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Guest Column

GABRIEL FAIMAU
Urination scandal and the geopolitics of emotion By now images of US Marines urinating on several bloodied dead bodies of Taliban fighters have circulated around the world. Posted to YouTube two weeks ago (11/01/2012), the video immediately went viral. Needless to say, the video has outraged many people. The US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, called the conduct as "entirely inappropriate", while Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, characterised it as a "wild action". Images speak louder than words, so the saying goes. It may be understandable that very often war produces real state of mind, such as cheering or a celebration after killing an enemy. Interpreting why US soldiers in Afghanistan were cheering or shouting after shooting an enemy, Sebastian Junger provides a firsthand account in his recent article published in the Washington Post (13/01/2011) that "They weren't cheering the enemy's death; they were cheering their own lives." For soldiers, the death of enemy simply means that a "particular fighter would never again be able to kill an American soldier." While this assessment makes sense, we may ask: what do those images really reveal about our current geopolitical condition? In my opinion, this urination scandal strongly reinforces the idea that cultures of fear and humiliation have indeed shaped and reshaped our global international relations, as interestingly described by Dominique Moisi, in his book The Geopolitics of Emotion (2009). How do the images of US Marines urinating dead Taliban fighters tell us about cultures of fear and humiliation? In essence, Moisi argues in his book that the stage of our international relations in the past few decades offers a clear fact that both Europe and the United States of America are dominated by a fear of the "other" while Muslims and Arabs face a culture of humiliation that in turn produces a culture of hatred. The American fear is based on the painful truth that "what is good for America may not be good for the rest of the world". What is seen as the American dream may not be the dream of the rest of the world. What is considered a model of democracy by the US may not be something that can be easily preached to the rest of the world. This fear is escalated by a simple challenge that the rest of the world cannot be expected to convert and embrace what the US considers as her core values. These basic facts offer a crisis of identity stimulated by the contemporary uncertain risky conditions we live in. Such a culture of fear is even popularised by new inventions in technology. Advanced media technology including sophisticated inventions such as Smartphone that captures the images in the video mentioned earlier brings about a new world. In the olden days, the US may claim to have "found" the rest of the world. Today the world has actually discovered America, thanks to the media technology. Indeed, what was normally driven by a hegemonised practice slowly but surely turns to a homogenised condition. A culture of humiliation is different. This culture emerges when private realms are intervened and people become dependent. In the early 21st century, we witness the rise of Islam. A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicated that Muslims clearly represent a larger share of world population. Nevertheless, according to Moisi, "what dominates the Muslim world is a sense of political and cultural humiliation and an exacerbated demand for dignity" (Moisi, 2009: 59). This sense of humiliation is caused mainly by a sense of historical decline, particularly after the Ottoman age. For Arab-Islamic world, the presence of Israel has been seen as a Western insult. Wars such as Iraq and Afghan wars are seen as Western effort to occupy Islamic lands. The recent Arab Spring may give a new hope but the feeling of being humiliated is not something that can be overcome overnight. Thus, for an Afghan, images in the video may reinforce the feeling of being humiliated based on a simple argument that even after death, your dead body can still be ugly urinated by "a foreigner". The consequence is clear: US, Israel and the West are seen as "enemies" who wrote a plot against Islam and Muslims. One can easily imagine these two cultures when the posted YouTube video of US Marines urinating dead Taliban fighters is watched. While those images reveal such cultures, there is a big consequence that seldom attracts media attention: the issue of being guilty by association faced by minority groups in Muslim majority countries. In the past few decades the reality of Islamophobic attacks on Muslims in the West cannot be simply denied. Yet on the other side of the world, it has become clear that minority Christians in Muslim-majority countries are often associated with the West, particularly the USA. As a result, they often become victims of violent attacks, not only for their faith but also for the negative conducts committed by the West. Take the Iraq war, as an example. A report published by the Aid to the Church in Need in 2008 indicated that in 1987 an official census in Iraq recorded a total of 1.4 million Christians but by mid-2008, there were less than 400,000 since a high proportion of these had fled their homes seeking a safe life abroad particularly in the West. If anything, can we learn from this urination scandal? A lesson one may think is this: for any misconduct committed by the West, marginalised minority groups somewhere in the world may have to pay the price. After all, on an international stage, any misconduct may simply sustain the cultures of fear and humiliation we face today. * The writer is an independent researcher.

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