Lifestyle > Train of Thought
Pictures of abuse symbolic to Muslims
JTSimon:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2552288
--- Code: ---Pictures of abuse symbolic to Muslims
By MARK O'KEEFE
As soon as Ingrid Mattson saw the photo of the smiling American woman soldier pointing at the genitals of a hooded, naked Iraqi prisoner, she knew it would touch a deep, inner chord in Muslims, no matter where they are.
That image and others like it assault on a visceral level core Islamic values such as modesty and dignity while evoking feelings of humiliation that non-Muslims may not fully understand, say Mattson and other scholars of Islam.
"This is definitely symbolic," said Mattson, a professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. "This soldier is symbolic of American force and the prisoner is symbolic of Muslim peoples. For the broader Muslim public, this will be a symbol of the subjugation and rape of Muslim lands."
"That picture will become the recruiting poster of radicals trying to attack the West," said Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at American University in Washington. "If Osama bin Laden had come to Madison Avenue and asked for an advertising image to help him recruit, this would be it."
In the United States, the full power of the images are only beginning to be realized, said Ahmed, an anthropologist trained in semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, and author of Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World.
So far, he said, the picture that seems to resonate most in the West is one showing a hooded and wired prisoner with his arms outstretched, like Christ suffering on the cross.
But the image Muslims will have seared on their psyche is the photo of the female American soldier, because it depicts an interaction brazenly crossing spiritual, societal and cultural boundaries.
"Here, you're getting one person representing one civilization pointing to the most vulnerable part of another person representing another civilization," said Ahmed, who is also a columnist for Religion News Service.
"It's gloating. It's triumphant, with an element of sadism and stupidity."
The display of skin is shocking enough in cultures where women's faces and sometimes entire bodies are customarily covered, and where men don't wear shorts or T-shirts, but modest, loose-fitting clothing, even when it's hot.
The claim that the abuse was "un-American," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday, and "does not represent the America that I know," as President Bush put it Wednesday, does little to mitigate the damage, say Islamic scholars. That's because the images play perfectly to stereotypes of morally decadent Americans.
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this is the photo the article is talking about.
and there are more photos to come...
smerlus:
that is one nasty, dirty, inbred bitch... they should imprison her with the same people she tortured
JTSimon:
--- Quote from: smerlus on May 06, 2004, 06:45:50 AM ---that is one nasty, dirty, inbred bitch... they should imprison her with the same people she tortured
--- End quote ---
I want to welcome her home[united states] ;D
smerlus:
--- Quote from: Maximus Powers on May 06, 2004, 06:52:26 AM ---
--- Quote from: smerlus on May 06, 2004, 06:45:50 AM ---that is one nasty, dirty, inbred bitch... they should imprison her with the same people she tortured
--- End quote ---
I want to welcome her home[united states] ;D
--- End quote ---
yeah i know what it's like to have a close realitive so far from home 8)
JTSimon:
--- Quote from: smerlus on May 06, 2004, 07:06:59 AM ---
--- Quote from: Maximus Powers on May 06, 2004, 06:52:26 AM ---
--- Quote from: smerlus on May 06, 2004, 06:45:50 AM ---that is one nasty, dirty, inbred bitch... they should imprison her with the same people she tortured
--- End quote ---
I want to welcome her home[united states] ;D
--- End quote ---
yeah i know what it's like to have a close realitive so far from home 8)
--- End quote ---
lol thats why I put United States in brackets...I don't have any relatives/friends in the military and proud of it ;D
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