There seems to be some natural law that requires a human sacrifice for there to be transformative positive change. Perhaps that is why Socrates chose hemlock over exile, so his critique of the Gods could take root and give rise to a proto-scientific society. Maybe that is why Jesus refused to speak in his own defense, so that his reforms of the Law would have greater moral authority. Maybe it is something Martin Luther King Jr. understood the day before he died:
And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say that threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Even Abraham Lincoln payed with his life. Maybe you cannot change things without paying with your life. Maybe the Middle East needs someone that has the courage to conquer the cycle of death by showing their lack of fear of death. Maybe.
David Ignatius is feeling self-reflective today. He is thinking along similar lines.
Many of the assassins’ victims have been colleagues or people I knew as a reporter: Bashir Gemayel, Rafiq al-Hariri, Samir Kassir, Gebran Tueni. I pick up the paper some days wondering who will be next. Among my Lebanese friends, it’s commonplace to speak of an assassinated father or son. These brave people live every day in the sights of the assassins. They inhabit a culture of death, yet they go on bravely, robustly — heroically, to my eyes.
The sickness must end. The people of the Middle East are destroying themselves, literally and figuratively, with the politics of assassination. So many things are going right in the modern world — until we reach the boundaries of the Middle East, where the gunmen hide in wait. Those who imagined they could stop the assassins’ little guns with their big guns — the United States and Israel come to mind — have been undone by the howling gale of violence. In trying to fight the killers, they began to make their own arguments for assassination and torture. That should have been a sign that something had gone wrong.
I know it was a sign that something had gone wrong when civil rights leaders in America started calling for violence. What the Middle East needs is not the courage to endure in a culture of death, but the courage to conquer the fear of death and make one’s death a transformative example. King explained the process.
Now we’re going to march again, and we’ve got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That’s the issue. And we’ve got to say to the nation: we know it’s coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren’t going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don’t know what to do. I’ve seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round.” Bull Connor next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.” And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.
That couldn’t stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we’d go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we’d just go on singing. “Over my head I see freedom in the air.” And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, “Take them off,” and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, “We Shall Overcome.” And every now and then we’d get in the jail, and we’d see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn’t adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.
The Arab world is caught in a sectarian death grip. It doesn’t need to return to shari’a law. It doesn’t need a return of the Caliphate. It doesn’t need to push the Jews into the sea. It needs fearless people that reject violence. If there are to be martyrs, those martyrs need to be martyrs for peace.
So many people are demonstrating tremendous courage each day throughout the region. But it is the wrong kind of courage. That kind of courage is powerless to transform anything. Rabin had the right kind of courage. Arafat did not.
Perhaps if Ayatollah Sistani got out of his highly guarded compound in Najaf and started walking with his followers across Iraq, fearless of death and preaching peace, non-violence, and national reconciliation…perhaps if he was willing to give up his life so that others could see the errors of their ways…perhaps we could see a new hero arise worthy to join the pantheon of the great martyrs of history. Someone needs to try.
