Last Thursday, the world learned that rebel forces had killed Moammar Gadhafi, the former dictator of Libya and a man who had previously been thought to be undefeatable. Within hours, the CNN home page boasted a host of photos and videos of jubilant Libyan citizens, the triumphant rebel forces and grainy documentary footage of Gadhafi's final moments.
While the Libyan rebels certainly deserve to celebrate victory in their struggle against Gadhafi, the fact that media outlets posted the Gadhafi photos and videos online for public consumption is somewhat unsettling. News reporting is, of course, often sensationalized in the interest of profit or increasing readership, but that does not mean that news media coverage of events such as Gadhafi's death should include images of his corpse. While the global community may be entitled to celebrate the definitive end of Gadhafi's rule, we are not entitled to view images of his death as if they were screenshots from a Hollywood movie.
The difference, of course, is in the subjects of the images. Whereas movies are acted out with performers who suffer no real physical harm during the creation of violent imagery, the photos that make up our news media are of real people. Whatever atrocities Gadhafi may have perpetrated upon the Libyan people, he still deserves the basic rights that we would afford to any other human being.
Among those rights is that of a respectful passage. Death is not something that should be flaunted in victory the end of any human life, regardless of the individual, is an event that deserves if not sorrow, then at least respect. Moreover, poring over images of Gadhafi's final moments demonstrates a capitulation to our basest desires that can only bring us down to his level, reciprocating physical acts of violence with psychological ones. As Tom Wolfe argued in his 1976 essay "Pornoviolence," the media's glorification and, in this case, panting coverage of violence is a form of sensationalism that harms both subject and spectator alike.
Showing the world how Gadhafi died does nothing to advance the ideals of the Libyan revolution, or indeed of any rights-respecting republic in general. Indeed, fixating on Gadhafi's death may be counter-productive in the long run: after all, he was just one man, no matter how powerful. It is crucial to recognize that his death is but the first step towards building a new Libyan regime. Unfortunately, exaggerating the significance of his death may prove counter-productive to the rebel movement as a whole if complacency settles in after Gadhafi's death. If, for instance, the absence of a common enemy causes the rebels to either splinter into factions or simply lose their sense of urgency, such developments might rob the Libyan revolution of the energy to push forward through vital political reforms in the coming months.
To those who would disagree and argue that Gadhafi's crimes warranted both his literal and figurative public flagellation, I ask you to consider how in Homer's "Iliad," a victorious Achilles, having slain Prince Hector, proceeded to drag his enemy's body through the sand with his chariot as he made victory laps around Troy. Homer, in his description of this act, condemns its monstrosity, indicating that even the heat of battle could not excuse Achilles' treatment of his enemy's body. Even in the fiercely militaristic ancient world, there was a sense that one's enemies deserved a certain amount of respect.
Disseminating pictures of Gadhafi's death and, in the case of the queues of Libyan citizens, lining up to ogle his remains in Misrata this past weekend is the 21st century version of dragging his body through the sand. While his regime enforced many deplorable policies and certainly committed human rights violations, such violence need not be reciprocated through the public viewing of videos and photographs of his death.
Finally, for those who firmly refuse to concede that Gadhafi's death inherently deserves greater tact, the "Iliad" offers yet another illuminating lesson: In the end, Prince Paris killed Achilles in retaliation for his mistreatment of his brother's body. In much the same way, Western observers and triumphant Libyan citizenry alike may come to regret our gleeful dancing upon Gadhafi's grave if such antics inspire the formerly pro-Gadhafi elements in Libya to lash out with greater violence.
