On the Multiple Uses of Video Footage among Contemporary Perpetrators

Abstract

In early June 2019, I was attending an academic conference at the American University of Paris on the scholarly uses of video testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses of mass violence. I had prepared a presentation on the use of videos of and by Syrian perpetrators, a topic I have been working on for the past seven years. As I was waiting for my panel, a Syrian friend living in Paris called me, asking to meet urgently. We did so right before my panel. We sat down in the back of a quiet café, and he pulled out his smartphone and urged me to watch a harrowing video on it. The 6 -minute v ideo shows Syrian intelligence agents in military fatigues taking out blindfolded and bound civilians from a white van, marching them to a large, pre-dug pit, lined with car tires at the bottom, and executing them one by one by shooting them with AK-47 automatic rifles. The perpetrators carry out the executions in routine fashion, speaking only to bark orders at the victims (‘get up’, ‘get out’, ‘walk ahead’). One agent is filming, while the other is shooting. The killers are not particularly emotional, but judging from their gleeful facial expressions, they are clearly enjoying the job. At some point, the cameraman turns his smartphone around and smiles into the camera: ‘This one i s for you, boss!’ The f act t hat t he v ideo w as s hocking, e ven for s omeone like me, used to violent footage emerging from Syria, was remarkable. In addition, watching the clip while attending a conference on video testimonies of mass violence was darkly coincidental. Many questions can and must be asked about this footage. Why did the perpetrators create this footage? What meanings did they attach to the filming? Did the filming affect the violence inflicted in any way, and if so, how? What is this footage’s provenance? And how should researchers and scholars approach this type of footage? These and other questions are important beacons in the new intellectual landscape studying videos and perpetration and should therefore guide future research on the topic. Since the turn of the millennium, the rise and widespread availability of digital technology has had a profound impact on contemporary