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Columns
Stoning
“We love each other, no matter what
happens!” Siddqu and Khayyam called out, as the
next stone was hurled at them. Her
all-enveloping burqa prevented us from seeing
her 25-year-old face, but not the blood that
gushed out of her body, slowly rendering the
blue tissue a darker shade. I looked at the hole
that the woman, accused of adultery, was placed
in. On a dusty sand plain in the Afghan province
of Kunduz. The place where love died. Where hope
died. Where freedom died. Where life dies. I
think of the intense cry of joy by a man who
participated in the stoning. His euphoric hate
carves deep tracks in what a human being can
bear. I notice that I try to avoid his look.
That I want to forget his intentions, to leave
his words untranslated and his soul unloved.
What is left of you as a human being when you
are able to stone a woman, a young defenceless
woman, to death? What do you find yourself doing
an hour after her death? Drinking tea with much
sugar? Eating a tasty snack, taking a shower,
reading the paper, watching television, sleeping
with your wife? What does the soul of a man who
stones another person do? Does that soul start
to lead its own life? Separate from the hands
that are tainted with blood? Separate from the
eyes that flash rancour and hate? Separate from
the force with which the stones were picked up
and thrown? That soul, once maybe soft and
humane too, must take flight. Or is that soul
scorched black? Altogether dead? Almost rotten
away? I catch myself failing to get the image of
the half-buried woman in burqa off my mind’s eye.
The image that in the past only existed in
stories is now suddenly visible. Not that this
visibility makes reality more real, for the
image is almost surrealistic. When I search
again for the video of the stoning for this
column, I run into the most horrible sites, in
which people anonymously call out all sorts of
things about stoning. That it is okay, for
example, for Muslims to eradicate each other in
this way. I sigh. The anonymous sender, the
anonymous opinion preacher on the internet
cannot be taken seriously anyway. We ought to
ignore them systematically. Whoever has the time
to respond to all sorts of blogs has too much
time on his hands. Whoever insults and offends
namelessly should look inside. To the cowardly
letters of despair, frustration and impotence
that trickle outside. Without a name. Of course,
no name. Apparently many slanderers do not dare
to put their signature under their own
accusations. It would be evidence of courage if
people stand behind their words, if they stand
behind their deeds. In a way, the man whose head
enters the picture during the stoning is an
example of showing face. Sickly but true. The
devil personified made the world shake, after
his stone was perhaps the last and definitive
blow for Siddqu and her six years older lover
Khayyam. But with the death of these two lovers,
whatever humaneness the perpetrators still
possessed also died.
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Written on 1 February 2011 |
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