For the last year, everyone's been watching the same show, and I'm not talking about "Game of Thrones," but a horrifying, real-life drama that's proved too fascinating to turn off. It's a show produced by murderers and shared around the world via the Internet. Their names have become familiar: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning, Peter Kassig, Haruna Yukawa, Kenji Goto Jogo.
Tijekom prethodne godine, svi su gledali isti šou, i pod time ne mislim na "Igru prijestolja" već na užasnu, stvarnu dramu koja je postala previše fascinantna da je se ne gleda. To je šou koji stvaraju ubojice, i koji se dijeli diljem svijeta putem interneta. Njihova imena postala su poznata: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning, Peter Kassig, Haruna Yukawa, Kenji Goto Jogo.
Their beheadings by the Islamic State were barbaric, but if we think they were archaic, from a remote, obscure age, then we're wrong. They were uniquely modern, because the murderers acted knowing well that millions of people would tune in to watch.
Odrubljivanje njihovih glava u Islamskoj državi bilo je barbarsko, no ako to smatramo arhaizmom, iz dalekog, neshvatljivog vremena, u krivu smo. Ta su ubojstva bila iznimno moderna, jer su ubojice vrlo dobro znale da će milijuni ljudi to gledati.
The headlines called them savages and barbarians, because the image of one man overpowering another, killing him with a knife to the throat, conforms to our idea of ancient, primitive practices, the polar opposite of our urban, civilized ways. We don't do things like that. But that's the irony. We think a beheading has nothing to do with us, even as we click on the screen to watch. But it is to do with us. The Islamic State beheadings are not ancient or remote. They're a global, 21st century event, a 21st century event that takes place in our living rooms, at our desks, on our computer screens. They're entirely dependent on the power of technology to connect us. And whether we like it or not, everyone who watches is a part of the show.
Novinski naslovi nazivali su ih divljacima i barbarima, jer slika jednog čovjeka koji svladava drugoga, ubijajući ga nožem na grlu, slaže se s našim poimanjem drevnih, primitivnih običaja, sušta suprotnost našim urbanim, civiliziranim običajima. Mi ne radimo takve stvari. No u tome je ironija. Smatramo da odrubljivanje glave nema nikakve veze s nama, čak i onda kada klikamo na zaslonu da pogledamo snimku. No to ima veze s nama. Odrubljivanje glava u Islamskoj državi nije niti drevno niti daleko. To je globalni događaj 21. stoljeća, događaj koji se odvija u našim dnevnim sobama, za našim radnim stolom, na zaslonima naših računala. On potpuno ovisi o sposobnosti tehnologije da nas poveže. I bilo da nam je to drago ili ne, svatko tko gleda dio je toga.
And lots of people watch. We don't know exactly how many. Obviously, it's difficult to calculate. But a poll taken in the UK, for example, in August 2014, estimated that 1.2 million people had watched the beheading of James Foley in the few days after it was released. And that's just the first few days, and just Britain. A similar poll taken in the United States in November 2014 found that nine percent of those surveyed had watched beheading videos, and a further 23 percent had watched the videos but had stopped just before the death was shown. Nine percent may be a small minority of all the people who could watch, but it's still a very large crowd. And of course that crowd is growing all the time, because every week, every month, more people will keep downloading and keep watching.
A mnogo ljudi gleda. Ne znamo točno koliko. Jasno je da je to teško izračunati. No, npr. anketa u Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu iz kolovoza 2014. godine, procjenila je da je 1.2 milijuna ljudi gledalo odrubljivanje glave Jamesa Foleyja tijekom nekoliko dana od kada je bilo objavljeno. To je samo prvih nekoliko dana, i samo u Britaniji. Slična anketa provedena u SAD-u u studenom 2014. godine otkrila je da je devet posto ispitanika gledalo snimke obezglavljivanja, a daljnjih 23 posto gledalo je snimke, ali su stali neposredno prije nego je prikazana smrt. Devet posto je možda maleni broj svih ljudi koji bi mogli gledati, no to je još uvijek jako velika skupina. I naravno, ta se skupina stalno povećava, jer svaki tjedan, svaki mjesec, sve više ljudi nastavit će downloadirati i gledati snimke.
If we go back 11 years, before sites like YouTube and Facebook were born, it was a similar story. When innocent civilians like Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, were beheaded, those videos were shown during the Iraq War.
Ako se vratimo 11 godina unazad, prije no što su postojale stranice poput YouTubea ili Facebooka, situacija je bila slična. Kada su nevini civili poput Daniela Pearla Nicka Berga, Paula Johnsona, bili obezglavljeni, te su snimke bile prikazane tijekom rata u Iraku.
