Headline
According to MSNBC.com and various other news outlets, roughly 20 Shiite pilgrims were killed by snipers as they marched in Baghdad in commemoration of a saint's death.
I have trouble reading the news for precisely this reason- my brain takes the sanitzed heading from the page and gives it an unbearable flesh that makes me gasp. When I read that, this is what I actually see.
A man or woman walking for his faith in the unbearable midday sun. He or she is lost in the throng, hundreds of thousands strong. There will be no glory here for this person. No one will notice that he made the pilgrimage; no one would notice had he stayed home, as perhaps he was tempted to do, instead of make the trek. But something- faith, a sense of cultured duty, the desire to be a part of something larger than himself- bade he or she to make the walk.
That person is probably tired and has probably known people, perhaps relatives, who have been killed in the violence. Yet, instead of taking up arms, he marches, without weapons, into the heart of Iraq.
As they pass buildings and a cemetery- as they have so many times before already- they hear gunshots. At first there is no leap of the heart or excruciating terror of the chest. Gunshots, after all, are common here. But then a woman, wearing a black robe, falls beside him.
At first, no one notices, so large is the crowd. He is transfixed, unable to move. Then others see the woman, bullets fire again, and full-on panic grips the crowd.
He feels a burning in his shoulder- reaches up and feels the heat of his blood on his fingers. He would fear the death which is sure to come but the onslaught of thousands of pilgrims fleeing knock him over, the upstart sand choking out the fears as he tries in vain to breathe.
His last vision is that of dust and sky and pain and people screaming around him. He thinks of his daughter, his wife dead now a year, and the fact that he'll never complete the trip. Then his misery is ended as a panicked pilgrim, so packed in as to not even see the ground, accidentally crushes his throat.
Later, a reporter will view the scene and readers halfway around the world will read, "20 Shiite Muslims killed by snipers on pilgrimage in Iraq." And we'll read it and leave it in a few minutes time. For the news only gives us the facts. They can't give us (nor do we ask for) the truth.
I have trouble reading the news for precisely this reason- my brain takes the sanitzed heading from the page and gives it an unbearable flesh that makes me gasp. When I read that, this is what I actually see.
A man or woman walking for his faith in the unbearable midday sun. He or she is lost in the throng, hundreds of thousands strong. There will be no glory here for this person. No one will notice that he made the pilgrimage; no one would notice had he stayed home, as perhaps he was tempted to do, instead of make the trek. But something- faith, a sense of cultured duty, the desire to be a part of something larger than himself- bade he or she to make the walk.
That person is probably tired and has probably known people, perhaps relatives, who have been killed in the violence. Yet, instead of taking up arms, he marches, without weapons, into the heart of Iraq.
As they pass buildings and a cemetery- as they have so many times before already- they hear gunshots. At first there is no leap of the heart or excruciating terror of the chest. Gunshots, after all, are common here. But then a woman, wearing a black robe, falls beside him.
At first, no one notices, so large is the crowd. He is transfixed, unable to move. Then others see the woman, bullets fire again, and full-on panic grips the crowd.
He feels a burning in his shoulder- reaches up and feels the heat of his blood on his fingers. He would fear the death which is sure to come but the onslaught of thousands of pilgrims fleeing knock him over, the upstart sand choking out the fears as he tries in vain to breathe.
His last vision is that of dust and sky and pain and people screaming around him. He thinks of his daughter, his wife dead now a year, and the fact that he'll never complete the trip. Then his misery is ended as a panicked pilgrim, so packed in as to not even see the ground, accidentally crushes his throat.
Later, a reporter will view the scene and readers halfway around the world will read, "20 Shiite Muslims killed by snipers on pilgrimage in Iraq." And we'll read it and leave it in a few minutes time. For the news only gives us the facts. They can't give us (nor do we ask for) the truth.
posted by Yorick at 7:01 PM
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