Writing Their Obituaries

Death, it is said, comes as a thief in the night; you know neither the time nor the hour, neither the place nor the means whereby; it comes in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, perhaps at the last trumpet. Men and women are betrayed to death by friends, sometimes saved by enemies. Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of troubles; he springs forth like a flower, and is cut down.

How can one who knows the frailty of his existence, and the inevitability of his passing, still fill himself with pomp, seduce himself with power, and elevate himself on ceremonies, like mountains of sand ashore the all-consuming sea? What manner of man gives his life for one who cannot live forever, or sacrifices his wife, children, dignity and compassion for another who is but a passing shadow, who cannot endure?

The wise man, surely, seeing death as the end of his life, makes sure that the days granted him are well-spent, so that he can go content into the night which fulfils the hopes he dreamt of at noon. What matters to ambition in the face of death, or ignorance before impermanence? Why rob, murder, hate, betray, conquer and exploit when there is no victory over the grave? Why raise the fist in triumph above the world, when it cannot lift the first brick above the gaping hole?

When they lived, Roberto D’Aubuisson of El Salvador, and Menachem Begin of Israel, acted as if they were destined to live forever. With the power of life and death over their “enemies”, they played God with the fates of simple men, women and children, whose only ambition was to live their lives in peace. When they dispatched their death squads or supersonic bombers, they wreathed themselves in auras of invincibility, and intoxicated their followers with the illusion of triumph and victory.

At the height of his powers, “Major Bob”, dandified in cowboy boots and tight designer’s jeans, condemned thousands to death by labeling them “communists” and “subversives” on national TV. In a country of five million people, the late Major’s death squads are estimated to have killed over ten thousand civilians identified as “security risks”. And these deaths involved mutilation, especially of the eyes and genitals, to show how powerful the killers were.