Nick Berg's beheading quickly became one of the most searched for items on the Internet. Within a day, it was the top search term across search engines like Google, Lycos, Yahoo. In the week after Nick Berg's beheading, these were the top 10 search terms in the United States. The Berg beheading video remained the most popular search term for a week, and it was the second most popular search term for the whole month of May, runner-up only to "American Idol." The al-Qaeda-linked website that first showed Nick Berg's beheading had to close down within a couple of days due to overwhelming traffic to the site. One Dutch website owner said that his daily viewing figures rose from 300,000 to 750,000 every time a beheading in Iraq was shown. He told reporters 18 months later that it had been downloaded many millions of times, and that's just one website. A similar pattern was seen again and again when videos of beheadings were released during the Iraq War.
Obezglavljivanje Nicka Berga ubrzo je postalo jedno od najtraženijih stvari na internetu. U jednom danu postalo je natraženiji pojam na tražilicama kao Google, Lycos, Yahoo. U tjednu nakon Nickovog obezglavljivanja, ovo su bili top deset najtraženijih pojmova u SAD-u. Ta je snimka još tjedan dana bila najtraženiji pojam, a u cijelom mjesecu svibnju bila je drugi najtraženiji pojam, odmah nakon "Američkog idola." Web stranica povezana Al-Kaidom koja je prva prikazala Nickovo obezglavljivanje morala se nakon par dana ugasiti zbog prevelikog prometa na njoj. Jedan vlasnik nizozemske web stranice otkrio je da je broj dnevnih pregleda porastao od 300.000 na 750.000 svaki puta kada je u Iraku bilo prikazano neko obezglavljivanje. Nakon 18 mjeseci rekao je novinarima da je snimka downloadirana više milijuna puta, a to je samo na jednoj web stranci. Sličan obrazac opetovano je bio viđen kada su snimke odrubljivanja glava bile prikazane tijekom rata u Iraku.
Social media sites have made these images more accessible than ever before, but if we take another step back in history, we'll see that it was the camera that first created a new kind of crowd in our history of beheadings as public spectacle. As soon as the camera appeared on the scene, a full lifetime ago on June 17, 1939, it had an immediate and unequivocal effect.
Društvene mreže učinile su ove snimke dostupnijima no ikad prije, ali ako se vratimo još dalje u prošlost, vidjet ćemo da je upravo kamera stvorila novu vrstu gomile u našoj povijesti obezglavljivanja kao javne predstave. Čim se pojavila kamera, davnog 17. lipnja 1939. godine, imala je trenutan i nedvosmislen efekt.
That day, the first film of a public beheading was created in France. It was the execution, the guillotining, of a German serial killer, Eugen Weidmann, outside the prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles. Weidmann was due to be executed at the crack of dawn, as was customary at the time, but his executioner was new to the job, and he'd underestimated how long it would take him to prepare. So Weidmann was executed at 4:30 in the morning, by which time on a June morning, there was enough light to take photographs, and a spectator in the crowd filmed the event, unbeknownst to the authorities. Several still photographs were taken as well, and you can still watch the film online today and look at the photographs. The crowd on the day of Weidmann's execution was called "unruly" and "disgusting" by the press, but that was nothing compared to the untold thousands of people who could now study the action over and over again, freeze-framed in every detail.
Tog dana, prva snimka javnog odrubljivanja glave snimljena je u Francuskoj. Bilo je to giljotiniranje njemačkog serijskoj ubojice, Eugena Weidmanna, izvan zatvora Saint-Pierre u Versaillesu. Weidmann je trebao biti smaknut u cik zore kao što je to tada bio običaj, no njegov krvnik bio je nov u tom poslu, i krivo je procijenio koliko mu treba vremena da se pripremi. Stoga je Weidmann smaknut u 4 sata i 30 minuta ujutro, u vrijeme kada u lipanjsko ujutro već ima dovoljno svijetla da se može snimati, a gledatelj u gomili snimio je događaj, bez znanja nadležnih vlasti. Također je snimljeno i nekoliko fotografija, a snimka se još uvijek može pogledati na internetu kao i fotografije. Rulja na dan Weidmannova smaknuća u tisku je opisana kao "razuzdana" i "gnjusna", no to nije bilo ništa naspram nespomenutih tisuća ljudi koji sada mogu proučavati događaj opet i opet, zamrznut u svakome detalju.
