Anarchism; Feminism; Women -- Social and moral questions
The primitive man, ignorant of natural forces, dreaded their
approach, hiding from the perils they threatened. As man learned to
understand Nature's phenomena, he realized that though these may
destroy life and cause great loss, they also bring relief. To the
earnest student it must be apparent that the accumulated forces in
our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of
violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in
storm and lightning.
To thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel
intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must
throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are
daily made to endure. Indeed, unless we have become a part of
humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that
accumulates in a human soul, the burning, surging passion that makes
the storm inevitable.
The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest
against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a
cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe
in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing
is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have
studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come
in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their
super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which
compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted
writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders,
have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these
men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly
not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who
knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause.
Bjornstjerne Bjornson, in the second part of BEYOND HUMAN POWER,
emphasizes the fact that it is among the Anarchists that we must look
for the modern martyrs who pay for their faith with their blood, and
who welcome death with a smile, because they believe, as truly as
Christ did, that their martyrdom will redeem humanity.
Francois Coppee, the French novelist, thus expresses himself
regarding the psychology of the ATTENTATER:
"The reading of the details of Vaillant's execution left me in a
thoughtful mood. I imagined him expanding his chest under the ropes,
marching with firm step, stiffening his will, concentrating all his
energy, and, with eyes fixed upon the knife, hurling finally at
society his cry of malediction. And, in spite of me, another
spectacle rose suddenly before my mind. I saw a group of men and
women pressing against each other in the middle of the oblong arena
of the circus, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, while from all
the steps of the immense amphitheatre went up the terrible cry, AD
LEONES! and, below, the opening cages of the wild beasts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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