the limping messenger

Reposting of an august 21 2014 post on Flickr on this blog…. it had 21.842 views, but is now classified by Yahoo/Flickr as ‘adult material… see footnote 5 in red at the bottom…

BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM that text on a placard in a photograph from the year 2006 – replicated all over the internet often without place and original context – came back to my mind today with all the comments on the beheading of an American journalist by the Islamic ISL insurgents and the abhoring reactions of what was called by many “a barbaric act.” (2)

I checked again what was it’s original context…. (3)

Is BEHEADING more or less BARBARIC than firing a laser guided MISSILE onto a human target? (4)

I think not, at least not from the point of view of those who instantly loose the ability to have any view, because they have just been killed, they are dead.

The ideology as expressed by zealots like Anjem Choudary and the later proponents of a new Islamic Caliphate, translated into slogans as shown here, I would call BARBARIC, something completely foreign to most sane people.

An ideology that purposely refutes and swaps aside all human enlightenment of millennia and centuries.

The act of killing an adversary remains a horrifying constant in human history. We can not point at ‘the barbaric other’ while excluding ‘ourselves’ of belonging to the same class, just because we use another killing technology.

THERE ARE NO HUMANITARIAN WEAPONS all killings of adversaries are irreversible acts of violence.(5)
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(1) See GoogleImageSearch
www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=off&biw=13…

(2) – 20/8/2014 ABC News: “James Foley beheading: Obama condemns ‘barbaric’ act, saying Islamic State has ‘shocked the world'”
www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/world-leaders-condemn-barb…

(3) The 2006 Islamist demonstration outside the Embassy of Denmark in London took place on 3 February 2006, in response to controversy surrounding the publication of editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. The extremist UK-based Islamist groups al Ghurabaa and The Saviour Sect staged a controversial protest march from London Central Mosque near Marylebone Station to the Danish Embassy near Knightsbridge tube station. (…) Some protesters waved placards reading slogans such as “Massacre those who insult Islam”, “Butcher those who mock Islam”, “Be prepared for the real holocaust”, “Europe you will pay, your 9/11 is on the way”, or “7/7 is on its way”; “Europe you will pay, Bin Laden is on his way”, “Freedom go to hell” and “Europe you’ll come crawling, when the Mujahideen come roaring”. Despite the similar theme on al Ghurabaa’s website, their spokesman, Anjem Choudary, said he did not know who wrote the placards.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamist_demonstration_outside_Dani…

(4) Like we tend NOT to associate the Israeli guided missile killing of (supposed) Hamas leaders (and their families and whoever happened to be around at the wrong moment) with the beheading of the American journalist. Is it because this kind of ‘high-tech’ killing is ‘not barbaric’? (This argument also can be turned around when we speak of badly targeted Palestinian Insurgent ‘garage-made rockets, into Israel)Let me quote from the Guardian yesterday: Three of Hamas’s most senior military commanders have been killed in pre-dawn air strikes on Rafa in the south of the Gaza Strip. // Hamas announced the deaths of Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed Attar and Mohammed Barhoum on Thursday morning. The loss of the military commanders is a serious blow to the organisation. // There was still no definitive word on the fate of Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s top military figure, whose wife and eight-month-old son were killed on Tuesday evening when five one-tonne bombs struck a house in Gaza City. // Israeli military analyists said intelligence indicated Deif was at the house and that it was virtually impossible that anyone could have survived the destructive force of the bombing. A third unidentified person also died in the air strike. // The Israel Defence Forces said it struck 20 targets over Wednesday night and into Thursday morning.
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/hamas-leaders-die-i…

We should also be aware that BEHEADING (decapitation) is still practiced today as a tool for capital punishment: Saudi Arabia is the only country that carries out beheadings of its offenders. They are commonly performed outside of mosques in major cities after prayer services on Friday, the Muslim holy day. The punishment derives from the country’s Wahhabi interpretation of the Islamic religious laws of Shariah. Crimes such as of rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery, drug trafficking and repeated drug use[39] are punishable by beheading.[4]
Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded four men in February 2007— Sangeeth Kumara, Victor Corea, Ranjith Silva and Sanath Pushpakumara.These four Sri Lankan workers were convicted in a Saudi Arabian court for an armed robbery committed in October 2004. Their deaths sparked reactions from the international human rights group Amnesty International, which called on the Saudi authorities to abolish the death sentence. The court also ruled that the bodies of the four workers be crucified for public view as an example for others. In most such cases the respective embassy is notified only after the execution, thereby eliminating chances for international or diplomatic protest.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation#Saudi_Arabia

(5)
Over 2 years ago Yahoo/Flickr where I still are holder of a professional account, did censor all my seven hundred and more news-tableaus (pictures and documented texts) in one sweep, by declaring my Flickr pages ‘adult content’. I did protest against this several times, but the only answer I did get back seemed to be by a email-robot writing formal letters. It goes without saying that I do neither produce or distribute explicit erotics/pornographic material. I have asked several times if Yahoo/Flickr could point me to a specific posting that did not fit their rules. NO ANSWER ever on that Digital Kafka, is what I call this phenomenon. As I have neither the time nor the money to start law-suits against such a major firm. I let it go. I think the links below are accessible when the user clicks and states she/he is of the right age and will not be offended.

I have now started to slowly port all my Flickr news-tableau material, one by one, to my own blog on WordPress. That is a slwo process. Sorry, but this has no been my fault.

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A series of ‘news-tableaus’ I made on the subject of ‘no humanitarian weapons’ the last three years”
– 18/12/2011: “Summary Execution 1968 – 2012 from pistol to drone”https://www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/8050633613/

– 22/9/2012: “Obama Targeting Innocents with Drones”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/8050570521/

– 25/11/2012: “”DRONES ARE SEXY” an extra-juridical form of warfare by two non members of the International Criminal Court in The Hague: the USA & Israel”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/8217308046/in/photolist…

– 28/8/2013: “Humanitarian Weapons – Self-seeking Correct Target – Without Collateral Damage”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/9614772889/

– 4/9/2013: “There Are No Humanitarian Weapons – biggest lie of these days “THE GRADING OF KILLING METHODS IN SYRIA” as if Chemical Weapons are worse than Conventional Weapons”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/9671224823/
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NB there are several ‘détournements’ (content reversals) also of this picture, where other texts have been montaged in the original photograph, some try to be funny others sarcastic.
It is interesting that in most cases when this photograph is used as an illustration for an argument put forward, the original context of the photograph is NOT mentioned… Sad to say but ‘generailsations’ by fanatic Islamists often do get mirrored by those who try to counter act on them.

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added 30/8/2014

Index on Censorship is one of the best sources on censorship for many decades. They published this comment:

“Banning us from watching this video of a criminal act is a step too far There is a difference between individuals exercising their right not to view or share a video, and companies such as Twitter — or indeed the police force — denying people the right to view it By Jodie Ginsberg / 21 August, 2014<“
www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/08/james-foley-isis-media-…