الجمعة، 25 يونيو 2010

A man is burned alive

I'm going to alter my normal formatting for this post to put this warning at the top, and embed the video below, in hopes that everyone will read this text before clicking (or not clicking) on the video.

The video comes from the Kyrgyzstan/Uzbekistan conflict area.  It is low-resolution (probably camera phone), but sufficiently clear to show a man being burned alive after having been soaked with some flammable fluid.  This event takes place in a street or plaza with a group of people standing by, watching, and seemingly cheering.

I'm not going to identify the Kyrgyz-or-Uzbek affiliations of either the perpetrators or the victim.  To my mind that's not the important take-away message.  I've tried to do a little reading (maps here) about the Kyrgyz/Uzbek conflict, but I can't hope to understand it well.  The knee-jerk explanation of events like these is that they are the result of "ethnic tensions," but I think we grossly oversimplify world geopolitics by using that phrase, because many of these wars/conflicts arise from simple economics, greed, political power moves, resource access etc., and although different ethnicities may be evident, they have probably coexisted for generations and have no reason to fight now until/unless some other trigger was activated.

In any case, the important thing to know about the video is that it is ruthlessly and disturbingly graphic.  Decide for yourself whether viewing such an event is appropriate for your mindset and your emotional well-being.

Video source link. Via Reddit, where there is a discussion thread.

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