Adonis Diaries

The One to Come (May 20, 2009)

            I learned that the word “martyr” in Greek means to testify. That makes lot of sense given that testifying is the most dangerous exercise for rectifying wrongs and punishing the perpetrators of crimes against freedom of speech and opinions.  People spoke up and testified to their religious beliefs and were executed.  People rebelled and spoke up in totalitarian and oligarchic regimes and were persecuted and imprisoned. Journalists and reporters testified and accounted to events and activities that belittled human dignity and human rights and were fired, persecuted, and killed as collateral damages in the war fields or blown up in terrorist acts. 

            There are more “martyrs” of the word than those fallen in battle fields for resisting occupations.  The “unknown soldiers” have their special monuments or squares in every State where personalities depose wreathe and keep silent for a minute, supposedly praying for the soul of the “brave” soldiers.  There are countless “saints”, martyred or not, who are venerated and their shrines visited all over the world.  I would be curious if the martyrs of words for human conditions, not of the after life status, have their squares and monuments in any State but in Lebanon, the Martyrs’ Square (sahat al shouhadaa). Journalists and leaders of the words that had denounced the Turkish atrocities were hanged publicly in 1916 by order of General Jamal Basha.

            More than the fallen “soldiers” and the fallen martyrs of words it is the fallen “innocents” at each turn of millennia that surpass any horror, for an entire year or more.  Every Empire, every civilization, every culture, every religion, every sub-sect of religions has its own millennia.  At the turn of each of these millennia, particular societies are at the mercy of scare tactics waiting for “The One to Come“.  Who is this One? Why is he coming? How is he to establish one thousand years of peace and stability? By which means and supported by whom?  The only answers are a collection of hubris told in “Apocalyptic” idiotic frenzies. The largest and most expensive pomp is planned accompanied by the greatest numbers of victims in sacrifice of “The One to Come”; who will show up in all his splendor, in the whitest of all white robes, and the most loudly orchestra that no human kind could assemble in numbers and in varieties of instruments.

            Here you have societies that have been manipulated for thousands of years, societies that suffered all kinds of humiliations, miseries, and degradation in expectations for any change, any exit door to a different more tolerant routine and suddenly, a mesmerizing event is heralded in all corners.  Everyone is scared, even those who malevolently promoted the imminent coming for gaining power and wealth, even those who maliciously wanted to lord it over the souls of the people, rich, poor, ignorant, or educated ended up falling in the trap of the millennia frenzy.

            Many of these charlatans elect themselves to be eventually sitting on the right hand side of “The One to Come” and be the ministers of the new Reign and that they will inevitably live for at least one thousand years to exercise their power over the billions of opponents sitting on the left hand side.  Maybe the Christian millennium has passed without digital catastrophes but what about the many more millennia of the other religions and Empires to come?