When you type "Saddam" on Youtube, you get 7,461 videos. Some of them, you know what they show. Those who uploaded that death did not dare to comment much. Their only few eccentricities: exclamation marks or capital blocks.
"SADDAM". The name sounds scary, it sounds like the devil is going to come to your room at night and kidnap you. However, what sounds even scarier is the will to put him on YouTube. People's hate (although justified), in short. So when I typed Saddam, I had the impression that I was heading to hell. And now, I do not feel that confortable writing "I watched that video".
"Why did you do it then?". Because I thought, as someone who pretends she wants to be a journalist, I cannot simply not do it. Everybody heard about that video, but few made the step to watch it. Maybe that's the difference between journalists and the rest of society? "Will I cross the line and be a little bit more of a journalist if I see Saddam falling down? I will analyse my material, and make an objective report. Like a doctor, I will witness raw skin coldly. Scientifically. Because everybody talks about it, I cannot ignore it". Checkmate! I'm still questionning myself. Ethics, professional ethics, fraud, voyeurism.
Sometimes, journalists go to war, journalists are hostages, journalists meet death. In those extreme situations, do they naturally lack humanity, simply by accepting to be there? I am not talking about empathy, the taste for challenge, for money, pride or fear. Do journalists have the right (Kant's definition) to see that video? What is the limit?
I don't know. I wonder if that video is a taboo subject. I wonder how many journalists have seen it, and how many of them admit they have.
Maybe I'm just being mad? I'm going to wash now. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (Macbeth, V.1)
Ps: No, I was not attempting to re-do The Ring here.
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