor.
“I would love to obey you,” I thought.

“The wind is going to blow you away”
“Of course not, you’re holding me.”
I didn’t want to let him go, I was
ready to turn in my world with a gift bow.

“I found some of your letters,” he had said.
We were a living, throbbing, knotted, complex,
bittersweet, cyclic, ludicrous history of us.
I had answered: “Apologize to me in bed.”

“You look gorgeous in the morning light,” he said.
We spent the night talking, the morning making out.
We had watched the sun rise, stared at the bluest sky.
He said: “you look gorgeous in the morning light.”

Plenilunio

Quisiera que esta noche me esperaran los mios inútilmente, pues estaría contigo hasta la aurora. Y si me agrada madrugar no he de preocuparme: saldremos de estos sueños entre suspiros y repiques de júbilo. No le pongas límites a la libertad, ¿por qué evitar los besos?, no encierres la pasión, no decapites los aullidos antes de que puedan ser pronunciados: aunque no sería por falta de inspiración, tan sólo expresaría la tragedia interior de un mundo en llamas huyendo de sí mismo. Tu cercanía es como una melodía de acordes extraños y placenteros, evoca a mar y a pinos, semeja tormenta, ¿campanas?, ¿truenos? Y me estremezco de pronto bajo tu cuerpo entre gemidos y sollozos … el presagio de una tormenta pronta a estallar. Busco en la memoria las formas del recuerdo; distingo imágenes, sonidos, olores, sensaciones … lágrimas, savia, sudor, rocío, humedad y consecuencias … polvillo de estrellas, reflejo de luna … ambientes que embriagan. Cuando avanza la noche, borrando los contrastes y difuminando la silueta de mis curvas, espacio y tiempo nos son propicios, en el cielo nuestros complices. Provaremos un pícaro juego nocturno, escondiendo y descubriendo … a veces frío, a veces caliente. En el mar de penumbras en el que naufragan las formas, flotará apenas el lecho, y la luz difusa nos invita a zambullirnos en este lago tibio, de donde resurgiremos inundados de luna y de luceros. Como pasando detrás del espejo, crear nuestra propia dimensión de besos. En tantos momentos juntos, mil y un retazos de pudor hechos ropa han cubierto mi cuerpo, pero tú me has visto únicamente desnuda iluminada por la luz de la luna, y sólo así eres capaz de reconocer en mí al blanco adonde se dirigen tus miradas y suspiros de enamorada juventud. Porque tú me haces resurgir grácil, etérea, sublime, contenta de vivir; y de tu cuerpo nazco romántica y me siento poema, retoño de jazmines regados con caricias, forma abstracta, desnuda, réplica pura de la creación. Rítmicamente respiro y tus calladas miradas se adhieren a mi cuerpo y se plasman en mi piel, embelesado como un escultor frente a la obra que ha hecho surgir del mármol. Y si, agotada, me tomas en tus brazos, me llevas a la cama y me haces dormir acariciándome como a una niña, seré feliz, mientras tu sueñas que me susurras al oído los gritos de tu alma: “¿Recuerdas? tú estabas sobre el césped húmedo, desnuda, iluminada por un claro de luna. Te quejabas, te retorcías ansiosa. Me acerqué y sentiste mi respiración sofocante como mis deseos, abriste los ojos, me viste. Nuestras bocas se funideron en una… nuestros cuerpos. Y fue necesario que le abrieras un cauce a mi torrente de fuego, que es un océano de lava, encarcelado, que se iba abriendo paso hacia tus adentros.” Destapando ilusiones, nos extraviaremos en nuestro propio laberinto de pasiones y vagaremos a tientas tropezando con nuestra poesía hecha gritos. Y ya desesperados, tal vez terminaremos preguntándonos en qué esquina de la cama se nos perdió la realidad.

Nov. 14, 2001

Parafraseado de/Inspirado por la obra “Plenilunio” de Rogelio Sinán.

FOR HOW LONG?

