"Surely, the best punishment for a dictator is to see himself losing power. The rest, is open to debate."
Said Djebbar
Human Rights Lawyer
On SKY News, 29 December 2006
Africa and the Tyranny of the Cult of Mediocrity - Helen Grange
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It is a piercing indictment of African liberation sensibility when, like
some biblical Jews in the long desert to Canaan who demanded that Moses
returns ...
3 weeks ago
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3 comments:
--My comment on African Shirts blog: http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2007/01/when-saddam-hussein-was-executed-people.html
Thanks for this post. I posted on my blog on the morning I woke up to news that Saddam had been hanged. I was sure when I slept the night before that he would be confirmed dead by morning. And it was with a heavy heart that I switched to the news on that day.
Even before the mobile phone footage, even before the warm recollections of his nurse, I already arrived at the conclusion that the hanging of Saddam was an act of brutality by those who claim to hold the monopoly on civilised values.
I avoided doing a long post because, where would I have started?
What I know is this: Saddam's defiance in the courtroom was a magnificent 'Damn You' to the kangaroo court. They actually did him a favour in that show trial, because he cut quite a dash in the suit. He hadn't looked better in years, if you ask me.
When i saw British newspapers saying: "Killed by his own people", I had to snigger loudly. I couldnt believe the denial.
Bottom line: the killing of Saddam during a Moslem holy month was a terrible insult, highly insensitive.
He was killed when he was killed because Goerge Bush wanted to it to be out of the way before the funeral of Former President Ford, plus Dubya wanted to outline a new 'vision' for Iraq in a new year on a clean slate.
To tell us that some puppet 'sovereign' government did what it wanted and not what the puppet masters desired, is laughable.
And yes, I was blown away by the dignity and manliness of Saddam refusing the hood, saying: there's no need for that. How brave.
I didn't believe the Iraqi 'official' who called him "a broken man" one little bit. It so clearly contradicted what we could see for ourselves. No wonder Saddam's daughters were proud.
The image of Saddam on the gallows went some way to redeem the disgrace of his appearance when he was captured.
All in all, I was appalled at even the 'officially sanctioned' images from the gallows. There was something inhumane about my having had to watch him go to his death.
When I read a blog where someone practically whooped at the hanging like it was the most exciting thing ever, I was saddened for that blogger.
Let me say this: many times Nigerian activists and writers have written in the past about the savagery of public executions of robbers and coup plotters at Lagos Bar Beach. Some have even gone into exile on account of such, saying they have no wish to be part of a society where such happens. And here we are in the 'free' West, and we were all being invited to feast on images of a Dead Saddam. Note the irony.
People have a choice, they can either swallow the 'propaganda' or 'spin' of the West wholesale - or they can think for themselves, and decide what is right or wrong - or the degrees in-between.
A crime against humanity is tried at the Hague, not in a shambolic court in Iraq, where nothing works presently. And where Western Leaders make 'surprise visits' to at will like it was some kind of protectorate (which in fact it is).
Many are parading as World Leaders today who have caused greater deaths than Saddam. We know them.
Milosevic and Pinochet were not hanged.
May God forgive them all. And may Allah have mercy on Saddam.
Yes, he was a man above all things.
I agree with the points you've made in this comment.
Your words expressed the way I felt the morning I saw pictures of Saddam's death on CNN.
He was no saint but there've been many 'murderers' ignored by the powers that be. One was our own Abacha.
His death was political and a sad one.
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