Kamangir (Archer)

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1. Bloodthirsty Liberal » Slowly Twisting in Tabriz | July 16th, 2007 at 6:07 am

   [...] Kamangir reports on an Iranian activity which always draws large crowds: Why have these happy people gathered here? [...]

2. Frieda | July 16th, 2007 at 9:42 am

   Are you serious? its unbelievable…look at that kid in the picture…
   Do they stop and ponder, for just a second, the effect this will have on the child.
   This is how people loose the feeling of compassion and mercy.
   This is how a nation losses it’s ability to feel …One day watching stoning, the next they hanging.

   Where is the outrage among decent Muslims? They protest when one Palestinian gets killed by Israel, but no outrage for they own to be killed this brutally.

   What happened to persian spirit…this is the land of Rumi, Hafez, Sasdie, etc…

3. GIB | July 16th, 2007 at 10:39 am

   I suppose that this people are not better nor worse than the million people whom watch images, on deads in Iraq, the terrible drama of Darfur, the deads by the AIDS in Africa, children victims of the hunger and violence, etc. All we are watching liabilities, in front of the computer, television set, others in a real scene, but nobody do nothing by stop it.
   To criticize this people and to say the terrible thing that they are doing to be present at a spectacle thus is very easy. What we have made to avoid it?

4. Azadeh | July 16th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

   What GIB said is true. It seems all of us have part in these brutalities. It reminds me the song of “War” whose singer I don’t remember, but it was sung after the church scandal regarding child abuse. War is everywhere and there is no peace around :(

5. ella | July 16th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

   I agree somewhat with Azadeh. But I think it is large difference between watching images on TV and actually being there. On TV you do not really hear buzz of flies or death rattle, you do not smell blood. It is just something you are watching in between meal and other stuff you have to do. Awfull, true, but often difficult to connect to. On the other hand actually to be present there is I, think, quite different and much more immediate.

6. Maryam | July 16th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

   Salaam
   I watched a movie long ago. It was about a man who rapped, tortured and killed a 16 years old girl in US. He was then arrested and ordered to be killed by injection. In the movie you would see the girl’s parents listening to his confessions about how he killed their daughter. You would see her nice and calm life which ended brutally with no reason. You would put yourself in her shoes going back from a movie and taking a car to go home and what happens to you when you have done nothing wrong and you are left so helpless being killed and tortured.
   There was a church lady who was trying to convince the guy( and us too) to ask Jesus for merci for him to be forgiven. I could not forgive him neither the parents could and watching him dying was the least they could do to calm themselves down a little bit.
   The world would have been a very good place if there were NO evil acts from ANYONE. What if the man being hanged had rapped, tortured and killed women and children( if you read the ” accidents” pages of newspapers you would see there are lots of those ” low-level gang members” whose least crime is children abuse.) How if you could just see the last momnets of those innicent women, children or men? Does this make a difference in your feelings about the one who has commmited that?
   When I watch movies from things that had gone on black people in US or in Vietnam or anywhere, where people are being tortured, humilated and suffering that much, I can never forgive the people who did those.
   I am asking you, if you kill someone who has killed and tortured an innocent person with no reason, is this unfair?
   I strongly disagree with children watching those things of course. I can not watch that myself either.But if your beloved one was the victim or somehow you knew her, knew how innocent she was and how nice was her life, her children and … wouldn’t you want to see the savage killer is being killed? I saw how eager the western parents of the girl were
   to see the man being killed. You can not call them savage and you can not also blame the US goverment for encouraging people to savagery by letting the parents watch the scene. To me it is a little bit naive to talk about showing merci to someone who didn’t show merci to his victims who hadn’t done anything.
   In Islamic law, this is a right for parents of the victim to ask to stop the hanging and I think this is fair.
   I don’t know if the new world’s modern torturing and killinmg devices which kill hundred of people in one second are less brutal.
   I know execution is being done in lots of countries now. I don’t think any of those killing devices( hanging, electric chair, shooting, whatever) are meant to be merciful and gentle.
   And about public hanging, nobody has to go and watch, but hearing the rattle of death and watching somebody dying for horrible things he has done makes me think: OK, It seems that I can not catch people, torture them kill them and enjoy and have fun and live my normal life again.

7. M. H. Tajrishi | July 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

   It was good to mention that the victims(!) murdered four members of a family in collaboration with the family’s daughter in law.

