Over a hundred and ten years ago an ex-president of the US was shot in the chest by an assailant. Ten years ago, a young schoolgirl in Pakistan was shot in the head on a bus. Just six years ago a UK female politician was shot twice in the head and once in the chest and then stabbed fifteen times before dying. These events may span over a century but the victim’s voices were targeted deliberately in an attempt to silence and stop them.
It seems fitting that we in response should not, for once, focus on their attackers and their motives but on these three individuals and what they have to say to us. I feel their words are especially relevant today and worthy of reflection. Perversely, those who have faced such violence and abuse, while treading a path of integrity, are also those from whom there is much to learn.
In 1912 four years after leaving the White House, Theodore Roosevelt was shot. He was in Milwaukee about to give a speech and had his notes in his thick coat pocket. His assailant used a revolver and the bullet lodged in Roosevelt’s chest wall. However, its progress had been slowed by his thick coat pocket containing 50 pages of his speech. The amazing thing was that Roosevelt insisted on giving his talk, despite just being shot. In fact, that bullet remained in his body for the rest of his life as removing it was deemed too dangerous by the medical professionals of the day. You can read the entire talk he gave on the 14th of October 1912 as we still have the transcript of his words. Despite the advice of his assistants Roosevelt tackled, among other things, a very important issue of particular relevance today. He felt that the level of public discourse had become contaminated and demeaned. He claimed vicious slander and abuse were being routinely thrown by political opponents against each other. With his chest aching from his gunshot wound, he pointed out that weak and vicious minds could be easily inflamed to acts of violence by the torrents of abuse in the media. He said,
“I disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such false slander and abuse any opponent of any other party; I now wish to say seriously to all the daily newspapers, to the Republicans, the Democrat and socialist parties, that they cannot month in month out and year in year out make the kind of untruthful, of bitter, assault that they have made and not expect that brutal, violent natures or brutal violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind; they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it.
On the 9th of October 2012, the Taliban gunmen boarded a school bus in Pakistan and shot 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the head. They picked her out specifically as, from the age of eleven, she had been campaigning about the importance of education for all children. Subsequently, she went on to address the UN and give an address that is especially relevant, since this year the Taliban has denied education to girls in Afghanistan. During her address, she pointed out,
“Today is the day of every woman, every boy, and every girl who raise their voice for their rights. There are hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for their rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goals of peace, education and equality. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions have been injured. I am just one of them. So, here I stand … here I stand, one girl among many. I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights. Their right to live in peace. The right to be treated with dignity. The right to equality of opportunity. The right to be educated … I am here to speak up for the right of education for every child.”
On 16 June 2016, MP Jo Cox was on her way to meet her constituents at a routine surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire, when an assailant shot her twice in the head and once in the chest with a modified hunting rifle. He then stabbed her fifteen times outside a library on Market Street. Jo Cox, the mother of two young children, died of her injuries shortly after being admitted to hospital. Her assailant had cried out "This is for Britain", "keep Britain independent", and "Put Britain first" during the attack. The judge, at the following trial, said he had no doubt Cox had been murdered to advance political, racial, and ideological causes of violent white supremacism and exclusive nationalism most associated with Nazism and its modern forms.
Cox had previously worked for the aid groups Oxfam and Oxfam International and had been head of Oxfam International's humanitarian campaigns in 2007. She helped to publish 'For a Safer Tomorrow', which aimed at preventing the brutal targeting of civilians in war. From 2009 to 2011, Cox was director of the Maternal Mortality Campaign, and the following year, she worked for Save the Children, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. This was the quality of individual that was taken from us so brutally by ignorance and hate. In her maiden speech to parliament as an MP she spoke as follows,
“Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”
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... the rise of justice ensures the appearance of unity in the world, all who take on the formidable challenges of struggling for it have indeed captured the spirit of the age epitomized in the principle of oneness.
The Universal
