The Saddam Video - we are all executioners now.

Post the words "Saddam video" into a search engine and you are spoiled for choice. At last count such a search reveals 35,500,000 sites. Since the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the number of Google and Yahoo searches on the internet for the video has been astronomical. While our website, The View from Fez is a small site by internet standards, even here we have been inundated - the numbers eclipsing those impoverished souls who want to see Lebanese pop singer "haifa wahbi nude" - and that is saying something. Yet maybe the two prurient interests are connected.

Sex and death have long been human fascinations, some might say obsessions, but is there a point at which we cross a line and the fascination becomes unhealthy. What is it about watching the taunting and then murder of a man that makes people seek it out? I for one, although not unaccustomed to seeing death first hand, having worked in war zones from time to time, had no desire to watch the execution of Saddam Hussein. Yet, troubled by the issue, I did watch.

The grainy nature of the poor quality video, the hand held feel - like something from the Dogma film school of Danish director Lars von Trier - was vaguely familiar. Low grade reality television? Big Brother final eviction? Celebrity sex videos? A snuff movie? They all seem to have a common resonance.

All this is not new. Back in the age before computers, the paintings of executions by artists such as Goya or Manet were also controversial. In Manet's case, the execution of the Emperor Maximillian were censored at the time. As with Saddam, that execution was also bungled, with several shots being needed to end Maximillian's life. Had there been an internet at the time, I am certain it would have been a YouTube hit.

Of course we can decide if we want to click to see the execution of Saddam and click we do. In our millions. Suddenly we are back to the days of public executions with the only difference being that, instead of gathering in front of the scaffold in the city square or at the foot of the guillotine, we view it from the comfort of an ergonomic chair in our study. We are the crowd at the square. We are watching the life being taken, the heads roll - and if we miss something, we can watch it again and again and again.

On many sites there is the chance for you to vote on aspects of the execution. Did you think it was fair? Do you support the death penalty? Did Saddam deserve such a death? And judging by the responses, people were keen to have their say. So why not go all the way and let everyone vote on an execution? Yet, unlikely as that may, the obscenity of such a scenario is not far from what we are seeing now.

Posting the video of the execution on your site, is probably a great way to get more hits - but in the end of the day it diminishes us all. As we head into a New Islamic year, 1428, let's hope that we all spend more time watching the real world, looking after our family and friends and not polluting ourselves watching the pornography of death. Happy New Year.


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