For the past week, the main story that has hit news across the globe is mainly about the death of Gaddafi. How in the last hours of his life he spent hiding in two concrete sewers when he was spotted by former rebels who surrounded him. He was cornered while holding a gold-plated pistol, while he was apparently wounded and dazed. He then begged for his life before he was shot in the street. A graphic video was taken, showing how his body was dragged through the streets of Sirte and paraded around before a crowd which was celebrating his death in the nearby town of Misrata.
There are two things about this whole story which literally made me sick to my stomach. Now don’t get me wrong, I had no warm fuzzy feelings for this guy at all. Especially after what he did to his own people when they decided to stand up against him. He killed thousands of his own people, and I’m certain a lot of people believe he got what he deserved.
The first thing is which appalled me is how can anyone, after how they were treated by this mad man, would want to hunt down and kill a human being who is begging for his life then drag his body through the streets. While filming it all! I mean, there is this guy who is on the run, because his own people want him dead. He has now had to resort to hiding in abandon buildings and sewers with his family and a couple of bodyguards because everyone wants him dead. And what do these people do? They treat him exactly the way he was treating his own people. Instead of letting him live in exile, or letting him rot in jail with the rest of the people who were defending him, these people resort to the one and only treatment they were standing against. Aren’t we better than that as a race? What happens when you kill the one thing that you hate, to suddenly realize that you or your country are now becoming the one thing you stood against?
The second thing that appalled me (and honestly I do not know which is the worst), is not only that they showed this video footage on peoples television screens at home, but pictures of the video were shown in newspapers as well. Come on seriously? We have people fighting against violence in games, and violence within movies and how they should have a proper rating system to protect people from these types of images. And what do we do? We show actual footage of an actual dead body being dragged through the streets while people are celebrating. This is not the first time it’s happened either. Early this year, when Osama was hunted down and killed they showed a picture of his face on the news of his dead body. Ok, I am aware that it ended up being a fake photo. But at the time, during the news when everyone is glued to the news to hear about the death of Osama the news presenter mentions ‘We don’t normally show photos of a dead person, but in this instance we’ll make an exception.’
So it’s ok to show videos and photos of dead people now? This is what we’re becoming? The news is always sad and depressing, and even for myself I cannot watch it on a daily basis because the news rarely shows anything good or heart-warming. I think it’s about time that a lot of us realize that if you want to stand up for freedom, you don’t follow the ways of the one thing you’re standing against.
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