8. ella | July 16th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

   Maryam

   It think that you misunderstood something. I don’t think many people would protest death sentence of a killer or a particularly vicious rapist. Death by injection is quick. However seeing people and a children treat execution like a holiday outing is………. ugly. If the familly of victims would do so it might be understandable but this?

   You mentioned black people who were tortured in America, I guess you forgot that it happened long time ago and soon black person might be a president of the USA. Ms. Rice is black, isn’t she? Would a christian be able to be a president of IRI? A jew? A democrat?
   Now, how about Iranians, tortured and killed by people who are now in power? By VEVAK? In Evin prison? Where is your outrage?

   I never heard anything of US government encouraging parents to watch the execution, where have you got this view from? Furthermore aggrieved parents watching execution is one thing, although I believe that affected parties could not be present at the execution in the US, but the outsiders watching, laughing?

   As for preventive action of execution-watching and of Islamic law, if that was true there would be no crime in Iran, in KSA (where thieves get their hands cut), in the Gulf States or in Afghanistan under Taliban, but there is, isn’t there?

9. Maryam | July 17th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

   Salam again

   Sorry that this is a very long comment!!

   Ella

   I was surfing in the web today when I just realized that the hung man in Tabriz had killed all his in-laws. I think watching him paying off for his aweful action would be a relief not only for the family but for the community (I don’t include children of course).

   About the balck people which I only mentioned as an example of horrible acts of some people without paying off for it, you said it had happened long ago and … if it could be an excuse, then we can hope that an Iranian would be US president some day long later.

   I didn’t also said that US goverment is encouraging people to watch execution, I meant if people are free to watch if they want, that doesn’t mean the goverment has encouraged them to.

   Capital punishment is done in so many countries not only those you have mentioned in your last paragraph. I belive it has the preventive effect of course didn’t mean 100% elimination of the crime.

   I also found interesting clips today in the web, beautiful blond women, happy kids and men, I thought they are having fun in the sun! But I realized that they are only watching torturing( not execution by law) a young (probably) Phalestanian man(does it even matter who he was?) in a sunny day in Israel by Israeli soldiers. They sure seemed to have lots of fun!

   Kamangir

   If we are judging and condemning the action itself, it should be done in a fair way. But if we are only using the action to condemn certain people doing that, is not fair to me.

   Good and bad are everywhere.
   Iran is not the only country which bad things happen.(I know you are more interested in Iran of course).
   If you go downtown sometime friday night or in the weekend, in the hospitals, you would see things you hadn’t seen in Iran(I have heard that from my friend who works in a hospital in downtown and she was also working in hospital in Iran)

   Iran means us. The goverment has’n come from another planet, or even another country. Maybe something is wrong with us ourselves.
   Something I found which is wrong with myself and is different from people in Canada for example is this:

   We never think it is now our turn to pay back to our community, our city or country. We know very well how others should act, but don’t ever think how we should act?

   By the way, another thing related to your persian post and your definition about freedom, I have a question:
   Did people 50 years ago know that smoking might ever be dangerous for other people just because of the exposure to the smoke? If somebody told them you are not free to smoke wouldn’t they say: I am free to do whatever I want as long as I haven’t hurt anyone. Do we always know if we realy are hurting others by doing something?
   Do you consider yourself “free” to wash your hands?
   I have seen the sign “please do not use perfume” in public bus in Canada. Aren’t they interferring with our personal matters by that? If something as simple as wearing perfume can be public not personal because other people are exposed to that, so can be lots of our other personal actions which are not really only our freedom to do.
   Are we free in Canada to earn whatever we can and spend it in any way we want? What is goverment doing by asking personal questions about what we earn every year?
   I can not really consider myself free. Because I think I am a member of a very large group. We live in this world as it is today because of the actions of the past people. A very little action today can have a very bad or good concequence tomorrow which I am not aware of today.
   Sorry for my two very long comments.
   I won’t do it again!!!

10. Well | July 17th, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    Whatever you say, Maryam, it does not at all exuse this crazyness. Jeez, there´s kids there! And you say it will be a reliefe for them to see a man die !?! What planet are you from?? Look at the picture one more time…the only thing missing is some bags of popcorn. It could just as well have been taken on a bloody cinema.

    Israelis could be torturing, raping and killing kids on a factory for that matter. It would not change the crazyness of this act. Don´t go there.

11. ella | July 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm

    Maryam

    and that would be long answer.

