The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009, Iranian)
Everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty. Not so, according to this controversial film which is an adaptation from a book (La Femme Lapidée) of a French journalist's experience as he, Freiduone Sahebjam, was travelling through Iran. He stopped in a small village at the edge of the country to be narrated of a recent stoning of an alleged adulterous villager, Soraya Monitchehri. The authenticity of the story was always disputed by the Iranian authorities. Still, by a twist of fate, the book's release coincided with the trial of another accused awaiting sentencing by stoning for adultery. About 190 persons were stoned to death in Iran in 2010.
The world kind of accepted the fact that the one who had sinned should cast the first stone, but apparently, the memo did not reach everyone in the world. Stone-throwing is still practised as a form of punishment in many traditional Muslim societies.
Do not, for a moment, imagine that our modern society is immune to this type of harsh punishments to something which happens in the confines of the four walls within the ambit of personal choice. Snoop squats are freely available at the drop of a hat. Remember the number of volunteer orthopaedic surgeons who were willing to perform amputations if Kelantan expressed its wish to carry hudud law? All they need is a dog whistle.
Soraya, a mother of four, two boys and two girls, was trapped in an abusive marriage. Her husband, Ali, a jailer, had intentions of marrying a 14-year-old girl. He did not, however, wanted to pay child support or return the dowry money. He did not even provide for the day to day running of the household and did not want to utter talaq to free her misery. He concocted a tale of a clandestine affair with an old widower of a home where she worked as a helper to supplement her income.
An ulama with a shady past, whose secret is known to Ali, influenced the local chieftain to begin sharia proceedings. Even though the husband was accusing his wife, the wife needed to prove her innocence rather than the accuser providing proof of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused is no longer innocent before proven guilty. Why? Because she is a female, and the fairer sex is easily confused, their evidence is suspect. In this patriarchal society, women have no rights.
Ali managed to arm-twist the widower and his son to admit to inappropriate conduct with Soraya. On top of that, the women in the village have no voice. They cannot stand as witnesses. It is herd mentality at its heights. He says, she says, hearsay and then everybody agrees. Even Soraya's father curses his daughter as a whore to cast the first stone.
The most excruciating part of the movie is the graphic 7-minute graphic depiction of the brutal stoning as the family members, one by one, even her sons, take turns to do their bit to ensure God Law on Earth. (I fast-forwarded the scene.)
Every law is manipulated to suit the convenience of the affluent, the rulers, the influenced, the elite and those at rubbing shoulders distance with the above. For the rest, the whole wheel of justice will roll not to mete justice but to guarantee that the law is upheld. That is it.
 |
With the adultress buried in the sand to her waist and her hands tied to her back, she is target practice for village folks. It becomes their battleground to showcase their piety to Almighty. It is an arena to display their assertation that God's Law is carried out on Earth. |
''She is drenched in blood and crumpled on the ground, mutilated face partially obscured by a mass of dark hair. Over an excruciating seven-and-a-half minute, she has been disowned by her family, buried to her waist in a hole at the centre of the village square and finally reduced to tattered rags of flesh by a baying mob hurling stones. Now, tentative, her husband bends to examine her face. The filmy eye blinks. He recoils. 'The bitch is still alive,' he shouts. There is a roar of fury and the crowd close in.''https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1320989/The-Stoning-Soraya-M-The-horrific-execution-scene-got-film-banned.html
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Comments
Post a Comment