On Napping and Pictures of Hussein

Jan 06, 2007 12:22

Upon reading a NYTimes article about the martyrdom of Saddam Hussein, I realized I was feeling weird that I hadn’t expressed two farts about the coverage of his death - hadn’t even watched it, while I had felt so compelled to write on the deer-hunter style death of al-Zarqawi - a figure I am actually less familiar with. The whole execution thing smacked too much of “The Running Man” to me, and besides I have developed a rather ambivalent attitude about Hussein, and with perhaps calculated good reason. I tried to recall the composite image I had made of him over the years, an impression, a gesture drawing, a haiku. It has been confirmed from multiple sources, including human rights groups, that Hussein, WMDs or not, resistor of Western colonization or not, has been a terribly nasty, power-abusing sonofabitch over the years. But the composite picture of history - no, not history, but maybe media branding? -- is complicated, taking me on a journey of power, humiliation, arrogance, then martyrdom of a war god. To many of us here in the U.S., he was just another dictator with a trademark moustache that we ‘merikans were wont to save the world from.

There are plenty of images of Hussein in my mind depicting him as “sonofabitch in power”: stern floating-head portraits printed on banners and billboards looming in public spaces, action shots waving from jeeps (or tanks?) in military garb, press-conference composure in stately blue suits - all of these images filtered through American nightly news broadcasts, often juxtaposed with washed out images of destruction and mass murder. And of course followed by the masses of extremely exuberant, wild-eyed men, presumed to be rabid supporters, moshing in gleeful hatred upon unnamed and dusty streets. Never truly grasping the multiplicity of the situation, these pictures simply tell a story of mad, unstoppable, mustachioed power.

Years of that sort of imagery was followed by a visual story of an unkempt man found hiding in a tiny, hot, dirty hole. Video of Hussein’s post-9/11 capture depicts him as impotent. He looks homeless, or maybe like a monk, with grey cheeks sallow, hair long and askew. Once these images circulate, new ones emerge to show us a Saddam who is behind bars in presumably very humanitarian American custody. Still rail-thin, Hussein has been given a bath, a haircut, and what looks to me like ridiculously “civilian” clothes. It reminds me of that scene from Pulp Fiction when Mr. Wolf disguises his fumbling gangsters from the eye of the law by peeling them out of their blood-drenched Armani suits, dressing them instead in gym shorts and discarded t-shirts.

Admiring his work, Mr. Wolf asks “What do they look like to you, Jimmy?”
“Dorks!” Jimmy answers gleefully. “They look like a couple of dorks.”
“Ha-ha,” retorts Jewels. “They’re your clothes, motherfucker.”

They look like the kind of dorks who have lost everything, and are relying on the unending, poisonous pity and support of the Salvation Army to hide their naked bodies from public shame. Only the clothes do that job just fine, without all that pesky nudity. That’s what Saddam’s new threads said to me. He looked like an abused dog that “we” were kind enough to take in… we’re in the process of deworming him, but he’ll be fine and a good pet for some family shortly. And like that weird, gold-framed death portrait of al-Zarqawi, it functioned in the same way - the American cavalry (and by extension, her “friends”) are good, formidable, and ALWAYS get the bad guy.

The next surges of images are from the courtroom… a courtroom that looks similar yet strange to our American eyes. The judges look the same, but defendants sit in cages, denoting that there is no “innocent until proven guilty” pretense in these rooms; we’re certainly not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. If you were only following the pictures, they depict Hussein as his strong, well-groomed, dictatorish self, going apeshit in a cage. The “dog” has been restored to his full health because of the infinite benevolence of his captors, and while baring his teeth, shows us his true, unruly, unappreciative and arrogant nature. The cage implies we will put this dog down, but on “our” terms. This “dog” metaphor is underscored by how these images are translated to us… I walked away with the message that Hussein did nothing but disrespect the court system. He yells at the judges. He fires lawyers (who all face danger outside the courts). He denounces the witnesses as liars that come cloaked in secrecy and fear to testify to his acts of mass murder. He simply stomps out of the courtroom like a spoiled child (or a leader who is used to always getting his way because of his superpower of smite) when he doesn’t like what he’s hearing. We are given a snapshot of a man so out of touch with reality and so submerged in his illusion of importance, that he cannot face his deeds. Grains of truth aside, in American parlance, he is now a “coward” and a “nutjob”.

