16.07.2006
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Martyrs and Martyrdom
Historically, a martyr is a person who dies for their convictions or religious faith, such as during the persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire. Sometimes the term is applied to those who use violence, such as dying for a nation's glory during wartime (usually known under other names such as "fallen warriors"). The death of a martyr is called martyrdom.
Thus, early martyrs were predominantly from the Christian faith starting with St. Stephen, who had preached the Gospel to the betrayers and murderers of Christ. To such a degree of madness were they excited, that they cast him out of the Jerusalem city and stoned him to death. Since the establishment of Roman Catholic Church for more than two thousands years ago, there have been hundreds of Christian Martyrs bestowed as Saints by successive Popes.
In general, all of the martyrs are designated dead ‘heroes’ and sadly their martyrdoms were recognized only after their departure from this world. Perhaps, the very act of their selfless sacrifices, usually safeguarding their beliefs that resulted lost of their lives to be recognized as martyrdom.
In Arabic, a martyr is termed "shaheed" (literally, "witness"). The concept of the shaheed is discussed in the Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad; the term does not appear in the Qur'an in the technical sense, but the later exegetical tradition has read it to mean martyr in the few passages that it does appear in.
The first martyr in Islam was the old woman Sumayyah bint Khabbab, the first Muslim to die at the hands of the polytheists of Mecca. A famous person widely regarded as a martyr - indeed, an archetypal martyr for the Shia - is Husayn bin Ali, who died at the hands of the forces of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I at Karbala. The Shia Muslims commemorate this event each year at Aashurah.
Muslims who die in a legitimate jihad bis saif (struggle with the sword, or Islamic holy war) are typically considered shahid. This usage became controversial in the late 20th century, when (due to the Islamic strictures against suicide) it began to be applied to suicide bombers, e.g. those belonging to Islamist and Palestinian nationalist groups, whose victims often included civilians.
The term ‘Martyr’ have since been used metaphorically for people killed in a historical struggle for some cause, or those whose deaths served to galvanize a particular movement. In this sense, people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. can be regarded as martyrs, as they were assassinated trying to change the status quo through nonviolent means.
Closer to home, on July 19, 1947, Bogyoke Aung San and his six cabinet ministers, including his brother, were assassinated in the council chamber in Rangoon while the executive council was in session. His political rival, U Saw, was later executed for his part in the killings. Bogyoke Aung San and his colleagues were fittingly recognized as Martyrs for their commitments and struggle for an Independent of Burma, and 19th July was duly declared as Martyrs Day in Burma since 1948.
Since Bogyoke Aung San was assassinated and departed well before Burma’s Independent, it is rather difficult to imagine what he actually would do or likely to do in the post-Independent Burma political scenes. But if he has been still alive, what would the course of Burma’s political history be? A different one from the present scenario?
Perhaps, we could only imagine the likelihood of his actions and thinking interpreted from his speeches that he gave before his assassination. On January 20, 1946, in his Presidential address to First AFPFL (Anti Fascist Peoples Freedom League) under the title ‘Problems for Burma’s Freedom’, he had outlined some of his thinking and ideas to the people and his party.
He said on leadership “No man, however great, can alone set the wheels of history in motion, unless he has the active support and co-operation of a whole people. No doubt individuals have played brilliant roles in history, but then it is evident that history is not made by a few individuals only.”
Further on, he stated on heroism “I am well aware that there is such a great craving in man for heroism and the heroic, and that hero worship forms not a small motif in his complex. I am also aware that, unless man believes in his own heroism and the heroism of others, he cannot achieve much or great things. We must, however, take proper care that we do not make a fetish of this cult of hero-worship, for then we will turn ourselves into votaries of false gods and prophets. And we have had more than enough of such false gods and prophets for this trouble-ridden world.”
And on the collective efforts “…we must labor together in the common cause which concerns all and affects everybody. This is the best way in which we can show our highest sense of homage to our heroes; this is the only way in which we can accomplish the mission before us and find our salvation. We must strive and work, all of us, until we become heroes all, so that we can ultimately dispense with any leader or leadership. For only then we can have freedom in a real and absolute sense.”
He reminded on dirty politics as “Today in our country several of us have not yet been able to comprehend the phenomena of life and society in truer light. Some of us have been going still, consciously or unconsciously, about the same old way of “dirty” politics. But is politics really “dirty”? Certainly not. It is not politics which is dirty, but rather the persons who choose to dirty it are dirty.”
Further on, he continued “Thus you have to live and get certain things that are yours for your living, and this is your politics. This is your everyday life; and as your everyday life changes, so changes your politics. It is for you to have such opportunities for your livelihood and better life that we say there must be freedom, freedom to live, freedom to create and develop nationally, and individually, freedom which can raise your and our standards without affecting others. And this is politics. Politics, then is quite human! It is not dirty. It is not dangerous. It is not parochial. It is neither magic nor superstition. It is not above understanding.”
On the nationalism, he quoted in length “There is no such thing as pure nationalism. What is nationalism any way? Is it something static, absolute and final? No it is not. It is ever changing in form and content. Every student of social and political science knows very well that such slogans as race, religion, language do not alone constitute nationalism. There are one or more races in almost every country. Nowadays, we have different religions being embraced by members of the same nationality. Americans and British speak the same language but do not form one nation. In the Soviet Union, there are several languages and yet these people are one. What then constitutes nationalism? The main factor is the having to lead together one common life sharing joys and sorrows, developing common interests and one or more common things like racial or linguistic communities, fostering common traditions of having been and being one which give us a consciousness of oneness and necessity of that oneness. Race, religion, and language are thus by themselves not primary factors which go to the making of a nation but the historic necessity of having to lead common life together that is the pivotal principle of nationality and nationalism.”
Although Bogyoke Aung San is no longer alive, his words, his ideas and his thinking are very much still alive with us, and many of us in the democratic oppositions should pay heeds to those words of ‘wisdom’ as guiding path to achieve our ultimate goal.
Dr. Sein Myint
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