TV is the New Reading

Tape of ‘honor killing’

in Iraq just disturbing

A Kurdish girl is stoned to death in the streets of Bashika, a town in northern Iraq, and the stoning is recorded on cellphones. Along with the violence, the cellphones record at least three police officers standing nearby doing nothing.

It seems obvious from the context that the people filming the death of Du’a Khalil, 17, in this manner are pleased with what they’re doing, with what they’re a part of. Du’a was a member of Yezidi, a tradition with roots in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which disapproves of marriage outside the sect. She was seen in public with a Sunni Muslim man. This got her killed.

The flip side of this is that if the participants in this barbaric public stoning – termed outrageously an “honor killing” – did not film themselves, we wouldn’t necessarily be aware of it. It would still be going on with other mobs and other victims. In fact, it almost certainly is.

We’re able to view and react to the violence in this case because of the world we live in and the proliferation of technology.

See, in the past, it would be enough that Du’a – who, according to the CNN report, was not guilty of anything she was accused of (although honestly, if she were, would that make it OK?) – would be stoned to death in the public square and people would view it as the spectacle of gender-based terrorism that it is as a cautionary example to bring all the other women in line.

In the age of cellphones and the Internet, such mob spectacles can serve the same purpose for the thugs who perpetrate them. The girl’s punishment can be uploaded and viewed on a continuous loop. Take that!

Violence escalates

There isn’t any way to be completely OK with this. Sure, there’s violence in the world, and it’s always ugly, even when it’s part of pop culture like video games and television and movies. When it stops making us upset it’s time to worry.

I mean, Du’a’s execution on YouTube isn’t exactly the same as a bystander’s video camera capturing the police brutality against Rodney King in 1991. If that were the case, the police would have to have been filming it and uploading it themselves as a public warning.

But if this girl’s murder can inspire us to make ourselves more aware of what’s going on in the world and try to address it – maybe by trying to control or rein in what violence we can by not supporting it and speaking out against it – then maybe this girl’s death doesn’t have to be as stupid and meaningless as it otherwise seems to be.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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