Michael Roberts … This article was originally printed in the Lanka Monthly Digest, September 1999, vol 6:2, pp. 56-57. It was then expanded significantly in some places, while citations and footnotes were added, for its re-printing within the book Fire and Storm. Essays in Sri Lankan Politics, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2011, pp. 123-30 — ISBN 978-955665–134-8.
I: In February 1999 a Kurdish nationalist leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was caught by the Turkish authorities. Kurdish refugees in the Western world erupted in protest. In London a young girl Neila Kanteper set herself alight. In Sydney a young lad was caught on camera with petrol can and cigarette lighter as he threatened similar action. As I walked into the local news-
agency in Adelaide that week the proprietor[1] waved the picture of Kanteper in flames in front of me and in considerable alarm inquired how anyone could take such an extreme measure. He could not ever take such a step, he said. His remarks gain in significance from the fact that they were unsolicited and had not been preceded by prior conversation. I was in a hurry and did not explore matters further, but I conjecture that his bewilderment stemmed not only from the method of death by fire, but also from such terminal commitment to a collective cause. The question, therefore, is whether in similar circumstances an act of martyrdom involving death by hand-gun would produce the same level of astonishment. Relatively speaking, death by gun seems to be so much more acceptable to the Western world than death by flame. Continue reading