    The knowledge that the killer is dead is certainly a relief not only for the familly affected but also for the community. However watching a man hanged is quite different matter. It does not get the man more dead, it does not make community safer and it makes people numb to suffering. Not to mention the fact that watching execution in person has nothing to do with justice but, for the agreeved familly, it has all to do with vengenace.
    Watching somebody’s execution is rather traumatic so allowing all people to be present and watch execution is, in my opinion, quite wrong. Particularly “things” like stoning or hanging.
    In States people can not watch execution in person so your point regarding watching executions is moot. You also did not answer my question, were did you get your info from?

    As for the black people, again you did not understand, or did not want to understand my meaning. Times are changing, People have changed. That was in the past, at present blacks in states not only are not tortured but have the ability to be a head of the same state in which blacks, hundred of years ago, were slaves. Can you say the same about IRI?
    As for Iranian being a president of US, why not? In my opinion if he or she is a person who has US citizenship, feels herself/himself a citizen of the US first, before anything else, is popular and have money to conduct presidential campaign why should she not be the one. That also goes for premiership of Canada (with a difference that she should put well-being of Canada first, above all else).

    I also found interesting clips today in the web, beautiful blond women, happy kids and men, I thought they are having fun in the sun! But I realized that they are only watching torturing( not execution by law) a young (probably) Phalestanian man(does it even matter who he was?) in a sunny day in Israel by Israeli soldiers.
    Would that be a clip from a propaganda movie made by Al Manar or Hamas, perhaps? Seems rather strange, because torture, according to all books, is usually done in small, official-looking rooms, not in the open.

    BTW
    I think that you look at it a wrong way, the sign about not using perfume on buses do not interfere with your “personal matter”, on the contrary, you, using perfume interfere with rights of people who might be allergic to it.

    Regarding the taxes “Are we free in Canada to earn whatever we can and spend it in any way we want? What is goverment doing by asking personal questions about what we earn every year?”
    You are free to pay or not but if you do not than do not expect to have things like police to protect you, do not use buses or subway (subsidized from taxes), do not expect firemen to answer your call, do not send you children to school or expect to pay less at university (subsidized from taxes). However, nobody will want to check if you use these services, too much tax payers money would be spent to check your every step. However, if you do not want to do so……….you are free to go to a country which does not have taxes.

    I can not really consider myself free. Because I think I am a member of a very large group.
    And that is the difference between us. I consider myself free. The freedom you are writing about is nothing less than an anarchy.

12. Roman Kalik | July 18th, 2007 at 12:42 am

    Treating an execution as a family outing turns it into a mundane event. That’s very wrong.

    That said, I do not object to letting victims or their family to watch the execution of the one who caused them this much harm, as long as they are adults. I know enough about psychology to understand that when people are living in a nightmare, they need to be there to truly see and believe that it is over. That’s not revenge.

13. Roman Kalik | July 18th, 2007 at 12:55 am

    Oh, and that so-called Israeli torture video sounds like staged rubbish to me.

14. Maryam | July 18th, 2007 at 7:17 pm

    Salam

    Dear Ella
    Nice conversation anyway.

    It was interesting when it comes to torturing someone by Israeli soldjors the first reaction is “it is fake!”. Of course everything about Iran or Afghanistan on the web is on the other hand absolutly true! It wasn’t torturing which is usually done in a room, but hitting him by stones and guns, broking his bones and almost killing him.(much worse than the ones I saw in this blogg from Iranain police treating gang members)and people were watching happily! I am sure you have seen enough scenes yourself to conclude that those people do not agree with you about violence and watching it at all, may be this is a concequence of the war over a long time.

    I was surprised to see how my point about freedom was misunderstood!
    May be it was my fault to put the comment for Kamangir there, as I know him and I guess he knows me too. So I must have been biased by this knowledge and my comment was not clear just by itself. I was lazy to put the comment in the persian blog as I don’t have the fonts.
    So just to assure you that I am not an anarchist! I compeletly and happily respect the laws and pay my taxes when I live in this country. I completly respect people with allergies(I knew about the reason for the sign in the bus)and it makes total sense for me. My point was about Kamangir’s persian post in which he says: “people are free as long as they don’t hurt each other” and that the problem is: Can we undestand the effect of all our actions( even little ones like wearing perfum which might be vital for somebody else) on people and judge if it is harmful or not? Not only considering the present time and present people but for the future too?

    Your reasoning about paying the taxes and leaving the country if you don’t like it( the tax system by the way,is one of the things I like the most in Canada), may have other results too. People who suffer from some laws in a country are welgone! to leave, this is respecting the law of the country anyway.

