According to this story:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040502/D82ANREO1.html a Mr Shweiri claims he preferred being electrocuted, beaten and being hung from the ceiling by Saddam Hussein’s security forces to having to strip naked for a search by US troops.
I know people have different modesties but can this really be true?
While Mr S welcomed the US’ overthrow of Saddam, he has now joined the Mehdi Army to fight its occupation.
I deplore abuses by allied troops totally, but is there a case to be made for the Iraqis, having had no choice whatsoever for so long, not really having a grasp on practicalities and what is achievable over certain periods of time?
Certainly. It is alien to American society, but ME culture is an entirely different beast. What shocks and surprises them may seem (relatively) mundane to us, and vice versa. In America, people get electrocuted, beaten, and hung from the ceiling for sexual arousal O_o To them, being nekkid in public is not so much a matter of “modesty” as it is a severe cultural insult. I can’t quite think of a real equivalent for Americans, since we have a much more liberal culture.
I guess it also begs the question of whether Saddam’s boys stripped Mr S. during his torture.
And if not, was it because it was the ultimate and they didn’t want to go there or because they were not very good at their job?
This really is an alien viewpoint to me. What on earth could influence a person to the extent that he prefers having the shit whipped out of him with power cables to being strip searched by American Soldiers? If the cross cultural divide is really that wide, we have no hope of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
I’m not so sure. Could be Iraqi version of:
I’m not convinced it’s cultural at all. There’s a difference in how one can respond to being beaten vs. being humiliated. If you’re being beaten, it’s possible mentally to fight back, to resist, to show you’re stronger than the people who temporarily have control of your body - as long as you’re still in control of your mind.
If you’re being humiliated, what is there to fight against? They have control over your mind then, too. What way is left to feel whole, or retain your self-respect? The humiliation these people were subjected to is stronger due to cultural attitudes towards women and homosexuality, sure - attitudes that weren’t that different here all that long ago, remember. But the resentment and hatred that it breeds are strong, stronger than a beating that you can isolate mentally and discard. The effects it has on other people when the story comes out are much stronger, too. This is how occupied people are radicalized.
Just a thought there.
There is that, too. I think it is a mixture of the two.
The gist is, some people would rather be punched in the face (and take it like a proud man) than pee their pants and be paraded around in public.
Yesterday on a morning talk show (Armstrong & Getty, Sacramento) a frequent caller, an Iranian-American, said that he thought that the shame felt by those in the photos is so intense that there will be some who commit suicide rather than live with that shame for the rest of their lives.
This is something so deeply felt that I don’t think the rest of us can fully understand it.
I’m afraid that people who don’t live this culture can understand.
I’m also afraid that those who did this were instructed by people who knew very well, or at least could come into it, what this meant to their victims.
Otherwise I see no “reason” behind this particular “section” of the mental and physical torture that was applied.
Salaam. A
"Everyone is equal under the domed roof. There are no rich men or poor men. Only men without clothes sitting languidly on stone benches…
For centuries, these scenes have been repeated at the “hammamat”…"
How? Please cite stats that prove humiliation restricts control of mind more than physical torture - for anyone. I do not believe.
Your article is broken for me, but in many more, like the one here. It wasn’t the fact that they were nude exactly, but the fact that
I can’t help but feel a bit cheesed off by that statement. I realize that that is not how all women are treated in Iraq, but it sure does sound like women are treated very poorly. But I am not surprised by that reaction that to be treated like a woman would be regarded as a fate worse than death. It’s an attitude that is quite common among many cultures. I bet more than a few of my Mexican co-workers would feel the same way.
Stats? There inherently can’t be any on that topic.
Since you wonder, though, I was summarizing what seem to me to be the common points in stories told by US military POW’s held in North Vietnam - as well as my own understanding of human nature. If you disagree, please explain why.
I am not quite sure what you’re trying to suggest here, Isk, by showing us photos of swarthy men in a…Turkish bath, is it? An Iaqi Turkish bath, apparently.
Are we to take away the lesson the enforced nakedness is quite the norm in Baghdad, hence no real outrage has occured? If so, I’m afraid that quite misses the mark, like the difference between “nude” and “naked”. Now, the men in your picture are mostly nude, save for some towels and a hearty display of hair. But they are not naked because they can choose otherwise.
I am sorry if this is too elementary a lesson, and insulting to your intelligence. Perhaps you have another intent altogether with your reference. I must confess, if so, I haven’t the foggiest notion as to what that might be, and you offer nothing more informative.
Please advise if I have misunderstood your intent. I would feel a bit better, being wrong. Thats the way it is, being pessimistic.
Having neither been tortured nor humiliated to any significant degree, I must admit I am debating from an uninformed position, but I cannot comprehend how extended physical torture, which seems to incorporate a significant amount of humiliation in itself, can be worse than 15 minutes of nudity “like a woman”.
I am fully prepared to accept that another culture may think so, I just need convincing.
Whoops, Sorry, I meant … can be better … i last post
It doesn’t really matter whether or not direct physical violence was practiced or not, save for a nudge on the continuum of mostrosity.
Fear is violence. To inflict fear on another person, whether to force humiliation or compliance, is brutal, evil, and sub-human. Fear is the preferred method of persuasion for the most loathesome criminals…the Saddams, the Stalins, the Hitlers… The kind of men we, as Americans, presume to be our natural enemies. Are we not born of revolution, the ongoing experiment in defiance of tyranny?
It doesn’t matter what their cultures accept, or do not accept. It doesnt matter if they come from a culture made up entirely of enthusiastic sad-masochists. It doesn’t matter if you have God sitting at your elbow, faultlessly seperating the deserving from the innocent.
We’re the Americans. We don’t do things like that. And if we do, and accept that we do, we are nothing but another rat in the race. And that just ain’t what I’m talking about when I pledge allegiance.
If I read your somewhat esoteric reference correctly, you mean to imply that for persons who are more or less accustomed to nudity (and humilitation, as well?), such things are of less significance than to…well, civilized persons. Such as ourselves.
I hope I am mistaken, that I have misunderstood and mischaracterized your post. But more for your sake than mine.
Yes, we do things like that. We are not angels. No, we don’t accept it. There was ample demonstration of that through the last few days.
The whole point is that much worse things were done in Saddam Iraq. Those who done them were not punished but promoted. We destryed that horrible set-up.
We are trying to help Iraqi build a new social set-up. We are making mistakes and we are correcting them. That is the best example of real Democracy. We are not angels. We are trying to be decent human beings. We often fail. This is real Democracy, man-made, not brought from Heaven by an Archangel. That’s the best we can show them.
If we leave, much worse things will be done in Iraq again, unpunished.