The Stoning

2010_4_10 The Stoning
The Producers of “The Passion of the Christ” were behind “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Jim Caviezel, who played Christ in Mel Gibson’s hard and violent film, is in this film as a Western journalist who happened to have a vehicle breakdown in a small and remote Iranian village in which a stoning of an adulteress had recently taken place. The teller of the story is a woman friend of the slain women. The Iranian actress Shohren Aghdashloo played the friend named Zahra. I remembered her from 2003 when “House of Sand and Fog” was then in the theaters and she was an Academy Award nominee for the film. It was with Ben Kingsley. She is a key figure in “The Stoning,” the emotional lynch-pin of the narrative and at the same time the conscience of humanity in the circumstance.
Caviezel is a French journalist who happens to be at the right place at the right time to get this awful story, but it wasn’t easy to get the story out and spread around the world. When Zahra manages to be alone with the journalist she tells him the entire story in flashback and he records it on tape. To Western ears it is an incredible story, grim, horrendous, and inconceivable. Even the adulteress’ father and sons throw rocks at her. It is her slime-bag husband, who looks the part, who has arranged the whole sorry episode because he hasn’t the patience to wait for a divorce so he can marry and deflower a 14 year old girl he has the hots for. In cahoots with him is the village mullah, a man with an unsavory background, who the husband blackmails into helping him spread untruths and innuendoes about his wife. She is in a defenseless position because in Islamic culture women have virtually no rights. The husband may do as he wishes, and there is already a history of him beating her often. He is able to have one crucial witness lie about sleeping with his wife and then exerts pressure on public opinion and has the town leaders condemn her to death as an adulteress, a death by stoning by the male members of the community. The whole charade is carried off under the auspices of Muslim Law, or at least a time-honored tradition in Muslim countries.
In truth all this woman did was stand up to her husband, a brutal, arrogant lout, an authoritarian to the core. The mayor knows better but, afraid of public opinion, he goes along with the herd, to his later regret. The wife has no recourse but to submit. For there is no escape, no exit; a terrible resignation grips everyone in the village. It takes a herd to stage a stoning. She is prepared for death by her woman friend. She wears a white dress, like her Sunday best. Maybe white was proscribed. Two men dig a hole in the ground, deep enough to bury her body up to her thighs. Her arms are tied to her side. Eventually she looks like a truncated stature, legless and totally helpless. The woman was unbelievably brave in the circumstances; she even keeps clear headed when she speaks to the crazed throng of shouting men. A few people cringe with guilt as she speaks; other are eager to get on with the show.
The first person to cast a stone was, of course, her elderly father; but his feeble throws land harmlessly at her sides. It is her husband who strikes the first serious blow—right to her forehead. Gradually, with growing intensity, the stoning proceeds. At this point I asked my wife if I could fast forward as the scene was getting to me. But Sue was insisted on seeing it as is. And it was horrible, completely ruining my evening which had hours to go. I could not shake loose from the horror of what I had witnessed. The execution by stoning was an ugly comment on Muslim men and Islamic culture. All I could think of the rest of the evening was WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? CAN’T THEY SEE WHAT INHUMAN BRUTES THEY ARE BEING? What is missing in their humanity?
Even worse the proposed marriage to the 14 year old girl fell through because the girl’s father had been sent to prison for some unnamed offense, thus bringing shame to her family, which made the girl unacceptable as a wife. More Muslim custom I suppose. In other words, his wife had not needed to die; her death was a mistake. The Village men shrugged it off, as if to say, well, tsk-tsk, better luck next time.
The Journalist and the older woman who gave him the story had to conspire to get the information out. Knowing that he might be writing a story about the stoning, the mullah and a couple of guys with automatic weapons stopped his repaired car and searched his person, finding some tape. The mullah tore it to pieces, thinking that he had saved the day. But he and the widow had outwitted the mullah. She was further down the road and handed the visitor the real tape as he went by and then sped down the highway out of town. When the story of the stoning was published it became an international best seller, shocking all who read it. However, it still goes on, even if those who maintain the practice lie about it.