Death from principled action or life by passive inaction?
Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’
M. FOX JOHNSONtwo
“It is better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees.”
Are sayings such as this often used to describe an idealistic and preferable way of dying when involved in a struggle for a just principle or cause? Anyone familiar with movies, literature or history understands how a story that includes the death of a hero for a principle or cause creates the rawest form of emotional significance and symbolic power. The original storyline of sacrificing one’s life for the greater good is the cornerstone of western civilization — it is the very basis of the Bible. After 40 years wandering in the desert, Moses perished just before his people entered the Promised Land, while Jesus suffered and died on the cross to redeem the sins of humanity.
For most Canadians, who spend their lives killing time and languishing in passivity defined by political and social inaction, the wish of risking one’s life for a principle or cause remains but a dream. Yet, most Canadians only pay lip-service to the wish for a life of action and risk, valuing instead their security and material pleasures.
Yet a strong canon of western anti-war novels shares the belief of valuing life over struggle and contradicts the saying above. Although responding specifically to the horrors and absurdities of total war, the arguments of books such as Catch-22 and Johnny Got His Gun can be generally be extrapolated to question of whether or not there are ideals larger than life worth fighting and dying for. In Johnny Got His Gun, the author speaks through Joe Bonham, who lies conscious in his hospital bed as a quadriplegic that has lost his sense of sight, smell, ability to hear, as well as much of his face after being hit by an artillery shell in the First World War. Bonham believes he is the closest to dead a living man has ever been. Still able to reason, Bonham yearns for his girl, his work and for the old simple life most of us Canadians enjoy today. Bonham considers himself one of the “little guys” who was tricked into fighting for freedom, liberty, democracy, his native land, decency, independence and honour; which turned out to be either myths or principles so incoherent they could not be seen, pinned down or understood. According to Bonham, nothing is more precious than life — those who say that living a life without principles isn’t worth living are liars — and that there is nothing noble or honourable in death. A quote from Catch-22 supports Bonham. As a young optimistic patriot, Lieutenant Nately reiterates the quote opening this article, only to be embarrassed by an old wise opportunist who responds, “You have it backwards: it is better to live on your feet, than to die on your knees.”
Conspicuously, these same unclear principles outlined by Bonham have been used by Stephen Harper to justify the continuation of Canada’s imperialistic mission in Afghanistan. It would be ironic if it were not so tragic that Paul Martin and Harper have taken advantage of the political and social inaction of Canadians in order to join the U.S. in an illegal occupation of Afghanistan. The tragedy occurred when the passivity and inaction of Canadians became Martin’s weapon for getting us into the war, while the irony is that Harper justifies the war’s continuation due to the promotion of “humanitarian principles” in Afghanistan. Doing whatever politicians say leaves no one to blame but ourselves. If all Canadians were forced to look into the eyes of the parents, husbands, wives, siblings, sons and daughters of those 66 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002, and apologize for our collective inaction, then perhaps our demeanor would change.
From banality broaching on evil to outrage that would possibly spark a peace movement hopefully resembling Bonham’s realization at the end of Johnny Got His Gun. Bonham condemns those “patriots” who urge all the “little people” that simply want to live, with principles and slogans to kill other people who also only want to live. One day those “little people” will rise to action and take those principles you “patriots” preach and make them a reality by taking “the guns you force upon us, we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives which is within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.”
Thus, “live life on your feet and die on your feet.” This means, live by well-defined principles, which your conscience truly finds as positive, idealistic and for the greater good of all humanity. If you happen to risk and lose your life in your personal struggle, then so be it; your death will be a celebration of life and one day this world may be a better place where war-mongers are held accountable.
M. Fox Johnson is a graduate student studying history at the U of M.
