The stoning of Suraya
Are we nearer to freeing ourselves from systemic subjugation to the 1%, and living beyond pleasing others and pursuing THINGS?
Is love revolutionizing?
15 year old Afghan student Abdulai was watching the Iranian movie ‘The Stoning of Suraya’.
When the deceived villagers were praising God’s greatness and demanding Suraya’s death for an adultery she didn’t commit, Abdulai remarked,
‘My heart is tearing apart.
People are like sheep.’
One by one, Suraya’s father, then her husband, then her two sons, then the village mayor and the religious leader, they stoned her.
Suraya had said she was frightened, ‘not of death, but the dying, the stones…’
As her aunt combed Suraya’s funereal hair while singing to her, Suraya cried.
She cried to let go of her children and the belief that justice would always be stronger.
With dignity, she walked to the execution pit. She did not avoid the gaze of the people, especially the haughty shame of the pompous and powerful.
You could hardly tell that she was shaking beneath her suffering shawl, though she wasn’t shaking out of fear or sorrow.
Her bones were shivering out of disappointment.
She spied through her bloodied eyes a dying vision : everyone in the establishment insisted they were right.
And the sheep followed.
The slaughter.
Just as it has been with the deaths of untold individuals.
While 139 countries have already banned capital punishment, in 2010, the countries with the highest public executions rates in the world were China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the USA.
Will we finally see war as en-masse capital punishment, mostly of people not directly involved in the dispute?
It is estimated that 2 million Afghans have been killed over the past 40 years, from schemes imposed by locals and foreigners alike.
Not enough?
Killing is effective?
Suraya’s aunt had recounted the madness to a journalist. The story was not meant as news, or a distant distraction, which would change nothing. She said, ‘I want you to take my voice with you.’
What do we do with another voice not our own, especially a dead voice?
I glanced at Abdulai and didn’t know if I could tell him that in terrible incongruence, the world is comfortable with trends, not truths.
The world is comfortable with classifying humans, not understanding them.
We’re comfortable with exterminating those of us deemed ‘incorrigible’, not reforming ourselves.
Though the stoners sensed the hypocrisy, they chose personal safety and social dictates, and blended with the herd use of stones.
That’s why, like Suraya rejecting every throw, Abdulai’s heart was tearing apart.
One killing, or 2 million, robs love of public meaning.
My heart aches along with Abdulai’s and that of so many other young people of this world at this time. Suraya’s story is one of so many innocent people. We, the herd mentality stone throwers must repent and find a new way. The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers bring us that hope and new way. Thank you Hakim and AYPV!