XX Factor: the blog

Neda is Mythology, Not Fact

This week I chided Andrew Sullivan for posting an e-mail supposedly confirming the details of Neda’s death. Andrew Sullivan defends himself, saying the details in the e-mail are confirmed in this Los Angeles Times story. Since then, I’ve gotten dozens of e-mails from Sullivan fans asking me to apologize and run a correction. I politely decline. Neither the Los Angeles Times story, nor any of the news stories that ran yesterday confirm any details in that e-mail. Instead, they all just bolster my conviction that we are witnessing the creation of a myth, not the investigation of a murder.

The LA Times story confirms that she was shot, and there was a doctor on the scene. I could have told you that from the video. It doesn’t say anything about who killed her. Her singing instructor, who was with her that day, says he heard a shot and thinks it came from a rooftop. That is very different than what the doctor wrote in the e-mail, which is that a “basij” member “aimed straight at her heart.”

Myths get created even in real time; read the contemporaneous deathbed stories of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. Neda’s mother says she begged her daughter not go to the protests, and her daughter answered, “Don't worry. It's just one bullet and its over.” Again, I don’t begrudge them this mythology. A mother needs something to make sense of her grief. The street protesters need a sympathetic face, and Neda is ideal. But let’s just report it for what it is.

Photograph of Iranian protesters by Louisa Gouliamaki//AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: andrew sullivan, neda

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Hanna Rosin Double X co- editor, reporter, prefer my friends live.

Comments

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By: juston | Tue, 08/10/2010 - 19:47

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Forest-Trees

By: mathilde_pgh | Fri, 06/26/2009 - 13:52

At the time Hanna Rosin posted this entry, Neda Soltan's named had, in fact been verified. Perhaps the biological, biographical, and precise situational details are continuously emerging. Yet, 41 years later, I bet most of us would be hard pressed to name who was accompanying Nguyễn Văn Lém, or his exact age, on the day he was executed in Saigon in 1968 and Eddie Adams was there to capture it

Agreed, it is important to always think critcally and question images that are thrust upon us. But Jessica Lynch notwithstanding, I find it callous and disturbing that this piece seemingly seeks to lump Neda Soltan, and the sad, poignant grotesque phenomenon of her filmed death in with a generalized and dubious "muslim martyr myth." This is as if Neda Agha Sultan wasn't a real person, wasn't shot a protest in Tehran during a time of confirmed brutal crackdown, and didn't have a family who now mourns her. She was and they do.

Also agreed, there do seem to be overly histrionic and unverified accounts of the events surrounding Neda's death. These are obvious to most moderatley savvy readers and observers. There are at least 2 videos circulating. Yes, there is a story within the story, and likely a fascinating one. However, this whole thread appears to be a matter of missing the forest for the trees.
Clarification: It's on the GABFEST that Hanna Rosin describes muslim martyr myth and imagery in a fair amount of detail and then compares it to the imagery in the Neda videos. It is interesting and something to keep in mind as we actively engage with poltical imagery and use it to inform ourselves. But, in my opinion, it's an unfair generalization as it relates to Neda Soltan.

Projecting Imperious Dreams on Others

By: Usama3 | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 17:18

Ladies here don't have greate knowledge of events in Iran than the anyone else do you?
The claim that a basiji shot her because guns are restricted among the populations ignores a very real fact that America has been arming, training, and supporting militant insurgency and opposition groups within Iran.
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/2/28/investigative_reporter_seymour_her...

A recent WaPo postglobal blog reported that the Mujihadeen Khalq Organization (MKO), a terrorist organization on the terrorist list, has been working amongst the Iranian opposition to foment unrest and chaos.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/ali_ettefagh/2009/06/democ...

Folks are whipping up a mythology to project their own ideas and believes onto Iran without knowing who is doing what and why. I say: Leave Neda and her family alone. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) said regarding the deceased: from God we come and to God we return.

Whatever.

By: Clearthinker | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:37

We have spent far too much time on this. Iran needs change, for a lot of reasons that matter to civil libertarians, feminists, gay and lesbian rights advocates and the Middle East in general. I only hope that truth is not obscured by the fact that opposing the regime may put you on the side of America and Israel.

This Neda debate is noise, if not downright disrespectful of the deceased.

@Clearthinker

By: rcwilliams83 | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:30

Even supposing that I am precisely as lazy, biased, and inconsistent in my opinions as you would like to suppose that I am, you're still taking a position that throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Even if I were being hypocritical on this matter, what I'm asking for RIGHT NOW is less media sensationalism, and more facts, which I think we can agree, is to be preferred in every case. If I don't ask for it all the time, then yes, I've been less vigilant than I ought to be. But asking for it some of the time is better than asking for it not at all. Right?

Just answer the question RC.

By: Clearthinker | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:14

Make something up.

@Clearthinker

By: rcwilliams83 | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:11

I'm amazed that after my having offered one opinion, you claim to be able to divine the contents of my opinions on unrelated matters, and (cherry on top) to accuse me of hypocrisy. That's really quite a trick. You'll have to show me how you do it sometime.

Excellent point, Bswainbank.

By: Clearthinker | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:13

Why this? Why this indeed, BSB.

I have no problem with seeking more detail(and that is a higher calling than merely questioning what has been reported), although Hanna goes a bit beyond the pale here. My problem is that every point made by RC and his/her fellow travellers are made only here, only in this case. I repeat, bona fide, blatant frauds have gone unquestioned (search your soul RC, have you ever bothered to be this engaged with respect to any image generated by Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Fatah etc etc?Be truthful now, since you seem to be so in truth's thrall...at least here.), yet look at all the energy being expended here, on this open and shut murder of an innocent bystander, searching for nuanced inconsistencies like a defense attorney desperate to conjure up a reasonable doubt that will get her blood-drenched mass murdering client off the hook. Come on Hanna, dredge up some dirt on Neda, so you can fall back on the "if it happened, she had it coming to her" defense.

To call this behaviour hypocrisy would be too kind.

Whaaa? Really?

By: bswainbank | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 15:50

'Her singing instructor, who was with her that day, says he heard a shot and thinks it came from a rooftop. That is very different than what the doctor wrote in the e-mail, which is that a “basij” member “aimed straight at her heart.”'

Um. No. It isn't very different. I mean, maybe the gunman was aiming for her head, and just hit her in the heart. And killed her. So we could watch the video of her dying in the street. In Iran.

Of all the crimes against truth and justice and journalism being perpetrated in Iran these days, why point the spotlight at this?

@Clearthinker

By: rcwilliams83 | Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:10

"There was absolutely nothing on the face of the images we saw to question whether what was claimed to have happened, happened."

That's true. But it's also true that there's nothing in the video to confirm a lot of the reports that have come out about Neda's death. Things like the "straight for her heart" comment, the location of the shooter, and the shooter's affiliation, and what Neda said to her mother when she went out that morning. The media has been quite credulous in its reporting on this story, appearing to emphasize elements that make for high drama, quite possibly at the expense of the facts.

I don't read Hanna's use of the word "mythology" here to imply that the facts we've been presented are necessarily false. I think she's just taking the position that the story has attained a life of its own, such that it doesn't necessarily require a grounding in reality anymore.

Seriously, it doesn't bother you even a little that the Neda story is becoming a cultural meme well before so many of the significant claims about it have been confirmed? Even knowing that most people will never revise their recollection of these events as the murder is investigated?