Martyrs

I have witnessed martyrdom in my life.

It may have begun with the images of Buddhist monks in South Vietnam immolating themselves in protest against the regime at the time, a regime which - once again, it goes without saying - was the government which we supported.

I have heard testimony of such from Palestine, Israel, and Algeria during its civil war.

How many great mathematicians have committed suicide? A surprising number. How rapidly is the rate of suicide among US soldiers increasing? Rapidly. Is suicide martyrdom? Is every suicide a protest, or may it also be a failure to come to terms?

Martyrdom is a response to a world which the suicidal intelligence can no longer inhabit. The intelligence has become too alien to the symbolic landscape where it finds itself imprisoned.