Today just before dawn during the morning call to prayer in Baghdad, a special day for the muslim world, a day of sacrifice, Eid-e Qurban.  Yet on this auspicious muslim holiday Saddam Husssein was hanged to death.  I am aware of the atrocities, the murders and the oppression that people went through during his reign. He has committed grave evil and was unapologetic about it till the end.  I am aware of the sufferings and the cries for justice from those whose lives he destroyed.  I can understand the joyful dancing on the streets of Baghdad when the news was released.  But, I cannot also help but ask, “Was it really necessary to hang him”?  Can his death heal the pain inflicted, bring loved-ones back or bring peace to Iraq? Saddam was already imprisoned, rendered powerless, fallen, disgraced... what is the added value to killing him?   What do we hope to achieve by killing Saddam, or any other convict for that matter?  Will their deaths start us on the road to peace? Have we stopped crimes with the imposition of the death penalty?

 

Quite amazing really what humanity has achieved.  We’ve built buildings that touches the sky, created bigger metallic birds that can fly more and more people across the world, we’ve broken the sound barrier with faster planes, walked on the moon, discovered water stains on mars, decoded genes, cloned sheep, developed cures for diseases and many more wonderful feats.  But, the one thing we have not learned to do is to live in peace with others or with ourselves.  We still haven’t learned to live together, but, we certainly have gotten better at creating enemies, isolation and barriers (“them and us”, the Israeli barrier, “if you are not with us then you are against us”) and labels (communists, terrorists, fundamentalists, liberals, conservatives).

 

Where are we heading?