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The anti-death threat

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road on Jun 23, 2008

June 2008: Leaving Germany’s Council on Foreign Relations. Which one is my bodyguard? Guess again. (Photo: Ann Snyder)

In my previous post, I asked you to sign a statement against death threats. Now this from a reader:

“I am sending you the anti-death threat. This is a life wish. I wish you much happiness and joy in your life, and I hope that you will live long enough to see some of the change that you advocate for.” - Beth

The “life wish.” What a great antidote to the death threat.

It’s gotten me thinking about what we, as humans, instinctively focus on when we celebrate courage. So often — maybe too often — we lionize those who are killed in the pursuit of justice: Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Joan of Arc, Dietrich Bonhoeffer…

But what about those who fight injustice and survive? Aren’t the survivors at least as important as the martyrs? After all, survivors show us that our choice is not between living and dying, but between living and lying.

Dr. Susan Neiman, a philosopher who runs the Berlin-based Einstein Forum, recently wrote about this theme. She says that in commemorating the Holocaust, Germany “has chosen its resistance heroes, and it has chosen them wrong.

Every child here knows the names of Hans and Sophie Scholl, college students who were guillotined for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets. Tom Cruise has added his fame to a new film about Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the oft-sung leader of a group of officers hanged for their failed attempt on Hitler’s life.

The courage of such people should not be forgotten, but the message their stories convey is grim: their deeds cost them their lives, and accomplished nothing. It’s a message that comforts the millions of Germans who didn’t try to oppose the regime.”

That’s a crucial point. Martyrdom in pursuit of the greater good may inspire us, but the inspiration lasts for a flash. Then we return to our daily existence, either relieved that we’re off the hook for doing nothing or depressed that doing “something” means dancing with death.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Dr. Neiman tells the story of a little-known yet highly successful act of resistance against Hitler’s henchmen:

“In 1943, when the Nazis were undecided about whether to deport and murder Jewish spouses of non-Jews, they tested the waters by rounding up nearly 2,000 Jewish men whose non-Jewish wives had already withstood considerable government pressure to divorce them.

These wives spontaneously gathered in front of the building in Rosenstrasse where their husbands were being held. For one long week they refused to leave the little square in central Berlin, despite the Gestapo machine guns trained upon them.

It’s often said that non-violent resistance worked for Gandhi and Martin Luther King because their oppressors were civilized; the governments of Britain and the United States could be bested by the moral courage of their opponents, while totalitarian regimes simply shoot them. This not only underestimates the evils of racism, but also our possibilities of combating them.

For in Berlin’s Rosenstrasse, the police backed down. The men were released. They and their families survived. And in a country that devotes so much time and energy to commemorating the victims, these brave women remain anonymous; all that really marks their story is a small, clay-colored memorial in a park that few Berliners know.

Seeing it moves many to tears. But what’s tragic are not these heroes, but the fact that there were not more. Others were deterred less by Nazi terror than by a much older message: heroic action is futile, and mostly ends in death, besides.

After all these years, isn’t it time to send a message to Germany’s children — and everyone else’s — that will help them stand up against present evils as well as mourning past ones?”

Bravo.

That’s why a few months after my book came out, I ditched my bodyguards. The death threats continue to this day, but I stand by my decision. If I’m going to convince young Muslims that it’s possible to challenge dogma and live, I can’t have a big burly guy (or gal) looking out for me everywhere I go.

So far, so good. I’m still alive (yes, it really is me blogging). More than that, every once in a while I hear from a young Muslim who says he or she wants to help the campaign for ijtihad because “you’re sincere.”

Translation: Despite the death threats, this mission for Muslim reform isn’t driven by a messiah complex or the glamour of danger. It’s driven by gratitude for the freedoms that most of our globe doesn’t yet have.

So I intend to keep living — and living on my feet as a free woman, not on my knees as a cloistered damsel in dissent.

Which brings me back to my petition against death threats. From Indonesia to Venezuala, from Syria to Malaysia to India to America, from Kabul to Istanbul, a lot of you have recently signed. To see all the new names, cities and countries, click here and scroll down.

Keep adding your signatures, if not for yourselves then for the generations to whom you’re bequeathing this planet.

When Beth sent me the “anti-death threat,” she added this: “I have a 14-year-old daughter whom I very much want to form her own opinions and feel empowered to impact the world around her.” The anti-death threat might achieve that for millions more children.