Judging Saddam Hussein and La Santa Muerte (Part #1)

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Following the stealthy formal transfer of power by the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq in June 2004, the world has been once again faced with Saddam Hussein -- and his trial by an Iraqi judiciary under US supervision. Many comment on whether his trial will be fair, and seen to be fair. For the editor of The Observer (4 July 2004): "Will the former dictator be mythologised as a hero or reviled as a tyrant he was? That will depend, not on the evidence, nor on his ugly record, but on whether his trial is seen to be fair."

In the same paper, Mary Riddell (Justice on trial; in a courtroom in Baghdad, there are two defendants -- Saddam and the occupying forces) points out with regard to Saddam Hussein:

Now, in his disgrace, he retains one hope of potency. The power of pity is available even to monsters, if they are seen to be suitably ill-treated by their captors. Saddam clanking in chains is a more persuasive figure, for all his viciousness, than a tyrant offered the protective panoply of the law. But what exactlly is that?....Violence is rarely assuaged by more of the same...But if the former occupiers censor and interfere, the process could instead symbolise the collapse of justice that disfigures citizens' lives in this and all other centuries

The concern in what follows is not however with "justice" and whether it is "fair". Nor is it concerned with whether "pity" is evoked -- or even "mercy". Nor is it a matter of whether the Coalition will be effectively supporting the death penalty, if that is the final judgement. The concern here is with the "honour" and "dignity" of a culture and a civilization -- as measured by its treatment of those whose actions it claims to abhor. The treatment of Saddam is thus a judgement, not only on the victors, but on their understanding of the values on which their civilization claims to be founded. They need to take care that they do not unknowingly use Saddam as a catalyst to reveal the other face of their civilization and its values -- the "heart of darkness" of democracy.