Cut their heads off

The recent beheading of a hostage by the Islamic State of Iran and Syria, popularly known by its acronym ISIS has caused the President of the United States to call the act “pure evil”. The British Prime Minister echoed the same sentiment by calling the decapitation as “evil”.

This method of execution however is not new. In fact, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf States still use this method and Amnesty International has recorded 79 beheadings since last year. We also had a Filipino overseas worker’s head cut off.

But not a word came from the British Prime Minister, the US President or our own officials to declare that their acts are evil or even barbaric. For the ISIS, their action is within their right. It considers itself a sovereign caliphate and therefore its action is an act of state like the other states.

The reason why the Saudis were not condemned as the ISIS for such barbaric form of execution is that the Saudis are allies of the Western governments while the ISIS is considered a terror organization.

“Cut off their heads” is a common mandate of the kings of the world, the most widely written are those of kingdoms of Europe. Kings, queens, prime ministers, priests and bishops, rebels and bandits, tax evaders and murders, philosophers and teachers, squires and peasants – there is no boundary in life’s statues when the rulers would order the decapitation of perceived enemies, personal or of the state.

The French devised a faster way of cutting off the heads of the enemies of the state by the expedient use of the guillotine, named after its inventor, J. I. Guillotin. It consisted of a heavy blade dropped between two grooved upright structures. It was indeed very efficient as it dispatched the heads of its victims quickly compared to the axe. This method is no longer used. The executioners of the Middle East still prefer the “honorable sword.”

The revulsion of most modern states against public beheading is that our norms today require that executions by the state should be humane. Nevertheless it ends up in the same way – the violent termination of human life.

These examples of killing one’s enemies are apt as the Negros Press Club joins the nationwide commemoration of the gruesome deaths of the Maguindanao victims whose alleged killers, the Ampatuan families in that province are still facing multiple murder cases. The killings are now five years old but the trial seems to drag on forever.

The commemoration will be held at the Capitol on Sunday, November 23 at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. There will be a “million candles” lit for that day.

The executions of perceived enemies by the perpetrators on that sad day in 2009 are “humane” compared to the beheadings of the past and the present regimes. They used bullets rather than the blade but achieved the same purpose – the removal of enemies they cannot convince otherwise to their views.

Some in Mindanao, of course still use the beheading, as the rebels did on several occasions. They even decapitated the already dead soldiers. At one time, President Estrada was so incensed that he ordered an all out war against the rebels. The AFP killed many of the rebels captured their fort.

Threat of decapitation is a form of intimidation against real and perceived enemies. In more civilized form, politicians and the powerful threaten members of media through legal action as libel and damage suits.

The Ampatuans probably think that it is cheaper and faster to dispose of their enemies by shooting and burying them than taking legal action.

The ISIS, the Ampatuans and politicians may have used different methods against their enemies but all these are intended to silence the opposition or critics.

If media are aghast at the methods of mass killers of political enemies, it is because they live each day under this threat of elimination. This threat is not just an infringement of the freedom of speech but also an attack to the foundation of our democratic and civilized way of life. And that “makes cowards of us all” as Hamlet lamented.

The Negros media often cite that the enemies of free speech in Negros have not resorted to violence except when a radioman, Celso Tan, was gunned down.

Libel suits are as insidious as the gun for they create the “chilling effect” to those who succumb to fear. Indeed the threat of the unknown tomorrow as Hamlet lamented “makes cowards of us all”. It is still the same order: “cut off their heads” albeit slowly.*

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