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Honestly, I’m not sure what to say about this. Read the
story first. This post is outside the blog’s normal realm, but I think deserves
some coverage at least. There is a sense of dark irony, as the author says, but
the amount of joy and vengeance in the quotes are … too real. It is a good
reality check on what the situation is like in Iraq. Thoughts?
4 comments:
I'm not really sure how to respond either, Kira. This feels like dark humor worthy of Faulkner. It is scary that one is happy that some people died because their death potentially saved hundreds of others. I'm not sure what morality there is to be found in this. It is hard to be happy at any death.
The mentality that killing people will somehow bring one to heaven is also frightening. I pity anyone who grows up truly believing this. How do we change this? Is there a way to prevent people from trying to enact change through murder?
Brianne, I agree. It is certainly an adjustment to think about being "rewarded" for murdering ... potential murderers. As perhaps juvenile and simplistic as it sounds, I think that the only way to change behavior long-term is to have open discussions. What this means, I am not so sure. Should people within their own country discuss problems within their communities? It doesn't seem to work very well...but it's hard to send outside "mediators" without the whole thing seeming absurd.
At this point, there needs to be some fundamental change in the values of people perpetrating these crimes. More than anything else, I think people want to be heard, and if they can be heard without violent actions then future incidents would decrease.
I think you make a good point Kira, that a lot of these actions are about people wanting to be heard. It is easy to dismiss those who commit terrorism as, evil people. While we can not justify terrorism actions, such casual dismissals do not provide much potential for reducing terrorist acts.
I do believe in the power of talking things out, within and outside a community. Maybe it is naive of me, but I find it hard not to blame poor education for a lot of terrorism. If you are taught all your life that a group, a country or a people is bad, than it would be hard not to believe that.
I think it's also important to note that terrorists are a sub group within their country. We should be careful not to fall into easy stereotyping of certain countries as "terrorist."
This is a difficult issue, Kira, and thank you for bring it to our attention.
I can only reason that the Iraqis quoted in the article would find this event humorous in perceiving that suicide bombings have become frequent and commonplace to a ridiculous degree. Turning to dark humor seems like a way in which they seek to cope with the devastation of likely having had friends and acquaintances die through such suicide bombings - I would think it difficult to perceive suicide bombers or mass murderers in general as not worthy of death themselves. Still, I can't imagine someone being "so happy as if he was getting married" because of the deaths of would-be suicide bombers.
I agree that education and discussion could change the mentality of suicide bombers, although I don't know exactly how these could be fostered. To add onto the idea of individuals turning to suicide bombing because they want to be heard, I think that some may be attracted to suicide bombing because it seems to give them a purpose in life, presenting an opportunity to work for what seems like a worthy cause greater than the individual. Especially for those who may feel neglected or ignored, it may seem appealing in making sense of their day-to-day struggles and the discouraging events that seem to happen outside of their control, proclaiming that these are only temporary and small trials leading up to the greater afterlife that will await one after he completes a suicide bombing mission.
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