Riccardo Savona
In the midst of the complexity and questions surrounding the events in North Africa and generally in the Arab world, the names and faces of the people fighting everyday against their oppression become blurred. The resounding words of our politicians, presenting themselves as paladins of justice in the fight against oppression, tend to dominate over the daily stories of these simple men. Stories like the one of Mohammed Bouazizi, a man like many, making a living within modest means. His efforts to fight back against the system and its ways in his rural town in Tunisia were left unheard, and for this reason he took the drastic measure of lighting himself on fire thereby taking his own life. In the following week that same fire of sacrifice and self-immolation would burn through the streets of Tunisia, the voice of the protesters shouting in unison against oppression and a corrupt and nepotistic Establishment. The story of Mohammed Bouazizi is a sad one, but not the only one of this type. And unfortunately, like previous cases, it is destined towards oblivion by the public media.
The famous picture of Thích Quảng Đức
Some stories tend to be remembered for other reasons. Anyone who studied the Vietnam War will have come across Malcolm Brown’s iconic photo of Thích Quảng Đức, the Buddhist monk who, as a sign of protest against the persecution and religious inequality under the American- backed government of those years, stood in the middle of a busy street seated, calm and motionless with the fire blazing throughout his smoldering body.
Another striking story is the one of Jan Palach. The setting was Czechoslovakia under the Soviet rule, the year 1968. In a series of demonstrations for social and democratic reforms the young Czech burnt himself in the centre of Prague. He was only 21 when he committed this extreme act and his gravesite would become a national shrine, symbolising the fight against the foreign regime.
These are just a few examples of a long list. But one need not go far away to find men like these, some of them have lived closer to our realities, and can be seen as a more concrete example of what has been said so fair: Irishmen like Bobby Sands proved and fought until the end for what they believed an injustice, and brought their issues to the eyes of the world.
So if one is still wondering what is that unites these men, the common thread running through their diverse lives, the answer will seem clear yet somehow elusive at the same time.
First of all they were all men of formidable courage. Modern Prometheus fighting against the gods of oppression to bring the “fire” of freedom or hope back to their fellow people. Men that ultimately sacrificed what is most precious; life, for their beliefs, willing to make things better starting from their own realities. And for these reasons, they should not be forgotten.
Memorial to Jan Palach and Jan Zajic
What is most interesting is to see how situations and events occurring in moments such as the Vietnam War, or in the years of Communism, are for many consigned to history. Are they really however? The recent events in the Arab world and the examples of self immolation that have taken place there, would appear to be showing a recurrent trend from those events of history. Furthermore it will be even more intriguing to see how the reaction of the Western countries will, once again, unfold itself and affect the future of these states and whether as the political columnist of the New Statesman, Mehdi Assan, puts it, their “foreign policy will be based more on commercial interest and pragmatic considerations or on sound judgments and strong values”.
