News Tip: Photographs of Iraqi Prisoners Convey Truth, Symbolism for Arabs and Americans, Duke Professors Say
In the Arab world, the acts portrayed are especially offensive because deploying women to arrest and torture men only adds to the spectacle of humiliation, says Ebrahim Moosa
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
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The image of the war in Iraq is going to be "permanently and indelibly shaped" by the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison because of the content of the photos -- the sexual humiliation of Arab prisoners -- and their symbolic value, say two Duke University professors.
"You get all the symbolic power and emotional truth that a written report doesn't have," said Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. "Photographs for many viewers carry the power of truth."
He said the photos have inflamed public opinion more than reports from the Red Cross and other groups because they are both specific and symbolic.
"It personalizes the information -- these are real people," he said. "They also stand as symbols -- of evil, of the war itself, of political will run amok."
In the Arab world, the acts portrayed are especially offensive because, in patriarchal cultures, deploying women to arrest and torture men only adds to the spectacle of humiliation, said Ebrahim Moosa, associate research professor in the Duke Department of Religion and co-director of the Center for the Study of Muslim Networks.
"Clearly the tormentors of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison knew exactly what they were doing. They were aware that in using female personnel they were feminizing the male prisoners. And, by raping Iraqi women prisoners, these few offenders were demonstrating their masculinity," Moosa said.
"Both sets of symbols -- feminizing and masculinizing -- were deployed in these atrocities in order to portray in sexual terms what the U.S. forces at their worst are trying to do to all Iraqi resisters who are called 'terrorists,'" Moosa said
The photographs resonate widely in the Arab world not only because of the sexual nature of the degrading acts, but also because they are seen as a parallel to what has been happening in many occupied communities, he said.
"What happened in prisons in terms of humiliation has been happening on a daily basis in raids and invasion and demolition of people's homes by U.S. forces," Moosa said.
Rankin likened the resonance of the photographs to "a triumphant trophy hunter with a foot up on the elephant."
Although the reason the photos were taken is not clear, he said they are functioning in the tradition of photographs that point a finger at injustice -- child labor, tenement housing, farm labor conditions -- in order to affect public opinion, he said.
"They arrest us out of our ability to ignore a harsh reality," he said.