For how long? For how long have u been around?
You were indeed not hiding in the shadows,
why were you then so dim to me?
What sort of magic kept me from seeing,
from seeing beyond the tip of my nose?
Far away or tightly close, spectator or lover,
you have always been around, but
how long ago? How long ago did u become
the ideal blue-eyed prince that rode my dreams?
Time measurements serve me not,
for love is not good with numbers,
and I'm not good with words when I try
to show you what has been hidden,
hidden inside my heart, out of sight.
You were always in my picture, but
most of the time I saw straight through you.
There was always something morbidly shining
beyond your spectrum that caught my naïve attention,
and stole the focus you deserved,
sometimes fairly earned, sometimes not so well.
And we went trough cycles,
and cycles went trough us.
Focuses shifted, hopes wandered.
The momentum came and vanished.
We cried and laughed, but mostly lusted.
Sometimes you were sure you owned me,
sometimes I love you's escaped unexpectedly,
some others they were very conscious.
Perhaps we tried to force the right angle,
perhaps we tried to avoid the risks.
The ocean roared through many nights,
and the moon smiled at many moans,
since pleasure was invoked more than anything.
The perfect lost clue always laid with us in bed.
After nights together, life tried, once again,
to pull us apart, would the joke ever have a final laugh?
The cup slipped from my hands,
the mead was spilled like blood,
and, finally, the glass broke.
Then suddenly my tears tasted like truth,
bitter sweet facts that seemed suddenly obvious.
Light came to be, freezing the moment
when love was all that existed in the universe,
in my universe that speeded in circles,
dizzily fast, it suddenly had an axis.
It only took a random twist of perspective to make me realize,
that my universe had always turned around you.

La Fiesta de la Luna at Miami Beach - A joyful drumcircling party and ritual for the moon

The full moon conjures up headaches and menstrual pains on some women, and gathers the ones that call themselves witches to celebrate the Esbat and chant. Some believe it awakens the werewolves, or at least some howling dogs. The atmosphere is definitely charged with airs of frolic soaked in sexual connotations, dripping suggestive undertones of mystery. In Miami Beach, the full moon brings La Fiesta de la Luna.

The full moon is just an excuse for the gathering, and yet it’s also its motivating cause and soul. A couple hundred youth, and many of those forever young at heart, gather up by the ocean to contemplate the reflection of the bright moon on the flickering waves. Although the clouds hover over the celebration, sometimes hiding the intense, captivating moon; not even the occasional bursts of rain stop the fest. Drum circles spot the sand for blocks and blocks. Tonight, women dance in bikini tops and flowing skirts belted with coins. If you are already wearing a swimming suit, what does it matter if you get wet?

Bonfires, candles, and the occasional flash of cameras, illuminate the night, already cleared by the moonlight. People drink and smoke – cigarettes, and marihuana, and god knows what else. Couples lay out mediating in stretched out pareos. The rest of us look for romance in nearby smiles. The passionate, rhythmic drilling of the drums is hypnotizing. We breathe in the mild, harmonious collective hysteria of the moments in which nothing else truly matters but the moment in itself, the beat of the music, the movement of the hips.

The occasion celebrates freedom in its simplest form – that of a space and time for non-judgmental enjoyment. Each person is free to decide in which side of their own concept of liberty and libertinage to stand. It is a justification for behaviors we would otherwise not engage in for fear of rejection, such as playing the drums recklessly or dancing as in a trance. We are allowed to plunge in the web of deep communal intensity; to be part of the momentary community that moves freely and independently, but at unison with the collective beat, holding hands. We are also allowed to stand by ourselves, among all the people who dance by themselves and for themselves, in the sea of individual waves, saturated with heartbeats and drumbeats. We are even allowed to calmly seat and watch, listen to the dancing waves, feel the drops of rain, contemplate the life bubbling out of everybody else – and write, if we so please. To think that I could walk in the ocean, and bathe naked in this moonlight, suddenly breaks locks that were forced closed in my mind – those that delineate what is socially acceptable and what is not.

The people that were here tonight will wait another twenty-eight days for another chance to experience, to cooperate with raising the energy that is, la Fiesta de la Luna. Once again, we will leave our names at home, and ignore the pungent smell of consequences. The full moon is just an excuse, but it is also the heart and moving force for this monthly energy renewing ritual of joyful spirituality – rain or not.

