Jameed has drawn attention to what he regards as irresponsible and inflammatory reporting in Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad and I can’t help but agree with him. Actually, I’d say what I read was outrageous! The article (in Arabic) is about the reaction of the family of the Iraq al-Hilla car bomber (pictured), who, to my great dismay, turns out to be a Jordanian national.
According to the article, the family of this mass-murder — who killed over 100 innocent, unarmed Iraqis — celebrated his "martyrdom" by organizing what is called the "wedding of the martyr." The author of this article refers to this butcher as a "shaheed," or a martyr, and calls his appalling act "martyrdom" and part of the "Iraqi resistance."
What is still worse is that the author twists the facts on the ground, saying most of those killed in this massacre were Americans. This is a total lie. Really, what kind of crap is this?!?!
I’m so furious! This is the worst journalism ever! Does al-Ghad think that they can be proactive by publishing this kind of crap. Is this what Jordanians should expect from this so called "controversial" new Jordanian publication.
I’m tempted to boycott this publication for publishing such an outrage!
UPDATE: I encourage everyone who is as outraged by this article as I am to send an e-mail to the editor-in-chief of al–Ghad newspaper and complain. His name is Imad al Hmoud and his e-mail is: editorial@alghad.jo
Metalordie – your point is taken. And I agree that Brian overreached.
But in those many of the situations, where people really celebrating this?
Does the family of the Chinese soldier have a party over his mistreatment of protesters?
I come from a place with a lot of violence, and people do what they think is necessary to survive. But they don’t celebrate about it. Not the rational ones anyways. They might applaud soldiers for a particularly brave raid or something, but they don’t hold a party for killing people, and funerals are sad.
This is beyond the point, but what lynching of prostitutes in Iran? Prostitutes have been murdered on a number of cases these past years, but not in a celebratory way. Similar cases are common in the US, a serial killer was just caught recently in Kansas I think, and one was sentenced to life in Washington a while back.
Amir,
You raise a good point. Despite the fancy cars and the yelling in state legislatures, the mobile phones and all the blogs you can fit in your pocket, the Arabs have not yet emerged from the cultural slump brought on by the Mongols of 1258.
I mentioned lynching in the south in the 30s. Thousands attended and it was a fiesta. The lynched person may have been guilty or not.
Compare that to the street killing of so-called Palestinian “traitors”. Hundreds of people crowd around and watch. I have seen footage where after the person has been killed, the corpse is beaten, spat on, what have you. I find that analogous to the south of the 30s.
Or the lynching of prostitutes in Iran.
The decapitation of Iraqi police in the street in Iraq, whether you are with the occupation or against it.
The parading and then execution of Algerian soldiers in village squares.
On and on and on…
The Middle East is still culturally in the dark ages.
The sanctity of human life, alas, is missing…
But that still does not qualify Brian’s post because I can show you examples in Brazil where street children are mopped up by masked armed men.
Treatment of protesters in China, Thailand.
Beating of women last week in a pro-women rally in Turkey.
Pepper-spraying of peaceful demonstrators in Canada and the US.
There’s violence all around and no country is innocent from it.
In defense of Brian, the examples of Western celebration of mayhem were in the past.
Now, he brought that on by saying “in the West’s recorded history”, but still is the point you guys are making that the Islamic world is currently in a state analogous to Europe a thousand years ago or to the US South pre-WWII?
I don’t know if I buy that, what with the advances in communications. There does seem to be a very different view on the taking of human life.
The wife thought that too. I don’t think that’s the bomber. It couldn’t be. Any bomb capable of killing that many people would pretty much vaporize the guy sitting on it. It’s not clear in their captioning but I think that’s their editoriliaztion of “the bomber and what he left behind” as the image is placed behind him, like his trail of bodies.
That’s not a gruesome picture! Hey are we supposed to believe from Alarabiya’s layout that the body in the back of the truck is the perpetrator?
Seems kinda strange he wasn’t blown to smithereens.
Here’s the story breaking across the web:
Metal. i could not agree with you more. just stayed up with the family and our uncle visitng and of course, the main discussion was politcs, the war in iraq, democracey in the midd east. yada yada yada. any way, while the older people were talking about how we need democracey in the midd east. i asked them about some of the things they value most about our culture. then i asked them if they were willing to change those cultural practices. they said no. then i responded with: “so its getting really hot these days ha?” its was the end of the discussion.
You guys, I think it is time we put things under the microscope… I mean think about it, why would any sane person think that by killing civilians they are martyrs? Even though killing innocent people is against Islamic laws (who kills one innocent person is as if he/she killed all the people) I am not quoting as I don’t know the exact words. . The other question is why Jihad has been taken out of context and is translated into people’s minds into holy war, I mean, Jihad means killing people? Jihad has a totally different meaning. Third, why would the family celebrate such an act? And finally why would the majority al Ghad readers not even notice that there is something wrong here? The answer that I am trying to reach is that people are not stupid, why would they not disagree to this? As a matter of fact why would they agree silently? I think violence would not stop till all these phenomena are decomposed to the root cause just to understand what makes people agree with this.
Don’t feed the troll folks.