I chose to read about the International Criminal Court (ICC)'s warrant of arrest for Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. I read four articles in all and watched two small video clips by New York Times correspondents. I will comment on the first two, which included the video clips.
The first article, "ICC Issues Arrest Warrant for Sudanese President Bashir", was from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website, under the Responding Today to Threats of Genocide page. Immediately I noticed that this arrest was described as a "historical decision" and a marker of history. The emphasis on history was apparent to me right away. The concerns of the USHMM were also quite readily apparent in the second paragraph: "Notably absent from the warrant is the charge of genocide." If Bashir is ultimately tried in an international trial, what does that mean for history? As Wieviorka quesitons, how does investigation or prosecution in trials work as a means of derriving history (65)? What would it mean, historically, for Bashir, as the current Head of State in Sudan, to be tried for crimes against humanity? Is it just a matter of precident, perhaps? Of setting Bashir up as an example to others? Or is it, like the Eichmann trial, a way of giving voice to those who have been silenced by violence? This is an answer we might not get to know unless/until we see the trial of Bashir.
The second article I read was from the NY Times blog, The Lede, called "Impressions of Sudan's President". This particular blog is a blog about other (sometimes past) blogs. I was struck by the comparison the writer, Robert Mackey, creates...
Ms. Hilsum writes about President Bashir in terms that echo Hannah Arendt’s famous “Banality of Evil,” about the trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Of her first interview with President Bashir, which took place a few days after he seized power in 1989, Ms. Hilsum recalls:
which is followed by a quote from Hilsum's blog. What is interesting to me about this exerpt is the contextualization of Hilsum's current commentary as similar to that of commentary from the Eichmann Trial - an association meant to draw parallels between Bashir and Eichmann, and thus, implicitly, between the two men's crimes... as that of genocide. What is also intriguing is Hilsum's current commentary being offered about an interview which she conducted 20 years ago. Wieviorka stresses how memory is recalled from within specific contexts... which makes me wonder how untainted by recent events/developments Hilsum's memory of the first interview is.
The two video clips were from this source as well, the first being halfway through the blog as an integral part of it (kind of a multimedia experience) and the other, a video entitled "Applauding the International Criminal Court" by Nicholas Kristof, I found from a link I followed to a NY Times Opinion page. I was a little disturbed by how much the "impressions" of Bashir written by Hilsum might affect the viewer's opinion of him in the video. In these videos I found a strong appeal to emotions. The first, which includes an interview of Bashir by Hilsum, shows her impassioned appeal to Bashir followed by his response, translated in a kind of deadpan voice. The quesiton of language, so often brought up in Wieviorka's text, came up here for me. We trust the documentary translator to be bringing us exact words and phrases, but in a context so politically and morally fraught, can we trust it completely to be unbiased?
Kristof's "video report" - as it is identified in the Lede blog - also appeals to emotion, showing disfigured refugee men and women, asking us to applaud the ICC's actions for the boy who's hands have been blown off by a grenade... I wanted to comment on this Opinion piece - and all "opinion" pieces - being widely included and accepted as a component of "News". It says a lot about the public's quest and the media's presentation (or selling) of "truth"-finding, the creation of history and collective memories. Will I remember Bashir from now on as the man who blew the innocent boy's hands off? That kind of history is very different from that offered by, say, the detailing of the arrest warrant in the press release on the ICC website. If the same news program were to cover the ICC's trial of Bashir, what kinds of images would be juxtaposed with the hearing? How would that affect public/collective opinion of his crimes and his guilt?
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