Meat Puppets

So I found three photos that illustrate how quickly a complex human being can be reduced to a piece of meat and all his varied drives reduced to a single post-mortem cause. This the essence of martyrdom, whether it’s suicide bombers, peace activists, or US troops sent to fight for oil. Before their deaths they have the ability to stand for a great many things – after their deaths the meat that’s left is just a political butcher prop on which competing ideologues frantically carve simple, reductionist meanings.

Before

British peace activist Thomas Hurndall sits on the floor of a home in Rafah, minutes before he left to participate in a protest at which he suffered a gunshot wound to the head, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. Hurndall, age 21, from Manchester, England, had been standing between Israeli troops and Palestinian children when Israeli soldiers opened fire, according to a fellow activist from the International Solidarity Movement who witnessed the scene. He was declared brain dead after arrival at a Gaza hospital.

During

A British peace activist going only by the name Alice cries for help as she holds her hand over the headwound of British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, who had been shot in the head moments earlier, at the start of a protest, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. Hurndall, age 21, from Machester, England, had been standing between Israeli troops and Palestinian children when Israeli soldiers opened fire, according to a fellow activist from the International Solidarity Movement who witnessed the scene. Hurndall was declared brain dead after arrival at a Gaza hospital.

After

Peace activist Tom Hurndall is rushed into Israel's Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva April 11, 2003, after he was shot and critically wounded by Israeli troops. Israeli troops shot the 21-year-old Briton as he was helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire Friday, fellow activists and hospital officials said. Hurndall was one of 12 members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who Thursday went to the Rafah refugee camp on the Egyptian border to protest at continued Israeli shooting in the area, said ISM member Nick Smith.

Earlier here.

2 Responses

  1. Egfrow says:

    That’s what happens when you stand in between people with Guns and bombs. Welcome to the real world.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Only if you are dealing with a people that value you and have a basic morality. Non-violence by Jews in WWII achieved nothing. Non-violence by native americans achieved nothing. As long as the dominate force looks at the person it can dominate as less than human, non-violence DOES NOT WORK. The British for all their flaws, were still human and moral enough to recognize the value of an indian, but probably more importantly was the fact that they were so overwhelmed numerically, and they didn’t want to really concquer the area, only skim off the top. Had Ghandi been fighting the Germans, or had the indians been a population 1/100 times smaller, I don’t doubt for a minute that he would be machine gunned to death within 5 minutes, along with hundreds of thousands.

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