Question:
Just thinking to myself today and, looking at the history of mankind, it seems pretty repetitive and kinda depressing. It mostly consists of people killing each other, wars, more people killing each other, genocide, so on so fourth... Then every once in a while a good person comes around and says "Hey, that's wrong!", tries teaching people to love and be nice, and then people kill them for it.
Was hoping people could list some more martyrs, or people that have inspired you, and have lost their lives, sacrificing everything, for the sake of human decency.
Examples: Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Jesus, etc
Answer:
The history texts fed to young Americans in academic settings are so sadly bereft of history, and sadly these so-called texts of learning are so often deliberately self-censored, one would not be far off the mark simply to regard them as obligatory works of history that do not cause young Americans to question historical events or to think of historical events as meaningful. History in such settings becomes an ornament to indoctrination - a sad lie that passes for truth and gives one a 'credential..'
Martyrs? Quan Duc set himself on fire in Vietnam and his blazing death became a famous photograph circulated internationally. He was protesting the Vietnam War and the US/Diem govt. persecution of Buddist people... Alice Herz - a reknown peace activist and a jew who had escaped Nazi Germany , set herself on fire at age 82 in the USA in protest of the mass murdering napalming of Vietnamese children by US forces. The Japanese author Shino Shibata started a peace fund dedicated in her name. In Berlin there was a street named for her called Alice Herz Plaza. Also, in 1965, Norman Morrison - age 31 - carried his 1yr.old daughter with him, then handed her to friends in the crowd, and walked to the floor below William Macnamara's office and set himself on fire to protest the 1000's of children killed by the US napalming of Vietnam. In 1970, at the University of California , ayoung man with the last name Winn<he was an ROTC student and a Business school graduate> wrote a note that said 'God Stop This War in Vietnam' and then set himself ablaze and died. For years into the 1980's people have tried to have his site of martryrdom recognized by a plaque - but the University Administration has forbidden it... There are several others in that period who also burned themselves alive in protest of the Vietnam War.
The Vietnamese monk Quan Duc was noted to have burned to death - but his heart survived and was put on display. For weeks after the incident, there were people in the streets reporting to have seen his reurrected figure and to have seen the appearance of Buddah in the clouds of the sky. He and all these martyrs did not die in vain. I tend to always think of them whenever I hear some Fox News or MSNBC news anchor make flippant remarks about the Vietnam War as if the protestors were just a bunch of kids, as if the protests were trivial or superficial childish acts of protesting... In the case of Mr. Winn the reknown philosopher Herbert Marcuse spoke at his memorial.
Isn't it strange that US student grow up and never learn these things in history texts about the Vietnam War. Is it not Orwellian? Abbie Hoffman was reportedly arrested almost 50x's during the War and repeatedly beaten. In the demonstrations at Berkely there were students killed. Most US school text will mention Kent State - but that's about it. One will never for example in such text read MLKjr's speeches where he discusses a favorable understanding of the marxian dialectic and his strong opposition to the war. Martyrs abound.
My favorite martyr to study in American history is Joe Hill, the poet and IWW activist who was put to death by a Utah firing squad due to his Marxian beliefs despite protests from all over the world. One rarely finds him at all in American text books, yet his funeral was said to be the largest funeral in all of American history.
In Alabama, there is the home of Helen Keller. She kept always a Red Communist Flag on her desk. The state of Alabama removed it and placed a state of Alabama flag in its place - and the historical site has been totally stripped of any references to socialism/communism which was the heart and soul of her activism. Self-Censorship is a strange thing. I would include Helen Keller as a martyr since the state of Alabam has done so much to this very day to hide her beliefs and make her into something harmless and contrived. Her being silenced so by the state makes her aa martyr.
