Requiem for Jean Charles de Menezes

Many of you will remember Jean Charles, the Brazilian who was shot in the head seven times at the London Underground by the London Metropolitan police on July 22, 2005. They had misidentified him as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day's failed bombing attempts. The British people were shocked by his death and were left in a daze, wondering what the real value of their supposed security was.

Well last week, at the International Istanbul Biennial art exhibition, I found this lovely piece by the UK artist Claire Fontaine, a requiem for Jean Charles and I'd like to share it with you:

The definition of psychopath

"Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime. Though lacking empathy and emotional depth, they often manage to pass themselves off as normal people by feigning emotions and lying about their pasts."

So in my opinion, anyone capable of doing this and telling a seventy year old mother, while beating her up, 'We're going to teach you a lesson. Obviously you did not know how to raise your kid', cannot be anything but psychopaths. Nothing explains this lack of humanity other than the perpetrator's physiological inability to be human. Of course this also applies to all those who give out the orders.

I really do hope Malek Jandali manages to get his family out of Syria. But I hope more that one day soon, he can play his music back home, where he belongs.

A long overdue dedication

A couple of weeks ago, I encountered a news item that transformed my mood into what I can only describe as a mix of sadness, quiet anger and helplessness. The news was of a jailed Iranian journalist and activist, Mr. Hoda Saber, who had died of a heart attack resulting from a 10-day hunger strike. "Mr Saber, who was in his 50s, began his strike on 2 June to protest about the death of fellow opposition figure Haleh Sahabi, during an incident at the funeral of her activist father." On the face of it, there is nothing about this tragedy that specifically warrants an emotional reaction from me. I had never heard of Mr. Saber and his death will in no likelihood affect my life. However, it was these reasons specifically that made me tweet this news story over and over. It was because I had never heard of him, because millions have never heard of him and never will, while he languished in jail and died alone, that I was saddened. It was because my life was not affected by his death that I felt culpable for being indifferent.