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

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