[2월5일 세계언론 속 아시아]IS 요르단 조종사 화형…왜 이토록 잔인한가
IS가 경악을 금치 못할 영상을 또다시 공개했다. 요르단 조종사 마즈 알카사스베를 산채로 화형하는 영상이다. IS는 최근 인질 참수 동영상들을 공개했으나 화형은 이번이 처음이다.
사람들은 ‘소수’의 사이코패스들이 잔혹한 행위를 벌인다고 생각한다. 그러나 이런 ‘잔혹성’은 IS 전체에 만연해 있다. 이들의 ‘잔인함’은 모두 계획되고 의도된 행동이다. IS는 이를 통해 궁극적 목표인 ‘아랍 내 이슬람 국가 건설’을 달성할 수 있을 것이라 믿고 있다.
IS는 인륜을 져버린 만행을 사과하기는커녕 이를 자랑스럽게 여기고 있으며, 갈수록 잔인한 수법으로 그들의 입지를 다지고 있다. ‘잔혹 행위’는 IS를 알리기 위한 하나의 수단이 된 것이다. IS는 체계적이고 효율적인 계획을 수립해 시리아와 이라크를 지배하려 하고 있다. 물론 이 과정에서 일어나는 모든 잔혹 행위를 공개하는 것 역시 ‘계산된 전략’이다.
왜 이렇게까지 잔혹해야 할까?
잔혹함은 ‘두려움이 없다’ 또는 ‘용기’와 상통하는 부분이 있다. 때문에 전쟁에서 승리하기 위해 더욱 잔혹하게 상대를 죽이는 경우가 많다. IS는 잔혹함을 내세워 전투에서 승리해왔고, 이는 외지에서 많은 대원들을 징집할 수 있었던 간접적 이유가 되기도 했다.
IS의 잔혹함은 적대세력에도 영향을 준다. IS는 극단적인 처형을 공개함으로써 상대편에 공포를 심어준다. 실제로 IS가 모술을 공격했을 당시 군인들이 무기를 버리고 도망가는 모습이 포착되기도 했다. 인질과 포로를 잔인하게 처형하는 영상이 상대에게 보내는 일종의 경고메세지인 셈이다.
이러한 ‘잔혹 정책’은 IS가 영토를 통치하는 과정에서도 쓰인다. 물론 ‘잔혹 통치’ 는 IS전에도 존재했다. 중세시대에도 카톨릭교를 확장하고 이단을 심판하기 위한 종교 재판이 있었다. 카톨릭 교리를 따르지 않는 자는 잔인한 고문을 당하기도 했으며 심지어 산채로 매장되기도 했다. 캄보디아의 크메르루즈는 공산주의 국가를 건설한다는 명목 하에 수많은 생명을 앗아갔다. 2차대전 때 독일은 ‘살인 공장’을 만들어 유대인과 장애인, 동성애자 등을 무참히 살해했다. 이러한 사례들의 공통점은 ‘이상’을 실현하기 위해 그들의 ‘잔혹성’을 합리화시킨다는 것이다. 번역·요약 노지영 인턴기자
Why ISIS is so brutal
Just when you think ISIS cannot horrify any more than it has, the group sends us to a new level of disbelief.
The latest news from the Middle East — the release of a video allegedly showing the Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh deliberately burned alive by his captors — is the latest example. How can we comprehend human beings behaving in this way?
The highly produced videos of decapitations have continued coming, and now this.
It’s tempting to think this is the work of a small number within ISIS, perhaps a core of psychopaths, given free rein by the so-called Islamic State’s leaders. But these are not isolated incidents. This is much more.
This is a very deliberate policy of a strategically coherent group that has defeated armies and captured and held a significant swath of the Middle East. This is ISIS very deliberately pursuing a policy that it believes will help it achieve its ultimate objectives. These are acts of brutality by an organization that has sought to make ruthlessness one of its most distinctive characteristics.
Indeed, far from apologizing for its inhumanity, ISIS advertises it proudly, it taunts the world with it, and goes to great lengths to confirm that the acts that horrify us are not the work of rogue members but are, indeed, the organization’s policy.
Cruelty is a key component of the ISIS brand. The group has managed to conquer large parts of Syria and Iraq with a systematic and efficient plan. Like everything else it does, broadcasting barbarism is a calculated strategy.
But why?
Brutality has psychological, strategic and ideological objectives. That’s why other fighting forces have resorted to cruelty to achieve their objectives. History is replete with examples that we see echoed today.
Cruelty communicates fearlessness, and fearlessness, coupled with battlefield success, is an irresistible draw. It’s no wonder ISIS has attracted large numbers of men eager to fight, including hundreds from Europe. They share the goal, as one defector told CNN, of establishing an Islamic state in the Arab world and then taking the campaign to other countries.
The religious justification for the executions, described by ISIS as part of its jihad — a war to return the reign of an Islamic caliphate and impose the Quran’s dictates — gives the killings moral, theological clearance, all but precluding empathy toward nonmembers.
In addition, by advertising its methods, ISIS intimidates the armies it faces, causing some soldiers to flee before battle, even leaving their weapons behind, as we saw when ISIS took over Mosul. The executions of hundreds of enemy soldiers, those who chose to fight, have appeared in videos, a warning to others.
And the method also works to keep populations in line after ISIS takes over territory and enforces its rule. Of course, ISIS is not the first organization to use barbarism as a weapon of war; to use cruelty as a method of policy enforcement. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition, an institutionalized effort to root out heresy and strengthen the hold of the Catholic Church and its allies, made it well known that those who did not fully comply with its wishes would suffer unspeakable punishments, from torture to being burned alive.
History is replete with examples: The millions killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, as they sought to build a communist utopia. The industrialized killing factories built by Germany during World War II, which had no military value. However, they played the key role within Nazi ideology of exterminating unwanted people, principally Jews, but also the disabled, homosexuals, Roma (Gypsies) and other “inferior” peoples. The genocide in Rwanda, in which ethnic hatred unleashed a genocidal wave that left 800,000 dead, most hacked with machetes by their neighbors.
The common denominator throughout history until today is an ideology that justifies everything for the search of a “higher” goal, one usually suffused with some utopian vision of a perfect world. It is a world that has no room for anyone who disagrees with those seeking to make it a reality and finds in cruelty a recruiting tool for the cause and a fully justified method in pursuit of ultimate success.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/opinion/ghitis-isis-why-brutal/index.html