A Funeral for Someone I Never Met
by Brian Hioe
It’s a strange feeling, attending a memorial in a faraway land for someone you’ve never met. I was there for a business trip and it overlapped with the funeral of the friend of a friend, who had died the previous year.
She had been jailed after a protest. After that, she had decided to go on a hunger strike to protest her conditions and passed away.
But I think it’s more accurate to say that she was killed. By now I’ve seen in many contexts that there are young people willing to take enormous risks for what they believe in. And even if these are very often the people most qualified to take on leadership in society, they take the risks that others won’t because elsewhere there is fear of change. Fear of freedom. People who would rather live ruled over by gods and kings because that’s the way it has always been. Any prosperity made by the people will be attributed to the rulers, and those who point out that the emperor has no clothes are the ones whom society puts in jail.
The sign of a sick society is one that consumes young people who are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. That’s part of being an activist—trying to improve a society that may hate you, and even actively aim to kill you. Any time I see another person I know jailed, or who faces deadly consequences, I try to remember that this comes with the territory.
She was younger than me. Not even 30.
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!