    And the last thing about where did I got my view about watching excecution in US. I never claimed they encourage people to do that, but I meant if people are free to watch (I have seen this in some documentaries about US, may be the rules have changed over time or are different in different states) doesn’t mean encouraging them to do so.

    Nice to talk to you.

15. Well | July 18th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    Once again:
    WHATEVER!

    Israeli soldiers could torture small defenseless kids all day long. They could eat babies for dinner. It´s got NOTHING to do with this. Stop this childish game, NOW!

    This is really annoying, if not to say dangerous. I just hate it when something bad happens, and someone tries to do this cheek in thounge move…BAD is BAD, no matter who does what. Jeeez.

16. Maryam | July 18th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    Dear well
    Thanks
    You are right. Bad is bad and we better judge the “action” not the one who does that.

17. Roman Kalik | July 18th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Maryam, please provide a link to the video you allude to. Some of us here (like me, for example) are Israeli, and are familiar enough with the country (as well as with six decades of propaganda coming out of certain neighbors of ours) to consider the validity of your video unlikely. But go ahead, prove me wrong.

18. ella | July 19th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    Even if people do not understand the full result of their action, they should go by what they know at the time of their action. To understand all effects of our actions is impossible. (say, you did not kill a wasp flying near you, the wasp stung somebody,in consequence that person has an allergic reaction and died). Could you predict it? The answer is “no”.
    So I guess, if one want to be picky, the sentence should be written as “people are free so long as they don’t, to the best of their knowledge, hurt each other “.
    Would you agree?

    I also would like to know the link to the video.
    As for torturing (or hitting ) someone by anyone ( regardless whether done by canadians, iranians, russians, israelis or little green men from Mars) I like to know the circumstances and, if possible, the source of the clip. If I don’t have that, I have to guess, haven’t I?
    I also think that you misrepresent something.
    If an Iranian or an Arab see such a clip the reaction is “It is true”. If an European see it, the reaction is “it is probably true”. If american or canadian see it, the reaction is: ” it is not true” .or “it might be true” or even “it is true” . If an Israeli see it: “it is a fake”
    So the popular reaction is not “it is a fake!” ;-)

19. Roman Kalik | July 19th, 2007 at 2:36 am

    So the popular reaction is not “it is a fake!” ;-)

    I concur.

20. Maryam | July 19th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    Dear friends

    I guess we all agree that “bab is bad no matter who does it”.

    So let’s say: IF the video( which I had come across it before following links and I had tried to find it again and put the link and I failed, )is true, it is bad.I was really surprised myself to see it as there were several women there.
    We all know these things happens and they shouldn’t.

    I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings by naming especial nations and I didn’t want to get hurt as an Iranian by the way Iranians were introduced as savage people who enjoy watching violenece as an family picnic(considering the first three options for answers in the post).
    I still don’t think that if people(excluding children) go(by thier own choice) to see a dangerous man which has horrified the community by his actions is being killed by law, is a very savage thing.
    I also know execution is usualy done early morning in prisons. The ones open to public are the ones related to the security of the community and terrifying murdurs and of course people are free not to go(I wouldn’t go).
    Let’s hope there will be no torture and violence to be watched in the whole world.

21. ella | July 19th, 2007 at 1:38 pm

    Maryam

    Bad is bad, true.

    I think nobody here, or not many, think that all Iranians are “savage people who enjoy watching violence” ..some are, some are not, as elsewhere.

    BTW Coming back to your discussion in which I, inadvertently, butted in. I have one question for you “What is your definition of free (i.e. being free), or rather, what do you understand by this word?” Because I think that you have different than mine understanding of the meaning of this word, of the concept of this word. And the misunderstanding might have resulted from this difference.

22. Roman Kalik | July 19th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    *nod* bad is bad. And I agree with Ella, few if any here intended to paint Iran and all Iranians with the same dark brush.

23. Well | July 19th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Yes, I like this agreement:)
    I understand that you as an iranian could get offended if anyone portrays Iranians as savage people who enjoy watching violenece as an family picnic. I know personally that iranians are not like that.

    But still, it´s wrong not to take this picture seriously. You say: “I still don’t think that if people(excluding children) go(by thier own choice) to see a dangerous man which has horrified the community by his actions is being killed by law, is a very savage thing.”

    While I disagree, I respect your opinion on this. But is not really very interesting, because in this particular picture there are actually plenty of kids. And I still can´t believe they´r not watching a soccer game or something.

    Kudos to the local women, though, because they seem to avoid this violence. At least I can´t see any of them in the crowd.

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