Then we are given news with no pictures, which often does not dazzle us enough to pay attention. Despite his truly arrogant display in the courtroom, we begin to hear from “reliable sources” that Hussein’s trial has been unfair. Given the story we’ve absorbed over the decades, why should anyone in America, or anywhere else, care? His own courts and his own justice were not fair. It is undeniable he is guilty of war crimes. This is the product we are sold… and there is no convenient way of telling how it is being consumed anywhere else. It is at this moment that it’s not the story of a fallen dictator that is important, but the precedence of that which brought him down. If it is unclear what THAT story is, imagine President Bush in all of the above scenarios. It’s difficult, because we view him as someone who IS a dork, not someone who was rendered a “dork” by an outside power, a wolf in dork’s clothes, but that perception in and of itself is part of what makes seeing this through a global lens so difficult for us. Or me, I guess. Me and my CNN Pipeline of pied-piperdom.

When it becomes clear they intend to execute Hussein, and by hanging no less, is when I personally had had enough of “consuming” Saddam… something I realized I’d had enough of a long time ago. It’s from whence the ambivalence came. I thought to myself, if the goal was to destroy a dictatorship and replace it with something better, now is the time to make that visible. Botched war or no, now is the time to embody that benevolent power and teach by example. But that is not meant to be, because it never was the goal. And that also breeds ambivalence, a postponing of action, if not full on apathy, which is to be frozen in carbonite by the weight of it all.

Every image and article I had ever seen of lynching went through my mind, what the act means to those who lynch, and what it means to those who identify with those who are lynched. Let me make perfectly clear, I’m not at all interested in connecting a “poor” Hussein to those victimized throughout American history by lynching; the power dynamic is nothing the same, and the analogy is as empty as calling women “feminazi” when they speak and think critically. But death by hanging is undeniably inhumane, and the gallows are nothing more than state-sanctioned lynching, engineered to police the masses to compliance of the law through the spectacle of fear. Both state-sanctioned acts and mob actions have a healthy history of visual documentation… images that first instill that fear and obedience, then inspire anger and galvanize political action.

I thought to myself, how this is handled by the media, and specifically visually, is going to dictate how much of a martyr this icon becomes. And the icon did have some agency in the matter… I was told (if it can be believed) he chose to face the gallows uncloaked. Any images from this execution would be as raw as images of Emmit Till, and nothing the same, for the rights they will inspire will be nowhere near “civil”. “Remember, remember the 5th of November…” those images say; look upon my face and know I am you -- I am V, you are V, this is a call to action, it is time to embrace righteous chaos. Don’t believe the hype, you hungry, exhausted and traumatized survivors… chaos is a romanticized drag - but who am I, with eyes averted, to tell you that? The NYTimes article points out that Hussein’s own spin doctors couldn’t have orchestrated a better event, in terms of it’s timing and display. In fact, you should read their interpretation of the “official” images versus the illicit cell phone video - mostly because I did not see any of it. I cannot speak to it. I evoked my American privilege, averted my eyes, and gave myself the gift of a media black out, although the outcry of compassion from the myspace gang on Hussein’s behalf had initially befuddled me a little.

But simply, I’d had enough. Ambivalence, just a nap…. I’m taking a nap. Not a deep, mythical sleep incurred by biting a poison apple, but rather from the inclination that if and when my time comes, I will not be granted the agency to decide whether or not to face it all with or without the black, hooded cloak -- head in the noose or hands on the axe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/world/middleeast/06arabs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th
Images of Hanging Make Hussein a Martyr to Many
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
Published: January 6, 2007
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 5 - In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.
Previous post Next post
Up