‘The abduction of Alan Johnston in Gaza is cruel and terrifying. However, we don’t honour persecuted journalists and writers around the world by increasing censorship. We maintain our freedoms by continuing to speak and write about contemporary events. This craven act of censorship by the BBC brings disgrace on this organisation. I don’t believe it is something that Alan Johnston would want.’ -Hanif Kureishi\n<\/p>\n
\nWeddings And Beheadings<\/b>\n<\/p>\n
\nI have gathered the equipment together and now I am waiting for them to arrive. They will not be long; they never are.
\n
\nYou don\u2019t know me personally. My existence has never crossed your mind. But I would bet you\u2019ve seen my work: it has been broadcast everywhere, on most of the news channels worldwide. Or at least parts of it have. You could find it on the Internet, right now, if you really wanted to. If you could bear to look.\n<\/p>\n
\nNot that you\u2019d notice my style, my artistic signature or anything like that. I film beheadings, which are common in this war-broken city, my childhood home.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was never my ambition, as a young man who loved cinema, to film such things. Nor was it my wish to do weddings either, though there are less of those these days. Ditto graduations and parties. My friends and I have always wanted to make real films, with living actors and dialogue and jokes and music, as we began to do as students. Nothing like that is possible anymore. Everyday we are ageing, we feel shabby. The stories are there, waiting to be told; we\u2019re artists. But this stuff, the death work, it has taken over.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe were \u2018recommended\u2019 for this employment, and we can\u2019t not do it; we can\u2019t say we\u2019re visiting relatives or working in the cutting room. They call us up with little notice at odd hours, usually at night, and minutes later they are outside with their guns. They put us in the car and cover our heads. Because there\u2019s only one of us working at a time, the thugs help with carrying the gear. But we have to do the sound as well as the picture, and load the camera and work out how to light the scene. I\u2019ve asked to use an assistant yet they only offer their rough accomplices who know nothing, who can\u2019t even wipe a lens without making a mess of it.\n<\/p>\n
\nI know three other guys who do this work; we discuss it amongst ourselves, but we\u2019d never talk to anyone else or we\u2019d end up in front of the camera.\n<\/p>\n
\nUntil recently my closest friend filmed beheadings, however he\u2019s not a director, only a writer really. I wouldn\u2019t say anything, but I wouldn\u2019t trust him with a camera. He isn\u2019t too sure about the technical stuff, how to set up the equipment, and then how to get the material through the computer and onto the Internet. It\u2019s a skill, obviously.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was the one who had the idea of getting calling cards inscribed with ‘Weddings and Beheadings’ inscribed on them. If the power\u2019s on, we meet in his flat to watch movies on video. When we part he jokes, ‘Don\u2019t bury your head in the sand, my friend. Don\u2019t go losing your head now. Chin up!’\n<\/p>\n
\nA couple of weeks ago he messed up badly. The cameras are good quality, they\u2019re taken from foreign journalists, but a bulb blew in the one light he was using, and he couldn\u2019t replace it. By then they had brought the victim in. My friend tried to tell the men, ‘It\u2019s too dark, it\u2019s not going to come out and you can\u2019t do another take.’ But they were in a hurry, he couldn\u2019t persuade them to wait, they were already hacking through the neck and he was in such a panic he fainted. Luckily the camera was running. It came out underlit of course – what did they expect? I liked it; Lynchian, I called it, but they hit him around the head, and never used him again.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was lucky. But I wonder if he\u2019s going mad. Secretly he kept copies of his beheadings and now he plays around with them on his computer, cutting and re-cutting them, putting them to music, swing stuff, opera, jazz, comic songs. Perhaps it\u2019s the only freedom he has.
\n
\nIt might surprise you, but we do get paid; they always give us something \u2018for the trouble\u2019. They even make jokes, ‘You\u2019ll get a prize for the next one. Don\u2019t you guy love prizes and statuettes and stuff?’\n<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s all hellish, the long drive there with the camera and tripod on your lap, the smell of the sack, the guns, and you wonder if this time you might be the victim. Usually you\u2019re sick, and then you\u2019re in the building, in the room, setting up, and you hear things, from other rooms, that make you wonder if life on earth is a good idea.\n<\/p>\n
\nI know you don\u2019t want too much detail, but it\u2019s serious work taking off someone\u2019s head if you\u2019re not a butcher; and these guys aren\u2019t qualified, they\u2019re just enthusiastic – it\u2019s what they like to do. To make the shot work, it helps to get a clear view of the victims eyes just before they\u2019re covered. At the end the guys hold up the head streaming with blood and you might need to use some hand-held here, to catch everything. The shot must be framed carefully. It wouldn\u2019t be good if you missed something. [Ideally you should have a quick-release tripod head, something I do possess and would never lend to anyone.]\n<\/p>\n
\nThey cheer and fire off rounds while you\u2019re checking the tape and playing it back. Afterward, they put the body in a bag and dump it somewhere, before they drive you to another place, where you transfer the material to the computer and send it out.\n<\/p>\n
\nOften I wonder what this is doing to me. I think of war photographers, who, they say, use the lens to distance themselves from the reality of suffering and death. But those guys have elected to do that work, they believe in it. We are innocent.\n<\/p>\n
\nOne day I\u2019d like to make a proper film, maybe beginning with a beheading, telling the story that leads up to it. It\u2019s the living I\u2019m interested in, but the way things are going I\u2019ll be doing this for a while. Sometimes I wonder if I\u2019m going to go mad, or whether even this escape is denied me.\n<\/p>\n
\nI better go now. Someone is at the door.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hanif Kureishi is an award-winning writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
‘The abduction of Alan Johnston in Gaza is cruel and terrifying. However, we don’t honour persecuted journalists and writers around the world by increasing censorship. We maintain our freedoms by continuing to speak and write about contemporary events. This craven act of censorship by the BBC brings disgrace on this organisation. I don’t believe it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}