Torture and the Replication of Religious Iconography at the Abu Ghraib Prison: A Visual Semiotic Experiment

Abstract

Mixing self-selected images of abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal with religious imagery, this paper gives a commentary on the offences committed there. The author notes that this paper is not intended to be an in-depth historical or sociological treatise explaining the abuse at Abu Ghraib. Rather, this paper is a visual semiotic experiment crafted primarily to combat a moral blindness that allows individuals to ignore, or even to justify, such degradation and brutality. By appropriating and re-mixing these images, this work seeks to transform them into messages that call out and question religious, cultural, and political justifications for the use of torture.

Material Perspectives on Religion, Conflict, and Violence

“…Mitchell is surely not alone in seeing a 'Christ figure' in 'Gilligan' . John Paul also wrote that upon seeing the pictures, he felled he had already seen them before, and links the pictures to trajectories of Christian representations of the mockery and torture of Christ in western art history (Paul 2011, see also Eisenman). Afterwards, questions were raised of whether this was a 'real' situation of torture or that the picture was misleading (Linfield,) but a Christ-figure was widely recognized in the picture.…”

The Image of Violence and the Study of Material Religion, an Introduction

“…The pictures that were widely published in April 2004 of the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad have already been widely discussed, including from material religion and iconographic points of view (Lincoln 2007;Mitchell 2011, pp. 137-59;Paul 2011;Keenan 2012). As is well known, the photos showed prisoners in (sexually) humiliating positions, sometimes in Abu Ghraib's orange prison attire, sometimes dressed in black cloths, but often naked.…”

What’s in That Picture?

“…Mitchell is surely not alone in seeing a 'Christ figure' in 'Gilligan' . John Paul also wrote that upon seeing the pictures, he felled he had already seen them before, and links the pictures to trajectories of Christian representations of the mockery and torture of Christ in western art history (Paul 2011, see also Eisenman). Afterwards, questions were raised of whether this was a 'real' situation of torture or that the picture was misleading (Linfield, but a Christ-figure was widely recognized in the picture.…”