Far from causal
brutality
Zahra Kazemi's murder
September 30, 2003
The Iranian
There is a nightmare experienced by some exiles
that unfolds like this: you wake up one morning and find yourself,
inexplicably as
if in a Kafkaesque universe, back in the homeland you've
left behind. You can't get out, can't get back
to where you've taken refuge, even though its landscape lies
ever so tantalizingly within your reach, just on the other side
of the looking glass. It's as if your place of birth
has exerted a magical pull on your very body regardless of how
far you have gone or how long you've been away.
This
brings us to the beating death of the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist
Zahra Kazemi a in a Tehran jail under murky circumstances
and in the hands of yet to be determined henchmen. The final
jury is still out as to the how and whys of this case. One
can naturally speculate. It's quite unlikely Kazemi
would have been beaten to death had she been arrested last year
or even six months ago.
She certainly wouldn't have
met her fate had she been a non-Iranian journalist, regardless
of the veracity of the espionage charges leveled against her. It'sdoubtful a
single hair on her head would have been touched if she were in
fact a spy. Spies are valuable commodity in international
politics, often used as pawns in public relation wars or bargaining
chips in hardball geopolitical games.
Considering Kazemi's
international profile and her Canadian citizenship, the perpetrators
seem to have done their dirty deed with brazen impunity. Although
it may never be revealed if Kazemi's death was in anyway
encouraged from higher up, the whole affair looks far from causal
brutality of some overeager lackeys pissed off at an uppity hyphenated
Iranian bent on letting off steam on all the badmouthing coming
down from Los Angeles based satellite TV stations.
Regardless
of the existence or lack of a conspiracy, Zahra Kazemi was beaten
to death because she had been born in Iran and had the bad luck
of being arrested at a time when Iranians of the diasporic are
looked at with highest degree of suspicion by some quarters within
the Iranian
state.
The beating death of Kazemi appears to have been
a signal to all those outside Iran: do not think that your foreign
citizenships provide you with a shield. In the final analysis,
your collective rear end belongs here. The Iranian state laid
claim to Kazemi's body hence nullifying any other authority
including her adopted country of Canada, because of the basic fact
that she was physically born in Iran.
Once she set foot in
Iran, she became the property of the state to do whatever it pleased
with
her. It's no wonder her body became the subject
of a tug of war long after life was beaten out of it. Like
a stern father exercising the limits of his authority the Iranian
state is insisting on having the final say as to her resting place.
In the middle ages, one was either a master or servant. Power
was exercised in manner of a pyramid from above often emanating
from the figure of a king on down to the most insignificant farm
hand. Ordinary folks were subjects of the king, effectively
owned like cattle. This order of things was sanctified by
the dominant religious order and enshrined in the society's
mythology. One had no choice; if you were born a peasant you
remained a peasant. If you were born to royalty, you claimed
what was your birthright.
Modernity changed all of that. In
place of king and his authority modern nationhood was invented. One
was a citizen, an entrepreneur, paid taxes and demanded equal representation. However
the citizen's freedom was limited within the authority of
the state. The fact of one's place of birth is central
in determining the sphere of state's authority. This
equally bequeaths privileges as well as perils to the individual. You
get the good with the bad. Such is the Faustian nature of
the contract citizens enter in with the state. In exchange
for the right to your body, you'll get the protection and
privileges of citizenship.
Much was made of Kazemi's dual citizenship after the
news of her death broke, as if she would have been any more worthy
of a humane treatment had she been born in Canada of Iranian parents. Canadian
authorities threw their hands in the air. There was a limit
to what they could do considering Kazemi's dual citizenship;
her birth citizenship apparently superceding her adopted one.
Once
the dust had settled, as if putting its final ownership seal on
her corpse, like a carcass hanging from a meat hook, Kazemi's
body was buried
in an Islamic ceremony in Shiraz against the wishes of her closest
relative and her son. At
first it was reported that the burial was at her mother's request
but shortly
after she claimed publicly that she had been strong-armed.
Did
Kazemi wish to be buried as a Moslem? Maybe she did and
there is certainly nothing wrong with an Islamic burial. But
then maybe she didn't. Maybe she had wished to be cremated
or be deposited into the sea in manner of seamen. The point
is that her wishes didn't matter much. The state decided
what was to be done with her and it was done. At the end Iranian
earth reclaimed her body.
* Send
this page to your friends
|
