A victory for equality or another example of the inhumanity that lies at the heart of IS?
These thoughts struck me as I was flicking through the tabloids looking for stories. He stared at me. The latest IS executioner in his desert fatigues and black mask. We are told the scene is from Libya. His victim is kneeling, rope around the chest of his orange jumpsuit. The rope points towards a crucifixion. The kneeling victim also suggests he is nothing better than a dog ready to be put down by a cruel master.
The cruel master. Is he standing over his victim? A towering presence?
No, actually. The executioner is a wheelchair user. It’s not a battered wheelchair, it looks pretty modern to my eyes.
It is a chilling image. The disabled man has all the power. We know nothing of his victim.
On that level, it undermines the common disabled-as-victim image we all know so well but it cannot be seen as some sort of ‘victory’ for disability.
I am not an expert in how disability is viewed in the Arab world. I do know IS are masters of propaganda. I am pretty sure they knew the shock value associated with publicising the image. They knew tabloids would use headlines like: Wheel of Death.
Like everything IS do, there is a mix of utter cynicism and pure evil in the image. It wants to titillate us. It may well be argued that IS are throwing our belief in disability equality back in our faces.
It is macabre.
It is wrong.