The camera may have made these scenes more accessible than ever before, but it's not just about the camera. If we take a bigger leap back in history, we'll see that for as long as there have been public judicial executions and beheadings, there have been the crowds to see them. In London, as late as the early 19th century, there might be four or five thousand people to see a standard hanging. There could be 40,000 or 50,000 to see a famous criminal killed. And a beheading, which was a rare event in England at the time, attracted even more.
Kamera je možda učinila te scene dostupnijima no ikad ranije, no ne radi se samo o kameri. Ako se vratimo još dalje u prošlost, vidjet ćemo da otkad postoje javna smaknuća i odrubljivanja glava, postoji i rulja koja ih je gledala. U Londonu, početkom 19. stoljeća, bilo je oko četiri ili pet tisuća ljudi koji su gledali standardno vješanje. Znalo je biti 40 ili 50 tisuća koji bi gledali smaknuće poznatog kriminalca. Odrubljivanje glave, što je bila rijetka pojava u to vrijeme u Engleskoj, privlačilo je još više ljudi.
In May 1820, five men known as the Cato Street Conspirators were executed in London for plotting to assassinate members of the British government. They were hung and then decapitated. It was a gruesome scene. Each man's head was hacked off in turn and held up to the crowd. And 100,000 people, that's 10,000 more than can fit into Wembley Stadium, had turned out to watch. The streets were packed. People had rented out windows and rooftops. People had climbed onto carts and wagons in the street. People climbed lamp posts. People had been known to have died in the crush on popular execution days.
U svibnju 1820. godine, petorica muškaraca poznati kao Urotnici iz Cato ulice smaknuti su u Londonu zbog planiranja ubojstva članova britanske vlade. Bili su obješeni, a potom i obezglavljeni. To je bio odvratan prizor. Svakom su muškarcu naizmjence odsjekli glavu i podigli prema publici. A sto tisuća ljudi, što je 10 tisuća ljudi više no što stane na Wembley stadion, došlo je kako bi to gledali. Ulice su bile prepune. Ljudi su iznajmili prozore i krovove. Ljudi su se popeli na kola i kočije na ulici. Penjali su se na uličnu rasvjetu. Poznato je da su ljudi čak i ginuli u sudarima tijekom popularnih smaknuća.
Evidence suggests that throughout our history of public beheadings and public executions, the vast majority of the people who come to see are either enthusiastic or, at best, unmoved. Disgust has been comparatively rare, and even when people are disgusted and are horrified, it doesn't always stop them from coming out all the same to watch.
Dokazi upućuju na to da tijekom naše povijesti javnih odrubljivanja glave i javnih smaknuća, velika većina ljudi koji su došli gledati ili su entuzijastični ili, u najboljem slučaju, neganuti. Gnušanje je bilo relativno rijetko, a čak i kada su ljudi zgroženi i užasnuti, to ih ipak ne zaustavlja uvijek da se svejedno pojave i gledaju.
Perhaps the most striking example of the human ability to watch a beheading and remain unmoved and even be disappointed was the introduction in France in 1792 of the guillotine, that famous decapitation machine. To us in the 21st century, the guillotine may seem like a monstrous contraption, but to the first crowds who saw it, it was actually a disappointment. They were used to seeing long, drawn-out, torturous executions on the scaffold, where people were mutilated and burned and pulled apart slowly. To them, watching the guillotine in action, it was so quick, there was nothing to see. The blade fell, the head fell into a basket, out of sight immediately, and they called out, "Give me back my gallows, give me back my wooden gallows."
Možda je najšokantniji primjer sposobnosti ljudi da promatraju obezglavljivanje i ostanu neganuti a možda čak i budu razočarani kada je u Francuskoj 1792. bila predstavljena giljotina, poznata sprava za odrubljivanje glava. Nama u 21. stoljeću, giljotina nam se možda čini kao čudovišan izum, no prvoj publici koja ju je vidjela, zapravo je bila razočaravajuća. Bili su naviknuti gledati razvučena, mučna smaknuća na skeli, gdje su ljudi bili osakaćeni, spaljivani i polako rastrgani. Za njih je promatranje giljotiniranja bilo toliko brzo, da se ništa nije niti imalo vidjeti. Oštrica je pala, glava je pala u košaru, u trenutku je nestala, a oni su počeli vikati, "Vratite mi moja vješala, vratite mi moja drvena vješala."
The end of torturous public judicial executions in Europe and America was partly to do with being more humane towards the criminal, but it was also partly because the crowd obstinately refused to behave in the way that they should. All too often, execution day was more like a carnival than a solemn ceremony.
Mučna javna smaknuća u Europi i Americi zaustavljena su djelomice zbog humanijeg pristupa kriminalcima, no djelomice i zbog toga što se rulja tvrdoglavo odbijala ponašati kako je trebala. Dan smaknuća je prečesto nalikovao karnevalu nego dostojanstvenoj ceremoniji.
