The Administration of George W. Bush used to torture the Guantanamo detainees by making them believe that they will be drowned under the water. When it needed stronger torture in order to extract information, it used to send the detainees to their countries so that the “protectors of the nation” would torture their nationals through means that the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims abstained from using. I still read news about regular crimes saying that the defendant “confessed and re-acted the crime.” This means that he was tortured until he confessed and that he perhaps confessed in order to escape from torture. Everyone who died under torture is a victim and a martyr, even if he was a regular thief because his deeds were misdemeanors not punishable by death. Today, we have a new generation of martyrs, victims, and symbols. The Tunisian Mohammed Bouazizi led the way when he burnt himself on 17/12/2012 when a municipality employee confiscated his goods and insulted him. He died as a result of the burns that he sustained on 4/1/2011. The Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali left Tunisia on 14/1/2011 following a popular revolution and as the army abandoned him. The anger revolution erupted in Egypt on 25/1/2011, President Mubarak fell on the 11th of the following month, and revolutions were launched all over the nation. Prior to Bouazizi, Egypt had been shaken by the death of the young man, Khaled Said in June last year after being held by two police informants in Alexandria and beaten up savagely in front of witnesses who saw them smash his head against an iron gate. The police claimed at a later time that he died after swallowing a drug roll (bango) in order to avoid being caught in possession of drugs. The death of Khaled Said and the Tunisian events were perhaps the spark that ignited the revolution of the youth six months later; or that mythical straw that broke the back of a populace famous for its patience. The revolution of anger led to the fall of hundreds of martyrs from the Tahrir Square and Sally Zahran, to Port Said, Mohammad Rashed, and everywhere. In Syria, child Hamza al-Khatib was killed with the bullet of the security forces in Deraa. His body showed the marks of torture through images broadcasted by external television networks and websites. However, the coroner insisted that he had not been tortured and that the marks showing on his body are the result of the body's decomposition. There were also similar photos of a 15 year old boy, Thamer al-Shar'i who was killed during a shootout with the security forces. His body showed the marks of an atrocious torture. I am noting the names of specific martyrs because these are symbols, and the entire nation is a martyr, from Iraq to the extreme Maghreb all the way through Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, and others. I was a teenager in Lebanon when Journalist Nassib al-Metni was assassinated and the revolution of the summer of 1958 was launched. Then came the year 1975 and the martyrs of the Ain el-Remmaneh bus caused the launching of a civil war that persisted until 1990. In 1958, a military coup took place in Iraq that led to the martyrdom of all the members of the royal family. Meanwhile, Palestinians were offering martyrs on a daily basis. The symbol is perhaps child Mohammad al-Dorra who was killed at the beginning of the second intifada on 30/9/2000 while he was in his father's arms. The father, Jamal, was caught on camera while trying to protect his son with his own body. Israel committed a second crime when it denied killing the child in spite of the television and the witnesses including foreign journalists. Who is the Palestinian martyr today? Who will it be tomorrow? Read the newspapers or watch TV. Iraq, following the criminal American occupation of 2003, exceeded everybody else and offered a million martyrs. It still is offering martyrs. Not all the killing was perpetrated through the hands of the attacking forces. Local or imported terrorists were competing for the killing of the people of the country. I choose, as a symbol for the martyrs of Iraq, the young female journalist Atwar Bahjat from Al-Arabiya television. She was assassinated along with the work team on 22/2/2006. She yelled and asked for help from the people around her but no one helped her (In Iran, they have the martyr, Nada Agha Sultani). Where is the Iraq of magnanimity, dignity, and the noble ones? It was killed by the terrorists and the ruling thieves. I claim that every Arab citizen in every country is a martyr until he gains all his rights as a human being. The Arab citizen is a living martyr.