BOHEMIAN MANIFESTO (how come we are bohemian artists and why)

Bohemian living, or consciousness, if you will, has always been provocative. There’s just something about the freedom, recklessness, scandal, artistic vision and spiritual splendor that makes it tantalizing. Bohemianism is not a trend; it’s a timeless movement, a way of life that reappears every now and then as a backlash against our bourgeois, mass market, easy access culture. Bohemianism is more than an attitude. It’s the freedom of ideas, clothing and behavior gently outside the norm. Bohemians wear contrarianism more liberally than ordinary people wear polyester. Bohemians break the rules, set the trends, destroy the art and reinvent the art that everyone wants, or will, eventually, want. Bohemians start movements, they stay up all night talking, and change the world. The Bohemian is not a follower of the virtues espoused by bourgeois society: routine, convention, mediocrity, materialism and respectability. Bohemians despise authority, the status quo, and, because they are often happily broke for not giving up their art in exchange for comfort, capitalism and consumerism. They love all that ignites poetry, music, paintings, and magic. Ingenuity and free-thinking are required for their type of creativity. Giving up security takes the courage to reject mainstream society, to follow dreams and “be yourself at whatever cost”, to shock, revolutionize, to take risks. It takes audacity and confidence to champion unpopular causes, to disregard decorum and morality, to be rebellious against established traditional living arrangements, archaic moral codes and business hours. Bohemians are expatriates that create their own gypsy nirvana wherever they go, making their own music and art. They don’t own a watch, they scatter like seeds, naming things: songs, paintings, poems, characters, movements, children; inspired by gods and goddess, flowers, seasons, rivers. They love colors, melodies, textures, feelings, experiences, sensations. Today’s young urban bohemians are full of vitality, play with their hairstyles, pierce and decorate their bodies, and express eccentricities, poetic anarchy, revolution, creativity, deviance and defiance, with their globally conscious street-smart unique flea-market-ridden personal styles. They create their own aura of smoky mystery and fill their atmosphere with swirls of real smoke like a surreal blanket of edge-softening fairy-fire haze, the residue of mind-altering acts: candles, incense, fireplaces, bonfires, weed, hashish, imported cigarettes, cheap cigarettes, cloves. Like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland that smokes a water-pipe and becomes a butterfly: transformation and mind expansion delight bohemians. Light is a bohemian’s passion for its power to create mood, romance and drama, more than for utilitarianism. Modesty has never been part of the bohemian vocabulary: nudity is a liberating beauty, free of class, inhibitions, pretense, an opportunity to return to the earth, to create a utopia uncomplicated by buttons, buckles, zippers and ties. Bohemians are always more comfortable naked than normal people with their decency, traumas and embarrassment. The human form, proportions, skin, body, mind, and soul are the greatest inspiration to the Bohemian. There is no shame, and sometimes even a little glory, in experiencing altered mental states whether they are trance, ecstasy, inspiration, insanity, or drug-induced. Bohemians live traveling inordinately, incessantly, observing, learning, teaching, sharing, freeloading, freewheeling, free-loving, freedom bound, drinking, bartering, smoking what comes their way, taking jobs, notes, photos, fueling up with tea, wine, coffee, absinthe, and other elixirs; moving through a world with few inhibitions, with non-conditioned love-lust that inspires, provokes, evokes, invokes and bursts art, open marriages, soul-mate partnerships, ménages a trios, a bed full of lovers, and any other intimate and romantic, encounter that may end up in a poem, song or painting. They live (oh they live!) truly and deeper than most mortals, dedicated to liberty and often overlooking jealousy, immune to taboos. For life is art is life is art, and Bohemian artists like to be challenged, provoked and disturbed by art (alternative, underground, independent music, cinema, theater, dance); playing in the streets and the parks, dancing on the grass; expanding horizons, minds and music tastes, redefining reality, constantly on the look for something new… always living on the edge.

Schism

If you have a space with a structure in it, there first has to be an obliterating schism for you to be able to use those same materials to make a new structure in that space.
For there be a new order, I must not avoid the destruction of my status quo. Without things ending there will be no things beginning. Beyond the devastation of this wildfire,
rampaging through my forests, new seeds will flourish. I have to accept the pieces of my current puzzle collapsing, so I can shuffle them around and build with them a new picture.

No Birds in Cages

Infinite abundance of love.
There’s always enough,
And yet there never will.

A boomerang of happiness.
Only our beloved’s joy
Will bring us ease.

Open, clear, peaceful truth.
No bitterness from jealousy,
No guilt from lies.

Deep acceptance and respect.
We honor each other’s feelings,
We love ourselves for who we are.

Compromise and commitment,
We don’t run away, we face.
Freedom doesn’t mean no attachments,
It just means no chains.