Anarcho-Din

I am not a pacifist. I do not a problem with violence per se. I do not have a problem with murder per se either. I think that there are various acceptable reasons for one human being to cause the death of another human being. Self-defence being the obvious example. A dictator still in authority is another. If someone were to assassinate Kim Jong Il tomorrow, I would greet the news a lot differently to the indifference I had in hearing of the execution of Saddam Hussein. After all, we already knew that Saddam Hussein was scheduled to be killed.

Yes, I am calling it as it is. Execution is a vague term. It does not illuminate. The death penalty is murder, plain and simple. The only significant difference is that it is murder that has been declared legal by the very same institution doing the killing.

Only a few weeks ago, another former dictator by the name of Augusto Pinochet kicked the bucket. It does seem to be the season of prominent death. Milton Friedman, Gerald Ford, James Brown. Not that James Brown fits the pattern. I welcomed the death of Augusto Pinochet for it was fairly uncomplicated. There might not have been any justice served in his long overdue passing but anyone who thinks that justice could possibly be served by the execution of Saddam Hussein would be grossly mistaken. There is really no justice possible for those who have suffered under dictators. Only revenge. Therein lies the elation that some people might feel upon hearing that Hussein has been execution. A spectacle to soothe the troubled senses, a mirage to insinuate an achievement, a deception on many levels.

I wish I could greet the news of Hussein’s death as I did the news of Pinochet’s death. Nothing changes with the death of a man no longer a real threat to anyone else. The only significance there is symbolic. A heart attack ended the life of Pinochet. Politics ended the life of Hussein. One was not killed by any other human beings. The other was.

I hear that a prominent idiot has described the execution of Saddam Hussein as the “kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.” Ironic because justice served through death was the very charade that Saddam Hussein himself pursued. The words propanganda, manipulation and show trial comes to mind. Not justice. Never justice.

We do not rape people in this society who are convicted of rape. We do not torture or assault people who have been convicted of torture or assault. I think the idea that we would sexually abuse people who’ve been convicted of sexual abuse is very distasteful to folks. It would not be hard to convince people we should not do that. But we kill people who kill because there is this disconnection. We have acculturated ourselves to see that act as somehow not revealing who we are, something about our character. So part of the challenge is to get people to appreciate that the taking of the life of another person gratuitously that you don’t have to do to protect society or yourself is a really big deal and it says something not only about that person but about you.

Bryan Stevenson, The Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama.

np: Girlschool - Believe