Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Um outro tipo de bombista suicida?

In Libya, an unlikely hero of a youth-led revolution (Washington Post), via Libyan Revolution Central:

BENGHAZI, LIBYA - Mehdi Mohammed Zeyo was the most unlikely of revolutionary heroes. The bespectacled 49-year-old worked in the supplies department of the state-owned oil company. He was a diabetic with two teenage daughters.
But something snapped inside him as a youth-led uprising in Libya against the government of Moammar Gaddafi quickly turned bloody.
For days Zeyo had carried the bodies of teenage boys from outside a security base in the center of the city where Gaddafi's militiamen fired on young protesters. Every day he went with hundreds of others to the cemeteries to bury the boys. His outrage grew, until Zeyo quietly made a decision, according to his family, friends and witnesses to his fiery death.

On the morning of Feb. 20, he walked down the stairs of his apartment building with a gas canister hoisted on his shoulder, witnesses said. He put two canisters inside his trunk of his car, along with a tin can full of gunpowder. Driving toward the base, he flashed the victory sign to the young men protesting outside and hit the gas pedal.

Gaddafi's security forces sprayed his black car with bullets, setting off a powerful explosion, witnesses said. The blast tore a hole in the base's front gate, allowing scores of young protesters and soldiers who had defected to stream inside. That night, the opposition won the battle for the base, and for Benghazi, as Gaddafi's forces retreated.

More than a week later, Benghazi remains the center of resistance to Gaddafi as Libya's leader of 41 years clings to power in the capital, Tripoli. Here, Zeyo's face has become the symbol of courage for this youth-led rebellion. A video of the explosion has spread across the city, passed from one cellphone to the next.
"What he did helped a lot of people live," Yousef Salah said as he stood outside Zeyo's apartment building, which has been labeled "the building of the martyr."

Salah said he was imprisoned inside the base that day. He had been protesting and throwing stones when security forces detained him. Every hour, Salah said, he was kicked, punched and threatened with death.

If Zeyo had not used himself and his car as a weapon, "I would have died. One more day and I would have died," the 21-year-old Salah said. He said that his father was killed at Abu Selim prison and that he had joined the demonstrations to protest his father's death.
Onde é que eu quero chegar com isso? É que, a respeito dos atentados suicidas dos palestinianos, é frequente argumentar-se "bando de doidos/fanáticos; ainda por cima matam-se a eles próprios"; mas o atentado suicida (a começar no "nosso" Martim Moniz) há muito que é uma táctica de guerra respeitada - neste caso, ninguem se lembrou de chamar a Mohammed Zeyo "suicide bomber" (embora tecnicamente ele o seja); ou veja-se muitos filmes de acção norte-americanos, em que por  vezes temos a cena do marine (normalmente ferido ou à beira da reforma) que fica para trás e explode uma granada quando é capturado pelo inimigo.

1 comment:

Luis Ferreira said...

Concordo que há aqui dois pesos e duas medidas, na propaganda de guerra há sempre. Mas a categorização de "doidos/fanáticos" tem outra razão de ser que vai para além do mero acto de suicídio e que me parece que tem de ser abordada de outra forma. O bombista suicida prepara metodicamente a sua acção, seguindo um plano determinado pelos seus superiores. Não foi o que aconteceu com o Zeyo ou com o marine do filme de Hollywood. Essa preparação sistemática e o facto de estarem a obedecer a ordens sempre sob a suspeita de lavagem cerebral, com o pano de fundo da religião, dão alguma razão à crítica de fanatismo. Uma comparação mais aceitável com os bombistas suicidas seria a dos kamikases japoneses.