Now it is easier to understand those who thrilled to Al Jazeera broadcasts of videoed beheadings

[Briar]

Now it is easier to understand those who thrilled to Al Jazeera broadcasts of videoed beheadings

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown


http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article2116920.ece

Few on this planet will have missed the noosing of Saddam Hussein, an ignoble end of an ignoble man. Saddam's last moments were captured on camera by Iraqi government propagandists and other cretins using mobile phones. The images were then beamed around the world. You can hear the sounds as well on the internet...

...So how was it for you then? Were you fascinated, titillated or offended by this spectacle? Millions around the world watched the orgiastic resolution and reached climax as the world's baddest man of the moment was led to the gallows. Do they, two days on, feel relieved and happily spent?

Now, perhaps, it becomes slightly easier to understand the millions who thrilled to Al Jazeera broadcasts of videoed beheadings by vicious terrorists. They got a kick out of watching the ultimate reality TV programme. There were also those for whom the horrible, cruel killings represented retribution for perceived and real western injustices against Muslims. For the diminishing band who still argue the war on Iraq was a noble enterprise, Saddam's killing assumes its own symbolism, an electrifying vindication. And this time it is real, unlike the statue of Saddam with a noose round its neck.

Twenty-first-century global citizens are no better than the raving Romans cheering torn bodies in their coliseums and those toothless hags knitting and enjoying the deadly chop upon chop of the French guillotine. Our human civilisation has sunk so low that capital punishment has become the best show in town. The fact that this time the rope cut down a known tyrant's life makes it and us no better. In a note found among her papers, was this observation by Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer: "Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men and makes the loss of life appear light to them..."

...
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article2116920.ece

[CJCRANE]

1. Interesting perspective n/t

[tblue]

2. Well said. The whole thing turns my stomach. And I am no fan of Saddam.

[ixion]

3. yep, agreed.

I was never a fan (what's to like about the guy?), however that does not excuse the barbaric death orgy fest that we just witnessed.

As a species, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

[cornermouse]

4. I've made a deliberate effort to avoid the execution and even

I wasn't fast enough to prevent myself and my kids from hearing the trap door on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous. I was quite angry. Still am.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. And some of the same people who are viewing and cheering

the video of Saddam's hanging were, no doubt, howling the loudest about the "obscenity" of Janet's breast.

:eyes: :shrug:

[cornermouse]

8. Yep.

They're a pretty disgusting bunch.

[fasttense]

5. It reminds me of an old fashion lynching

It disgusts me and takes away my hope for a better humanity.

[dave_p]

6. New Dark Age

It's a very good insight. The obscene celebrations seal the US right's moral equivalence to those it claims to be fighting. They've catapulted humanity centuries back into an age when gloating over suffering and killing were mass entertainment. It's a horrific undoing of all the work people of goodwill have done to make us better than our bloody ancestors.

[Demeter]

9. I'll Watch Dubya's Hanging Instead, Thanks!

That would truly be worth the psychic shock.