Most of us have watched television shows about the wild west, where verdicts for particularly brutal crimes are taken seriously and the guilty are punished by death. Hangings, stonings, firing squad. You name it. But that was in the old days. Right? Actually, even though we may think those days are in the past, they still exist. Maybe not in a Toronto suburb, or a corner of North Vancouver, but they exist within the reaches of our network news and media. And in Iraq.
From time to time, I idealise the world and have the idea in my head that we're civilized organisms who understand that an eye for an eye makes the world blind. But I grew up in the Canadian prairie suburbia. I had a bike, and a small school to attend, caring parents, food on my plate, clothes on my back, and people around me who were looking out for my well-being. I would take my bike to the dirt hills without the slightest fear that something was going to happen to me. I was more worried about showing up at school with bad hair than anything else. I broke a few bones in my life, but only one of them was from any sort of angry aggression, and it was on the playground in sixth grade. Sure, I've said I've hated people, but there has been so little done to me that the hatred is predominantly superficial. In reality, I have little to hate. I find some things to be frustrated about from time to time, but very little to hate. And nothing (or no one) at all to wish death on.
Yet the media and our idealised western world makes us hate these people that do wrong. And for good reason, I'd say. So, then... Why does the whole verdict make me feel uneasy? Why am I uneasy that Saddam Hussein is being sentenced to death? We've been conditioned by years of seeing Saddam as an enemy, a war criminal, a despot. We see his picture and have ill feelings towards him. We see him and see an enemy of western ideals and against democracy. But still, I look at the guilty verdict and the upcoming punishment of hanging, and I find myself feeling uncertain... why? I'm still not sure.
I've known for a long time that politics in never black and white, and perspective is highly influential in our personal responses to such events. Our media plays a huge role (if not the only role) in the dispersement of information now, particularly since we can receive news about a pin dropping in Australia before it has even rolled to a stop. And we have faith in this media. Or most of it anyway. I read the news and believe what it says. When there is an obvious perspective being favoured (i.e. in the Editorial section), I take it with a grain of salt. Or if it's coming from Fox News. Or Ann Coulter. But even in regular news stories, points of view are being ignored, discarded, and pushed aside. I think my biggest problem is that I don't think we'll ever know the whole story of things happening internationally, or even locally for that matter. So how do we pursue truth and when do we just satisfy ourselves with the fact that we will never know anything. I know the old adage, "The more I learn, the more I realise I don't know". And it's definitely true to an extent. But can we ever simply satisfy ourselves with just not knowing? I guess this is when conviction takes over and accounts for some of the religious fanaticism that is around the world... we can't be totally sure, but we'll never be sure, so why not hold onto this one grain of sand with all that we're worth? Surely it can't be that wrong?
Maybe this post isn't very well organized, and maybe I'm starting off on one thing and just bringing out anything related. My original site disclaimer said to watch for such incessant rambling. So leave me a comment and let me know if you understood any of this.. I'll probably come back in a couple of days and see that it's nonsensical. Oh well, it's one of my trademarks. ;)
- T
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