Today, a public judicial execution in Europe or America is unthinkable, but there are other scenarios that should make us cautious about thinking that things are different now and we don't behave like that anymore.
Danas je javno smaknuće nezamislivo u Europi ili Americi, no postoje druge situacije zbog kojih bismo trebali biti oprezni kada mislimo da su sada stvari drukčije i da se više ne ponašamo tako.
Take, for example, the incidents of suicide baiting. This is when a crowd gathers to watch a person who has climbed to the top of a public building in order to kill themselves, and people in the crowd shout and jeer, "Get on with it! Go on and jump!" This is a well-recognized phenomenon. One paper in 1981 found that in 10 out of 21 threatened suicide attempts, there was incidents of suicide baiting and jeering from a crowd. And there have been incidents reported in the press this year. This was a very widely reported incident in Telford and Shropshire in March this year.
Uzmite kao primjer incidente nagovaranje na samoubojstvo. To se događa kada se skupina ljudi okupi da promatra osobu koja se popela na vrh javne zgrade kako bi se ubila, a ljudi iz skupine viču i zadirkuju, "Hajde više! Skoči!" To je dobro poznati fenomen. Jedna studija iz 1981. otkrila je da su u 10 od 21 slučaja prijetnje samoubojstvom, postojali incidenti nagovaranja na samoubojstvo i zadirkivanje rulje. Ove godine su u medijima zabilježeni takvi incidenti. To je bio naširoko objavljivan incident u Telfordu i Shropshireu u ožujku ove godine.
And when it happens today, people take photographs and they take videos on their phones and they post those videos online. When it comes to brutal murderers who post their beheading videos, the Internet has created a new kind of crowd. Today, the action takes place in a distant time and place, which gives the viewer a sense of detachment from what's happening, a sense of separation. It's nothing to do with me. It's already happened. We are also offered an unprecedented sense of intimacy. Today, we are all offered front row seats. We can all watch in private, in our own time and space, and no one need ever know that we've clicked on the screen to watch.
Kada se tako nešto danas dogodi, ljudi fotografiraju i snimaju svojim mobitelima i objavljuju te snimke na internetu. Kada se radi o brutalnim ubojicama koje objavljuju svoje snimke obezglavljivanja, internet je stvorio novu vrstu rulje. Danas se radnja odvija u udaljenom vremenu i prostoru, što gledatelju stvara osjećaj odvojenosti od onoga što se događa, osjećaj otcjepljenosti. To nema nikakve veze sa mnom. To se već dogodilo. Također nam se nudi jedinstven osjećaj intimnosti. Danas se svima nama nude sjedala u prvom redu. Svi možemo gledati u privatnosti, u našem vlastitom vremenu i prostoru, i nitko ne mora nikada saznati da smo kliknuli na video.
This sense of separation -- from other people, from the event itself -- seems to be key to understanding our ability to watch, and there are several ways in which the Internet creates a sense of detachment that seems to erode individual moral responsibility. Our activities online are often contrasted with real life, as though the things we do online are somehow less real. We feel less accountable for our actions when we interact online. There's a sense of anonymity, a sense of invisibility, so we feel less accountable for our behavior. The Internet also makes it far easier to stumble upon things inadvertently, things that we would usually avoid in everyday life. Today, a video can start playing before you even know what you're watching. Or you may be tempted to look at material that you wouldn't look at in everyday life or you wouldn't look at if you were with other people at the time. And when the action is pre-recorded and takes place in a distant time and space, watching seems like a passive activity. There's nothing I can do about it now. It's already happened.
Taj osjećaj odvojenosti, od drugih ljudi, od samoga događaja, čini se kao ključ za razumijevanje naše sposobnosti da gledamo. Postoji nekoliko načina na koje internet stvara osjećaj odvojenosti koji nagriza individualnu moralnu odgovornost. Naše aktivnosti na internetu često su u suprotnosti s našim pravim životom, kao da su stvari koje činimo na internetu nestvarne. Osjećamo manju odgovornost za naše postupke kada komuniciramo na internetu. Postoji osjećaj anonimnosti, nevidljivosti pa se ne osjećamo toliko odgovornima za svoje ponašanje. Internet također omogućuje da nehotice nabasamo na neki sadržaj, sadržaj koji bismo uglavnom izbjegavali u svakodnevnom životu. Danas se video može pokrenuti prije nego znate što točno gledate. Ili možete pasti u iskušenje da gledate materijal koji inače ne biste gledali, ili ga ne biste gledali da ste u društvu. Kada je radnja unaprijed snimljena i odvija se u udaljenom vremenu i prostoru, gledanje nam se čini kao pasivna radnja. Ne mogu ništa sada poduzeti oko toga. To se već dogodilo.
