The link between 9/11 and Iraq is moral and emotive. It is the need to
assuage pain by inflicting still more pain, preferably upon a weaker
party. This moral right and emotive need made superfluous any legal
right.
On this basis, Bush and Blair, these Old and New Testament moral
crusaders, mobilized the most potent military force the world has ever
seen and unleashed it against a society brought to its knees by
sanctions and rendered practically defenseless.
At every opportunity, this armed morality has humiliated Iraqis—whose
own morality centres on honour and dignity—in retribution for the
humiliation of the United States. The toppling of his statue in Firdos
Square on April 9, 2003; Saddam down a hole; Saddam being medically
inspected as if he were a vagrant; Saddam in his underpants. All of
these events were staged-managed by the Americans for the “folks” back
home.
Arabs and Muslims are much better placed to evaluate Saddam’s actions
than Westerners. Sustaining “our” goodness, the moral validity of what
“we” have done to the people of Iraq, requires sustaining Saddam
Hussein’s "evilness". Seldom has one person been subjected to such an
enormous campaign of vilification for such immoral ends.
The execution of Saddam Hussein was the final act of this morality
play. This was the “justice” to which he was brought. The stage was set
for his final humiliation. To his credit, he refused to follow the
script and turned the tables on those who brought him there. He denied
them the pleasure of feeling morally superior.
Saddam Hussein’s life will be argued over for many years, but on this
everyone can agree: Nothing reveals a man’s moral character so much as
having his own death staring him in the face. Few among us will die on
the gallows, but we must all face death alone. Nothing, no-one can help
us. We must rely entirely on our inner resources.
How a person faces death reflects how they have lived their life.
Dying, like living, is a skill requiring disciplined practice. Some
fall apart, blame others and turn this way and that looking for an
escape. Others grimly batten down the hatches, stare blankly ahead and
let death overtake them. The exceptional ones go to meet it with
equanimity.
Knowing you are about to be hung by your enemies following a fraudulent
trial, at the behest of foreign invaders who have destroyed your
country, would tax the moral resources of a saint. Or, in this case, a
martyr.
Saddam Hussein demonstrated how to die with courage, honour and
dignity. Ponder for a moment how Bush and Blair would behave in similar
circumstances? Recall too that during the showdown over “Weapons of
Mass Destruction” Saddam Hussein was the only one of the three to tell
the truth.
Ordinarily, at an execution, the condemned man is hooded or
blindfolded, to hide his shame, to spare him sight of his own death
rushing towards him. But Saddam forewent this. He stood bare-faced,
facing death, not hiding from it.
His constrained body emphasized the expressions of his face. It showed
no sign of fear, or submission to the power about to kill him. His eyes
did not stare into the void. He listened attentively to what his
executioner said to him. He is quick-witted to the end, rising above
the verbal barbs of his tormentors.
It was his executioners who were hooded. They could see, but not be
seen. Ostensibly, this was for fear of reprisals. And yet they stood
and moved furtively, like guilty men. The arrangement of their bodies
lacked order. They moved as if their hoods were to spare us the sight
of their wretchedness.
Saddam Hussein, surrounded by hostile men, about to be lynched, refused
to be terrorized. America lifts up its skirts at the mere idea of
danger and sees terror around every corner.
He was not horrified—the horror is ours.
This was the death of a man of exceptionally strong will. It was a death that shamed all those who slandered how he lived.
Is this the behavour of a man who would hide in a hole to evade capture
by the Americans? It gave the lie to that piece of propaganda.
Here’s one thought that might have sustained and amused him in the final hours:
An occupying power hands over a man to his enemies who taunt, mock and
then execute him. Where have we heard this before? Bush and Blair
should know the answer—two thousand years ago in Roman-occupied
Palestine.
Jesus was sacrificed to atone for the sins of the guilty. For whom was Saddam Hussein sacrificed?
He was hung, with indecent haste, not for what he did to Iraqis—for
Bush and Blair would hang a hundred times over—but for what he
knew about the Americans.
And it was for their sins he was sacrificed, on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, 2006.
Notes
1. This essay is best read in the context of my earlier essay
The Trial of Saddam Hussein and the coming trials of George W. Bush and Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.
2. By far the best commentary on Saddam Hussein's death is his own:
Final letter from President Saddam Hussein to the People of Iraq
3. The title's
Ecce Homo [‘Behold the Man’], of course, is
an allusion to the words attributed to Pontious Pilate when presenting
Jesus to those demanding his execution; and also to Nietzsche’s
Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is.
Dr. Richard Marsden is a professor in the Centre for Integrated Studies, at Athabasca
University, which is Canada's open university, specializing in
distance education.
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No difference can be simpler or easier to understand. So why does this absurd phrase get endlessly repeated?