U.S. and "Them"
I don't want to see the video of Nick Berg being killed. I don't need to see it to appreciate its brutality, and the pain it caused. Even the stills are disturbing. I saw Daniel Pearl's head being held up in that video, and it affected me for weeks. It may have changed me permanently.
I spent a good part of yesterday thinking about the picture of Nick Berg's dad sitting on the ground crying when he found out the specifics of his son's brutal decapitation. That's the suffering that really affects me the most. As a parent...
...
...it's a feeling of sympathy and understanding that defies my desire to communicate it.
I always assumed, maybe wrongly, that Daniel Pearl was killed swiftly before he was decapitated. Now that it's been established that human beings really do have the capacity to slowly saw a man's head off while he screams in anguish, I'm forced to reexamine that assumption. I don't want to, but it's inevitable. The brutality and callousness of people seems to be limitless.
The people who killed Nick Berg claim they were acting in retaliation for the abuse of the Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. I guess that's how it works. Two wrongs. Us and them. Good and evil.
I'm hearing the same thing in my country. One of my coworkers made a comment about having no sympathy for those abused at Abu Ghraib. They drag people through the streets. They beat and torture.
Well who the fuck are "they" anymore? Are the detainees at Abu Ghraib terrorists? To Americans, they are.
The problem is that, according to a Red Cross report, 70 to 90 percent of the detainees are guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having been considered suspicious by somebody. This statistic, they say, comes from the coalition intelligence officers themselves. Us and them. Which are they?
Was Nick Berg an American who abused Iraqi detainees? To Abu Al-Zarqawi, he was. He was their "them," and "they" humiliate and torture their prisoners, so this is "justice."
This is the problem with racism, nationalism, jingoism, and dichotomous reasoning. Everyone is either "us" or "them." And we can be as motherfucking inhuman to "them" as we goddamned please.
I spent a good part of yesterday thinking about the picture of Nick Berg's dad sitting on the ground crying when he found out the specifics of his son's brutal decapitation. That's the suffering that really affects me the most. As a parent...
...
...it's a feeling of sympathy and understanding that defies my desire to communicate it.
I always assumed, maybe wrongly, that Daniel Pearl was killed swiftly before he was decapitated. Now that it's been established that human beings really do have the capacity to slowly saw a man's head off while he screams in anguish, I'm forced to reexamine that assumption. I don't want to, but it's inevitable. The brutality and callousness of people seems to be limitless.
The people who killed Nick Berg claim they were acting in retaliation for the abuse of the Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. I guess that's how it works. Two wrongs. Us and them. Good and evil.
I'm hearing the same thing in my country. One of my coworkers made a comment about having no sympathy for those abused at Abu Ghraib. They drag people through the streets. They beat and torture.
Well who the fuck are "they" anymore? Are the detainees at Abu Ghraib terrorists? To Americans, they are.
The problem is that, according to a Red Cross report, 70 to 90 percent of the detainees are guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having been considered suspicious by somebody. This statistic, they say, comes from the coalition intelligence officers themselves. Us and them. Which are they?
Was Nick Berg an American who abused Iraqi detainees? To Abu Al-Zarqawi, he was. He was their "them," and "they" humiliate and torture their prisoners, so this is "justice."
This is the problem with racism, nationalism, jingoism, and dichotomous reasoning. Everyone is either "us" or "them." And we can be as motherfucking inhuman to "them" as we goddamned please.
posted by Kris at 9:20 AM (Perm. Link)
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