Posted by Iraqi Panch from customer-148-233-71-92.uninet.net.mx (148.233.71.92) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 at 7:28PM :
In Reply to: Re: Martyr, Rachel Corrie posted by Tony BeitMalo from host-69-19-138-30.rev.o1.com (69.19.138.30) on Thursday, March 20, 2003 at 1:41PM :
Iīve taken so many shots at this penchant of ours for calling everyone who dies in a cause we believe in a "martyr"...that I have to ask myself if she really was a martyr...technically.
In the first place, you have to make a free choice to risk dying for your beliefs...in this case, Her beliefs. You could get up and walk away, you could capitulate, or you could stay home...but she didnīt do any of those. She didnīt go to work on a project and just happen to die at someoneīs hands...she new ahead of time that if she did "X"...given the facts on the ground...she stood a good chance of suffering injury or death...a damn good chance...maybe even a better chance than anyone born there because there is nothing a racist hates more than a "Nigger-Lover"...even more than a nigger, because this act of compassion and solidarity rubs salt into the gaping hole where the racistīs soul should be.
Did she suffer death as a direct result of an official and organized government, not mob, policy? Yes, of course she did...for meeting rocks with helicopter gunships and deliberately targeting children is Israeli national policy...and was the last time they had the chance to kill children, their own in that hoary case.
Would her death have helped the "Cause" she knowingly chose to risk her life for? Yes indeed...it was not the act of a suicidal person, or an accident resulting from carelessness or mere whim or bravado, but the act of a caring and fair minded person who was probably as adamant in defense of every humanīs right to live free and proud and safe.
1. She made the choice to risk death or injury...she wasnīt merely run down from behind.
2. This was not a mobīs action or a gang or a mad clique...though all three pretty well sums up the Israeli government of today. This was a direct consequence of a government policy.
3. The risk she took and the ultimate price she paid did indeed serve the purpose of the cause she believed in for it was just such wanton acts of overt force by machines and murderers against civilians she was protesting...and to have died in the act of protesting...illuminates precisely the point for which she sought some better solution than buldozing human beings...as the American army did to thousands of innocent sons and fathers and brothers in Iraq.
There is a fourth criterion...but I canīt remember it. Three will do...one was more than enough in this case.
Thereīs a subject for a public monument...no, I donīt want the work...I got the "business" already.
-- Iraqi Panch
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