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Hanging:
Making Saddam a hero and not a tyrant as the U.S. had planned
Posted By Adnan Al-Husseini
Since the former Iraqi leader was hanged on the first day
of one of the holiest Islamic feasts where violence is
forbidden, in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his
public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a
“tyrant” and “dictator”, has undergone a resurgence of
admiration and respect.
The circumstances of the hanging of Saddam turned him into
a martyr in the eyes of the majority of the Sunni world and
Muslim leaders.
Protests broke out all over the Middle East, and main
headlines in the world’s media outlets were reserved for the
condemnation of the grotesque way in which Saddam was executed
following a farce trail in which he was denied the right for
proper defence.
On the streets of many cities in Iraq, in Beirut,
Palestine, India, Pakistan, and Egypt, Saddam emerged as an
Arab hero who stood calm as his executioners abused him in the
last moment of his life.
“No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was
executed,” President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said in an
interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot
published Friday.
“They turned him into a martyr,” the Egyptian President
said, adding that illicit video showing Saddam, with his pale
face yet strong appearance, being humiliating by guards as
they were putting the noose around his neck was revolting and
barbaric.
"People are executed all over the world, but what
happened in Baghdad on the first day of Eid al-Adha was
unthinkable. I didn't believe it was happening," he said.
"Why did they have to hurry? Why hang him when people
are reciting their holiday prayers? Then the pictures of the
execution were revolting and barbaric.
"I am not saying whether Saddam did or did not deserve
the death penalty. I am also not getting into the question of
whether this court is lawful under occupation."
Libya canceled celebrations of the Eid and the government
gave orders for building a statue depicting Saddam in the
gallows. And in Morocco protesters took to the streets
shouting anti-U.S. solgans and carrying huge photographs of
the former Iraqi President.
Similar protests took place in the occupied Palestinian
territories despite the current political turmoil and fierce
fighting that broke out in recent days between members and
supporters of Fatah movement, supported by the U.S .and UK,
and Hamas loyalists.
And in Beirut, massive demonstrations organised by members
of the Lebanese Baath Party and Palestinian activists blocked
the streets on Friday in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood,
as protesters carried a symbolic coffin representing Saddam
and later offered a funeral prayer.
“God damn America and its spies,” read a huge banner
across one major Beirut thoroughfare. “Our condolences to
the nation for the assassination of Saddam, and victory to the
Iraqi resistance.”
Some analysts said that Saddam’s strong appearance in
court during the show trail that lasted for three years, as
well as appalling scenes of his death have cleansed the former
leader’s past.
“Suddenly we forgot that he was a dictator and that he
killed thousands of people,” Roula Haddad, 33, a Lebanese
Christian, said. “All our hatred for him suddenly turned
into sympathy, sympathy with someone who was treated unjustly
by an occupation force and its collaborators.”
Although Egypt is a key Middle East ally of the U.S. and
one of only two Arab states who have signed a peace deal with
Israel, the Egyptian President said he sent a message to the
U.S. President George W Bush urging him not to allow the
execution to take place during Eid al-Adha.
On the other hand, Washington, which saw in the humiliation
of Saddam before the eyes of the entire world a sign of
triumph, attempted to distance itself from the way in which
the execution was carried out, yet insisted that justice was
served.
But it emerged that the illicit video was recorded with the
permission of Americans who were present at the building where
the execution took place.
Evidence from a senior Iraqi court official showed that
Americans who were present at the hanging scene made sure
mobile phones were taken from all those who attended the
execution, except two "high-ranking government
officials."
Until a week ago, Saddam was widely seen as a “dictator,
a criminal “tyrant” who tortured his nation and deserved
the death penalty for his inhuman treatment and killings of
innocent civilians who opposed his rule. And not much of the
Middle East reacted positively to allegations that the trial
was flawed.
But after his execution last Saturday, many across the
Middle East began looking at him as a martyr.
“The Arab world has been devoid of pride for a long
time,” said Ahmad Mazin al-Shugairi, who hosts a television
show at the Middle East Broadcasting Center. “The way Saddam
acted in court and just before he was executed, with dignity
and no fear, struck a chord with Arabs who are desperate for
their own leaders to have pride too.”
Ayman Safadi, editor in chief of the independent Jordanian
daily Al Ghad, said, “The last image for many was of Saddam
taken out of a hole. That has all changed now.”
At the heart of the sudden reversal of opinion was the
symbolism of the hasty execution, now framed as an act of
sectarian vengeance shrouded in political theater and overseen
by the American occupation.
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