Cruelties are committed since the early days of humanity. According to the Biblical and Holy Quran tale Kain has beaten his brother Abel to death - a first recorded case of an envy motivated crime. Interesting detail: the blood deed had happened reportedly near Damascus.
A closer look to the Old Testament offers a whole spectrum of cruelties. The fight between good and evil accompanies us humans through the whole history, sometimes more, sometimes less cruel. The Romans fed Christians and other unwanted people to the lions as a spectacle for tens of thousands. The medieval produced some really sadistic procedures, especially during the witchhunt worldwide: interrogations ended mainly under extreme torture where the delinquents had confessed all they‘re been accused for, even without committing it, and the rest who had stand against the almost inhuman methods had been finally declared guilty cause only the power of Satan himself could have given them the strength to resist the incredible pain. And in the younger history the Holocaust still marks a bitter milestone of icecold committed atrocities against the Jews.
But the digital age has changed profoundly our awareness. In earlier times we‘re getting told of the unimaginable becoming only imaginable in our fantasy. With the invention of photography images from atrocities were kept as evidences of what really had happened (we only have to think about the b/w images of World War I where shattered bodies on the frontlines or horrible disfigured faces or bodies in the field hospitals were presented) and the running pictures brought us the crimes against humanity even much closer than ever before. Today we are able to witness cruelties and atrocities nearly live. Inhumanity enters our private sphere as never before.
Especially in the case of Syria the horror caused by Assad's murderous troops becomes a terrible dimension. Daily we receive in the meantime uploaded videos showing us killed babies, slaughtered minors, bodies of teeners torn to pieces, whole families being eliminated. It seems that the deadly spiral has no end. Inevitably memories of Cambodia and Rwanda are sweeping through our minds. The cruelties the Syrian regime is committing are meanwhile similar to those inhuman events but the crucial difference is that the Syrian people originally raised up for more freedom and dignity. And they still do that paying an abnormous high price for their demands.
How to handle the flood of informations about all the crimes against humanity without getting a permanent psychic damage? Ignoring it is not the solution. That is exactly what the culprits want: that we refuse to see, to watch their crimes detailled so that they can go on with it. Fact is that the modern media gave us the possibilities to document their deeds so the actors will one day face justice for their crimes. Not everybody is able to stand to those sometimes abnormal images of cruelty. Every atrocious image contains the risk of destroying permanently something inside the viewer's mind. The main reason why we are careful posting those videos with strong content marking them with the labels 'graphic' or '+18'.
Not the sensible souls among us are our targets to spread those horrifying images. The world's powerful are it. They cannot ignore what is happening. They have to take an analyzing look on the posted material to become aware what is really going on out there and therefore to react as we, the people, want them to react. Not with everlasting empty phrases but with effective measures to stop the cruelties.
It's incomprehensible that some human beings are still kind of celebrating the documented atrocities. They will never deserve our understanding for their attitude. The way we cannot reach their compassion (in the case they have some) the way we cannot help them. We can only help those being exposed to the cruelties and atricities by documenting, sharing and remembering. The price we have to pay for is the loss of our imagination of a nice world. We're becoming more realists. And before those images are damaging our own souls we have to protect ourselves by speaking about it or by writing about it. The last one is my way to compensate the horror I've witnessed during the last months.
No comments:
Post a Comment