Posted by pancho from pool0080.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.80) on Friday, January 10, 2003 at 9:10AM :
In Reply to: News from Absurdistan ... posted by andreas from dtm2-t9-2.mcbone.net (62.104.210.101) on Friday, January 10, 2003 at 5:22AM :
Is this the fellow who got lost and froze to death in a snow storm, while the rest of the soldiers made it back safely? It is a tragedy certainly and I wish these damfools wouldn't place us in the position of having to debunk their over heated rhetoric, making it seem like we're the idiots here, when their desperate attempts to milk everything for all it's worth is the disgusting thing.
You aren't a martyr simply by dying...especially when what killed you was snow and cold weather and your own errors of judgement. If someone else had used snow to kill him with, it would be one thing.
Have we ever asked the question of just WHY we seem to need martyrs so badly? So badly we'll manufacture them at the drop of a hat? If Uncle Youkhenna dies while fornicating, is he a "martyr"? To what...sex? If Najo dies from eating kipti...is she a martyr?
Words have specific meanings for a reason. It's a part of civilization, of sophistication, to have a developed language with nuances and a richness and depth in forms of expression. A higher mental capacity requires a complex vocabulary. We throw the word "martyr" around so loosely it's lost all of its original meaning...has come to mean any death at all, in the Mid East. I doubt if we'd call an Assyrian who dies in Flint, Michigan a martyr...even if he got lost in the snow and froze.
Something unhealthy in this cult of martyrdom because we don't really put ourselves on the line for anything that stands a reasonable chance of getting us martyred...legitimately so. Even Akbulut jumped at the chance to distance himself from even the appearance of martyrdom...THERE was a lost opportunity if we wanted martyrs. Instead we pick on this poor fellow and think we're enobling him by making a tragic accident into something else. We actually succeed only in diminishing the event for it appears phony somehow...we look suspicious, or would if anyone ever saw us besides ourselves or heard us make these claims.
I don't mean any disrespect to the man or his family...just those who use these tragedies to advance whatever humiliating agenda they have. It's a cheap shot...an attempt to ride to glory (?) on someone else's back...like maybe getting into heaven through Christ's mutilated body?
-- pancho
-- signature .