All these things make it easier as an Internet user for us to give in to our sense of curiosity about death, to push our personal boundaries, to test our sense of shock, to explore our sense of shock.
Sve to olakšava nama kao korisnicima interneta da popustimo našoj znatiželji o smrti, da prelazimo svoje osobne granice, da testiramo naš osjećaj šokiranosti, da ga istražimo.
But we're not passive when we watch. On the contrary, we're fulfilling the murderer's desire to be seen. When the victim of a decapitation is bound and defenseless, he or she essentially becomes a pawn in their killer's show. Unlike a trophy head that's taken in battle, that represents the luck and skill it takes to win a fight, when a beheading is staged, when it's essentially a piece of theater, the power comes from the reception the killer receives as he performs. In other words, watching is very much part of the event. The event no longer takes place in a single location at a certain point in time as it used to and as it may still appear to. Now the event is stretched out in time and place, and everyone who watches plays their part.
No, nismo pasivni dok promatramo. Baš suprotno, ispunjavamo želju ubojice da bude viđen. Kada je žrtva dekapitacije vezana i bespomoćna, on ili ona zapravo postaje pijun u predstavi svojeg ubojice. Za razliku od trofejne glave osvojene u bitci, koja predstavlja sreću i vještinu potrebnu da se pobijedi u borbi, kada je odrubljivanje glave priređeno, kada je u suštini dio kazališne predstave, moć dolazi od recepcije koju ubojica dobiva dok izvodi predstavu. Drugim riječima, gledanje je velikim dijelom dio tog događaja. Događaj se više ne odvija na jedinstvenoj lokaciji u određenom trenutku, kao što je to bilo prije i još uvijek se čini da jest. Sada se događaj proteže u vremenu i prostoru, i svatko tko gleda igra svoju ulogu.
We should stop watching, but we know we won't. History tells us we won't, and the killers know it too.
Trebali bismo prestati gledati, ali znamo da nećemo. Povijest nam govori da nećemo, a ubojice to znaju isto.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you. Let me get this back. Thank you. Let's move here. While they install for the next performance, I want to ask you the question that probably many here have, which is how did you get interested in this topic?
Bruno Giussani: Hvala. Dajte da ovo vratim. Hvala. Pomaknimo se ovdje. Dok pripremaju za iduću izvedbu, želio bih Vam postaviti pitanje koje vjerojatno mnogi ovdje imaju, a to je - kako ste se zainteresirali za ovu temu?
Frances Larson: I used to work at a museum called the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which was famous for its display of shrunken heads from South America. People used to say, "Oh, the shrunken head museum, the shrunken head museum!" And at the time, I was working on the history of scientific collections of skulls. I was working on the cranial collections, and it just struck me as ironic that here were people coming to see this gory, primitive, savage culture that they were almost fantasizing about and creating without really understanding what they were seeing, and all the while these vast -- I mean hundreds of thousands of skulls in our museums, all across Europe and the States -- were kind of upholding this Enlightenment pursuit of scientific rationality. So I wanted to kind of twist it round and say, "Let's look at us." We're looking through the glass case at these shrunken heads. Let's look at our own history and our own cultural fascination with these things. BG: Thank you for sharing that.
Frances Larson: Radila sam u muzeju koji se zove Muej Pitt Rivers u Oxfordu, i poznat je po svojoj izložbi smanjenih glava iz Južne Amerike. Ljudi su znali reći, "O, muzej smanjenih glava, muzej smanjenih glava!" U to vrijeme, radila sam na povijesti znanstvenih zbirki lubanja. Radila sam na zbirkama lubanja, i pogodila me ironija ljudi dolaze vidjeti tu krvavu, primitivnu, divljačku kulturu da gotovo maštaju o njoj i stvaraju je bez da zaista razumiju što su to vidjeli, i svo to vrijeme ta količina -- stotine tisuća lubanja u našemu muzeju, diljem Europe i SAD-a -- podržavale su prosvjetiteljsku potragu za znanstvenom racionalnošću. Zato sam htjela to preokrenuti i reći, "Pogledajmo sami sebe." Promatramo te smanjene glave u staklenim vitrinama. Pogledajmo onda našu vlastitu povijest i kulturnu fascinaciju tim stvarima. BG: Hvala Vam što ste to podijelili s nama.
FL: Thank you.
FL: Hvala Vama.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)