Neda...

[Kadagar_AV]

OK, so this woman called neda was killed in Iran.

Was she the only one killed in Iran that day?
Was she the only one killed in the world that day?

My point being: Everyone who dies has a history comparable to this girl... Sure she was cute, sure it's been all a hype...

But isnt it dangerous when we start to trust the news to feed us information? The "news" are not out to get the story straight, they are more interested in viewer numbers...

So how come this murder (Oh, sorry, not murder... in previous talks with americans I came to realise they refuse to see state-ordered assassinations to be murders as they are, well, state ordered).... Let me rephrase, how come this type of "collateral damage" is frowned upon when other types of collateral damage is not?

And why is Neda worth more than the several others who died by the police in Iran the last couple of days?

Don't get me wrong... I am all with the mainstream on the Iranian situation. However, I also think of children who dies of starvation every day... And I also consider the people who died that the media did not deem user friendly enough.

The way i see it, the world is becoming more and more like zombies...

[Lemur]

In other words:

Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look at the people down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays.

Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long.

[Kadagar_AV]

Nevermind :)

EDITED: keep on :)

[KukriKhan]

(Oh, sorry, not murder... in previous talks with americans I came to realise they refuse to see state-ordered assassinations to be murders as they are, well, state ordered)

rofl. True to form. High marks for consistency.

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She's the only casualty (so far) caught on video. If 1 picture = 1,000 words, 30 seconds of cellphone vid of a bloody woman's final seconds alive = 15 volumes.

[FactionHeir]

Going back to the thread about hitting women, its also interesting how the media highlights women protesters being beaten and pretty much ignores the male protesters who suffer the same or worse.

[LittleGrizzly]

Kadagar do you really need an american reference in every political post... im not a fan of some of thier policys either but give it a break every now and then...

Its just one more level up the shock scale, first its men, then women, children and the old share the last level somewhere. If you add in things like good looking and young just moves it slightly more up the scale. I don't anyone thinks for a second if she had serious skin condition(s) and hardly any teeth left she would have got quite as much attention. My cynical point of view...

Her death is sad and i mourn it equally to all the other people who die in the troubles in Iran...

Isn't this inside the monatorium period ? Not that it matters as no one wishes her ill anyway...

[Kadagar_AV]

rofl. True to form. High marks for consistency.

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She's the only casualty (so far) caught on video. If 1 picture = 1,000 words, 30 seconds of cellphone vid of a bloody woman's final seconds alive = 15 volumes.

"True to form?" You cant blame me when it is JUST SO EASY... I mean, if someone lets the ball up for a smash I will smash....


Back on topic, you claim you don't know the difference between 15 volumes of death and one woman caught on video?

That is tragic



Factionheir, Males are born to be brutalised, are we not? It doesnt sound very cool when it is reported that men are being hit by the police...

It's the same all over the world...

A womans broken fingernail is a males broken arm :)

[Papewaio]

One is a tragic individual we can identify with.
One million is a statistic.

It's the way we relate to things.

[Kadagar_AV]

LittleGrizzly, you kind of made my point...

since when is it humanitarian, or human, to care about good looks and so on? Do we really need a cute face to see the crime behind the numbers?

Papewaio,

One is a tragic individual we can identify with.
One million is a statistic.

It's the way we relate to things.

Your point is that humankind is too stupid to notice that there is an individual behind every and each number in that statistics?

Now, I dont say you are wrong...

But my point of this thread is more in the direction of: isn't it tragic that it takes a personal experience to see the personal experience behind the numbers?

[Papewaio]

It could be a self-defense mechanism because the empathy overload would be massive to comprehend a million individual deaths.

That and when it is one, we can identify directly with the person in a one on one situation. We see them through our lens and see them as ourselves, our sister, our brother, mother, father, friend.

One million is far larger then our brains have adapted to socialise with. We can't track all the items that make up the social connections for that many people. An airplane is about the limit our village brains can empathise with.

[LittleGrizzly]

LittleGrizzly, you kind of made my point...

You should know I charge by the hour and my rates are extortionairy

I kind of worked out that was your point, i was just agreeing without specifically saying so....

Even as a young kid i always thought this was unfair, i made a comment to my mum during the days after Diana's death asking as to why one dead woman gets so much attention

[Kadagar_AV]

Papewaio, empathy overload?

For me that sounds like something Fox News would come up with... Please do elaborate...


LittleGrizzly, now... It seems disrespectful not to answer you... So :

[Husar]

I agree with Pape, if I could feel for a million people at once, the same pain i can feel for an individual, then I'd, I don't know because I can't even imagine it, the way I see it, she is taken as an example, when you apply for a job, you don't write down your ugly traits, you write down the best ones, when you promote a revolution, you show the death of a beautiful innocent woman, not the death of a murderer who happened to help the revolutionaries.
There is a certain bias in this but it seems that even objectively the iranian government is suppressing the people, maybe the press would have more to tell if the government hadn't evicted the press.

Noone says she is worth more, she is just an example, one of many picked to demonstrate what is happening to them all.

[Papewaio]

Imagine if you will that the grief you feel for one person dying multiplied in a linear fashion by a million. I don't think it is actually a self defense mechanism, I think it is an inability to comprehend... ie what you refer to as stupid... our brains just can't comprehend a million deaths in direct proportion to how we comprehend that of an individual.

