Gaddaffi (ii)

[caddyman]

To quote a friend of mine over on Farcebørk this morning:

Wow, today's front pages are repulsive. I don't care how bat-shit crazy a psychopath he was, gloating over a bloody corpse just lowers us all.

And I submit that pretty much encapsulates the situation we find ourselves in.

I know Gaddaffi was a madman, I know he was dangerous and that he was responsible for sponsoring terrorism, for murdering thousands and that he had the most appalling dress sense, but the method of his demise was bad enough without turning it into an unseemly media circus. I can even understand, though hardly approve of, what happened to him and how he died. Ideally there would have been some sort of trial (I suppose the skeptics would say “show trial”) and at least the illusion of the process of law, but given the participants, the circumstances, the place and the time, it is hardly surprising that he was shot and his corpse dragged through the streets.

None of this excuses the reaction of the media, which surpasses anything that followed the death of Bin Laden. Maybe the difference is simply that the US didn’t give the media anything to work with so they had nothing to reel themselves in from.

I don’t know.

What I do know, is the sudden crowing over and publication of photographs of a barely recognizable bloodied corpse doesn’t come close to civilized behaviour, nor does it even approximate justice. It does look like a fair facsimile of mob vengeance, though.

Comments

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Not to disagree or anything, I don't like that sort of crowing but nor do I like some of the snobbish crap I saw from various news outlets (usually teh same ones that 5 mins earlier were gorging themselves on the corpse films) but I'm not exactly sure where he would have been tried. Any judiciary still standing the country would surely be tainted afterall who appointed them ? Any new judiciary will still be finding its feet and seeing how terrified lots of Libyans were even of the idea of Gadaffi still knocking around I'm not sure how far they'd test these unproven people appointed by an NCT that many are still suspicious of. The ICC ? Really ? The same people that the big, civillised US of A won't sign up to ? Have himshowboating (and boy could that guy showboat, they don't make them like that anymore). I don't disagree but I really find it hard to send much criticism they way of the people who did this, it's a mess.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

As I said, I can understand what happened to him, how and why. My main criticism was about the meeja handling of the aftermath so far.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think they've been rubbish all round, I wanted to punch Jon Snow last night on Channel 4 news. I think this has completely proved Obama right not to release the Bin Laden pics.

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

Hell yes, that would have been a serious mistake. I really haven't enjoyed unexpected images of his bloodied face popping up on the news pages. Maybe I am over-sensitive, but I see no need.

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more. The whole furore has made me feel distinctly uneasy.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

It's not often that 'news' troubles me so much throughout the day, but this has. I've no idea what a suitable outcome for this situation should look like, but I'm pretty sure that it's different to this.

Having had my head down all day yesterday I didn't find out they'd got him until late last night when I happened to catch some gory footage on BBC News 24. From what others have said on radio shows (today's source of news) I gather what I saw was somewhat tame by comparison.

That it happened is one thing - and almost certainly the most likely result given the history of such a crazed individual once the people caught up with him - the way it was handled by our media is another matter entirely and this I am definitely uncomfortable about.

I've also been thinking about how graffic violence in fiction is depicted versus this reality. I fear the fiction has numbed some sensibilities. I saw a real human being being treated like shit and although I'd describe Gaddaffi at best as a monster, it felt wrong to see him treated like that.

I dunno, maybe if I'd been more directly affected by what he's done then perhaps I'd be revelling in witnessing his destruction.

Either way, I feel a bit sullied by the whole thing.

At the time I thought the Yanks were right to hold back on photographic proof of death of Bin Laden, this confirms it completely as far as I'm concerned.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Agree to quote and how there should have been a trial.

The disturbing thing about this kind of thing is detecting how human it all is. A dictator like that. And unfortunately, the rest of it; his ending/the mob/the press/the glee. The same basic impulses steering human behaviour, both here and there. Only the fact that not everyone gives in to their lower sides keeps us human in the sense we like to believe, we all are, all the time.

Here´s a quote I keep coming back to because it says something essential about tyranny and how it functions, I find:

"Many times in recent years women of all kinds have reproached me (because I was unable to reciprocate their feelings) with being conceited. This is nonsense, I'm not in the least conceited, but to be frank, it does pain me to think that not since reaching maturity have I been able to establish a true relationship with a woman, that I have never, as they say, been in love with a woman. I'm not sure I know the reasons for this failure, whether they lie in some innate emotional deficiency or in my life history; I don't mean to sound pompous, but the truth remains: the image of that lecture hall with a hundred people raising their hands, giving the order to destroy my life, comes back to me again and again. Those hundred people had no idea that things would one day begin to change, they counted on my being an outcast for life. Not out of a desire for martyrdom but rather out of the malicious obstinacy characteristic of reflection, I have often composed imaginary variations; I have imagined, for example, what it would have been like if instead of expulsion from the Party the verdict had been hanging by the neck. No matter how I construe it, I can't see them doing anything but raising their hands again, especially if the utility of my hanging had been movingly argued in the opening address. Since then, whenever I make new acquaintances, men or women with the potential of becoming friends or lovers, I project them back into that time, that hall, and ask myself whether they would have raised their hands; no one has ever passed the test: every one of them has raised his hand in the same way my former friends and colleagues (willingly or not, out of conviction or fear) raised theirs. You must admit: it's hard to live with people willing to send you to exile or death, it's hard to become intimate with them, it's hard to love them.

Perhaps it was cruel of me to submit the people I met to such merciless scrutiny when it was highly likely they would have led a more or less quiet everyday life in my proximity, beyond good and evil, and never passed that hall where hands are raised. Say I did it for one purpose only: to elevate myself above everyone else in my moral complacency. But to accuse me of conceit would be quite unjust; I have never voted for anyone's downfall, but I am perfectly aware that this is of questionable merit, since I was deprived of the right to raise my hand. It's true that I've long tried to convince myself that if I had been in their position I wouldn't have acted as they did, but I'm honest enough to laugh at myself: why would I have been the only one not to raise his hand? Am I the one just man? Alas, I found no guarantee I would have acted any better; but how has that affected my relationship with others? The consciousness of my own baseness has done nothing to reconcile me to the baseness of others. Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another. I have no desire for that slimy brotherhood."

Milan Kundera

Raising Hands

(sorry for a certain over-length in commenting but I really like that one for several reasons)

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

I stopped watching the international news after my boy came back safely from the first Gulf war. If we didn't buy newspapers and we complained about every, EVERY news broadcast things might change.

I won't hold my breath but I will continue to receive news via word of mouth