Friday, October 21, 2011

Reflections on the Death of Muammar Gaddafi

No doubt many people have heard about, or seen the death of Moammar Gadhafi's. And of the brutality of his demise, how he was found in a sewage ditch like a rat, then dragged from his hiding place and brutalized, stripped of his clothes, beaten with shoes, and shot twice, once in the stomach, and once in the head execution style.

This may seem good, even just a death, but what is disturbing about this is not the death itself, but the manner of execution that portrays the Libyan's lack of self-control.

By dragging Gadhafi through the streets, beating him with shoes, almost ritualistically, they deprived him of the simple human dignity he deprived so many others of. You may think this is payback, even justice for all those Gadhafi made suffer during his forty-two year rule. But a question still looms, why sink to so low a level as to parade him around like some kind of animal? What is accomplished?

Gadhafi had already fallen from power. His hometown was his last stronghold. Simply capturing him, putting in prison for the rest of his life, or even executing him with a little more dignity would have sent a stronger message to both Gadhafi loyalists and those like Gadhafi.

The message would be, "We are stronger than you, and have gained complete freedom from your tyranny. We have used violence, yes, but we are not cruel like you. Not cruel like the leader we drove from power," but instead the Libyan people viciously murdered him.

Gadhafi was an evil, rotten human being, but he did not deserve that type of death. No one does. I understand the Libyan people's hatred toward Gadhafi and his regime, but society is not meant to be cruel, and by the Libyans treating another person--no matter how evil--as though they were an object, the Libyans have shown the potential to become exactly like the ruler they sought to free themselves from.

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