[LittleGrizzly]

when you promote a revolution, you show the death of a beautiful innocent woman, not the death of a murderer who happened to help the revolutionaries.

How about the death of an ugly innocent man... is that any less tragic than a beautiful innocent woman ?

Its shallow (for the beauty part) and sexist (for the woman part) not that i am paticularly disgusted with it, its the same all over put a pretty face on something and you make it more palatable for the masses... ohh and its for the shock value mentioned earlier as well... men beating up men is boring but get a man beating up a woman and you have some headlines...

Edit: On another note even though i think the reasons for choosing this woman aren't exactly pure if her face helps bring down the Iranian leaders then you won't hear me complaining...

In a perfect world....

[Moros]

The thing is that is one of video's that spread around on the net very fast, and was one of the first showing someone who was shot and still is the most graphic one of all the videos. It has the most shock effect, and it shows the face clearly, which helpis identify and relate.
Because of it's effect, it graphicness, it being one of the first video's from Iran to spread about on the net made it a symbol. And symbols give meaning an power to ideal, fights more so than a thousand words.

[Lemur]

By all means, let us denounce symbolism.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

And we shall make an example of this case in our denunciations!

[Husar]

How about the death of an ugly innocent man... is that any less tragic than a beautiful innocent woman ?

Its shallow (for the beauty part) and sexist (for the woman part) not that i am paticularly disgusted with it, its the same all over put a pretty face on something and you make it more palatable for the masses... ohh and its for the shock value mentioned earlier as well... men beating up men is boring but get a man beating up a woman and you have some headlines...

Would you marry the ugly innocent man as well or are you perhaps shallow and sexist?

I can't speak for women but why most men care more about a beautiful young woman than an ugly old man should be obvious and I would even go as far as to say it's somewhat natural that you care more about people who you find attractive.
People receive those stories with several of their senses, the eyes are one of them, certain things are more attractive to our eyes than others, for people who want to sell more newspapers or get more attention to their cause, using attractive images makes more sense than using less attractive ones.
It's done for other senses as well, for example when you use deodorant or perfume you try to impress others by having a smell they perceive as pleasant, it's very similar, just targeted at another sense IMO.
And even then the choice might have been somewhat random, it's not like everybody who died there was filmed, like I said the press is not allowed to go there so they have to rely on blogs and twitter and maybe iranians only put her pictures up there, it's not like I've checked.

[rotorgun]

To use an old cliche, does not a "picture convey a thousand words?" I am reminded of the infamous film clip of the Saigon Chief of Police shooting a suspected Vietcong sympathizer in the head with his revolver, and how it defined the Vietnam conflict for many from my generation. Despite the using of such footage to increase ratings, I think that ultimately it is meant to highlight the plight of women in Iran. Her death, while only one of perhaps many, touches the world in a way that cannot help but illicit sympathy for the cause of Iranian women. I am deeply saddened by it, even though I don't know all the circumstances surrounding it.

Violence is never for the benefit of the victim, and does little for the perpetrator either, as far as that goes.

[Xiahou]

And why is Neda worth more than the several others who died by the police in Iran the last couple of days?

The short answer is, of course, that her death was caught on tape.

[Fragony]

Video gives a face to the Iranians, as a propaganda-tool it's priceless, this beautiful girl dying NEDA NEDAAAA is going to haunt everyone for a while. It's really perfection in it's ugliness, the beauty and the beast savage. Someone will always have to answer for this, and that someone will always be the ayatolla's. B b b bye beards, if it isn't today it will be tomorrow. Political islam, it has been emotional. One down.

[Big_John]

since when is it humanitarian, or human, to care about good looks and so on?

humanitarian? dunno. human? probably since about 2 million years ago, give or take.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Hold on Frag. I wouldn't call the war won simply because Iran rejects political Islam (and I doubt they will go that far, at least at the start). Iran has deep cultural/historical roots beyond Arabic Islam, and I'd call Iran an "easy" battleground. Now, if Saudi Arabia rejected political islam...

[Fragony]

Hold on Frag.

What Neda is for Iran, is Iran for political islam. The Saudi's are just cavemen sitting on oil, they are hated for their decadence, Iran on the other hand is going to be the failed islamic state, it started there and it's going to end there. Always said that and I am always right, and hardly ever wrong. Can't win this beards nobody ever did.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Interesting. I guess that's just my conclusion taken the other way...

[Sheogorath]

By all means, let us denounce symbolism.

If you can't sympathize with everybody at once, you shouldn't sympathize with anybody at all. Didn't you learn anything in kindergarten?

Do I really need to add a sarcasm tag?

[Samurai Waki]

idk, it is terribly difficult to comprehend a million deaths. But whenever I watch something to do with the holocaust the water works pretty much turn on, on their own. But, maybe this is a different case?

[LittleGrizzly]

Would you marry the ugly innocent man as well or are you perhaps shallow and sexist?

Im shallow and sexist when it comes to finding a mate, but in terms of mourning over strangers i have never met there is no shallowness or sexism. The ugly innocent man's death is as much of a tragedy as the beautiful innocent womans death... to me at least...

Though i am ageist when it comes to people who have been killed, younger is always more of a tragedy...

[Andres]

And why is Neda worth more than the several others who died by the police in Iran the last couple of days?

She's a symbol

I don't see why you should get all worked up about the fact that a specific person X has the questionable honor of serving as a symbol.