Journal Entry: Neda

The article in question can be found here, along with the video in question.

Response: I am transfixed in horror watching this woman bleed to death. Her eyes roll back and men clutch her dying body. I almost feel like I am there, crying and screaming along with the others, and one man in particular – older, greyer – appears to be her father, begging her to open her eyes and stay awake. The determination these men possess to keep her alive is evident in their actions, as one man tries to dig the blood out of her mouth.

I am shocked for a variety of reasons. One among them makes me feel very MacBeth: so much blood! There is just so much blood. I am shocked at the amount, I am shocked at how it pours from every orifice, I am shocked that one human can contain so much blood. Watching it pour is watching her life gush away.

I cannot even begin to fathom the pain one must experience while watching their child pass away so gruesomely in front of them, while simultaneously being raised to an almost mythical status in the Western world as the face of the victim in Iranian politics as a result of this election. Jezebel mentions that women were especially implicated in the importance of this election, and are among the most visible protestors. Now one woman has become the face of the victim for Iran, and I cannot help but think how often this happens in society, war, politics, etc.

Why is it always women? Why do I feel like it’s always women who are being made an example of, or a victim of? Why are they more sympathetic than men?

Or am I happier to hear that, as a woman named Parisa says, that women are screaming to be heard, who are “ready to explode?” I think perhaps I am, more so than I am concerned that they are victims, although it doesn’t stop me from wondering why women must always be the victims people see and remember most.

Self-Critique: I find a lot of what I say hypocritical. I complain about making women victims and the sympathetic sex, yet I write a post about exactly why these women are victims and centre my entire journal entry around a dead woman. My concerns are obviously, and primarily, Western. My feminist leanings are evident in that I am both concerned about how women are portrayed in these events, as well as my joy that they want to be heard, figuratively and literally.

My reasons for being so shocked are primarily that I lead an extremely sheltered life. Although I am willing to educate myself on what is occurring in other parts of the world, or even in my own neighbourhood, it does not really hit home until I see a video of what is happening to people who may very well be my age. I have problems reconciling the fact that we are the same age, and that while these events might not be acceptable, they are happening regardless, and someone there believes such excessive violence is an acceptable reaction to riots and protestors. My shock is, certainly naïve, and implies an unworldliness and detachment from world events, but also implies an unawareness of crimes perpetrated within my own country in its past and present.

My first and second paragraphs focus heavily on how things look. This often happens when I am watching as opposed to reading something; I am more focused on people’s looks and reactions as opposed to my own. I tend to focus on the details, like the man who shoves his finger in Neda’s mouth to help her breathe fruitlessly, as opposed to my own reaction to what he is doing, which influences my response. Instead of paying attention to what I am thinking and feeling and simply letting myself think, I must stop and watch again and again and dilute my original response until it lacks that rawness of reaction to such a graphic scene.

Cultural Critique: Western culture predominates my response. The belief that gruesome events only happen elsewhere is evident, as well as the prevalent feminist culture. The belief that woman should be heard is implied. Western society really takes for granted that women will be heard, at least a little bit. Of course, Western society is not without its own prejudices against women, so it is perhaps not quite as enlightened as I believe it to be in my mind.

The focus on appearance is a very Western cultural view as well. I feel very cynical in believing this, but I believe that perhaps her marketability as a victim is based in part upon Neda’s actual colouring, which is quite light, and her Western-style clothing. This makes it easier for the West to see themselves in her position, as well as the ambiguous appearance of the street – it could be any street, any woman, etc. That said, it has been a while since Western society, especially North America, has experienced such a violent riot as the ones in Iran.

I often discuss my lack of awareness, which is an element of self-critique I present often accompanied with shame. Western society is two-faced on this issue; it either shoves news on a 24 hour basis in a relentless attack on television, or it advocates couch potato syndrome, which ensures naivety by pushing Westerners into a comfortable culture of ignorance of what is happening outside their very small bubble. These two extremes are very protective of themselves, and often find each other in a sort of tug of war – there is very little middle ground for people to occupy within overconsumption of knowledge and starvation of knowledge.

Journal Entry: "Students Shot In Front Of A Camera"

The video I discuss in this journal entry can be found here, which I found via The Daily Dish.

Response: The title of the video is simple and straightforward. People are crying out and throwing rocks. The camera is blurry and unclear at times. A lone woman's voice cries shortly before shots ring out at 1:07 in the video, gravely wounding at least one student in view, surely more are wounded off camera. It triggers a shockwave in me, as the woman yells piercingly.

I'm shocked. I can't understand why such a response comes from someone with the clear high ground, but physically and in weapon. Rocks in a crowd versus a riot policeman's gun? Where is the justice in that, when all they want is answers? I don't understand why they aren't allowed the answers they want, nor do I understand the amount of violent response. This is only a single video, unedited, and I wonder how they got it on YouTube. I can't understand what they're saying, but you can hear the emotion in their voices, especially what sounds like a woman's voice, after the shots are fired.

I've watched the video several times. Each time, I don't see the threat; I just see angry people, who are not nearly violent enough to deserve the response they are given. They respond angrily to the shots: one man hurls a rock in anger while simultaneously trying to move an injured man to the side with others. I wonder why this is happening.

Self-Critique: My shock at the video is very naïve. While I have known the riots are happening, and people are experiencing physical harm due to them, I had not been able to bring myself to watch a video of it until now. My equally naïve demand for justice seems hollow from my comfortable chair in my small apartment, where the worst I hear are sirens and revving engines.

I am reacting to this video with shock and a strong sense of injustice because I recognize how morally wrong it is, but also because I have never had to experience it personally, which somehow makes it worse in my view, despite being away that I possess a large amount of privilege (i.e. white). Although the government I have grown up with is certainly not without its problems or corruption, but it has not and I believe, perhaps naively, could not get away with what the Iranian government is currently doing to its citizens. I think that is perhaps even more naïve, given certain events in Canadian history.

I find it interesting that I seem to fixate on the single woman’s voice, due to its difference in tone around the mesh of male yelling. Perhaps I focus on the woman’s voice because I wonder if I could participate in such a riot, in such close proximity to shots – in danger of being shot at myself – and doubt that I have the courage. I also focus on the emotion in the woman’s voice directly after the shots are fired, as opposed to the harshness in the male voices reacting to the same event.

Cultural Critique: My responses in both my original response and self-critique reveal the dominant Canadian culture of detachment. By detaching ourselves from what is happening overseas, one is led to believe that it “couldn’t happen here,” or what I have heard referred to as “not in my backyard” syndrome. This belief, that things that happen in the seemingly mythical Mideast, Iraq, Iran, Afganhistan, etc., cannot happen in Canada, the United States, or other typically Western societies is not only naïve and ignorant, but also ignores the past of these societies, which has perpetrated similar crimes in the past towards its own citizens.

There is also the racist undertones in these beliefs; that only such savage, underdeveloped countries could commit such crimes, and the barbarism of the shootings are amplified in the media to such an extent that it becomes as mythical as Western society’s views of the Mideast itself.

Western society, its media and government enjoy preserving and sensationalizing the negative point of view of the Mideast and its society, for it helps its own society to forget the similar horrors it has committed in its past.