Jonella Dampag: The Martyr and the Revolution

Jonella Dampag: The Martyr and the Revolution: As an avid and open fan of The Hunger Games, I was many times asked “why can’t Katniss Everdeen die?” The Capitol has had opportuniti...

The Martyr and the Revolution

As an avid and open fan of The Hunger Games, I was many times asked “why can’t Katniss Everdeen die?” The Capitol has had opportunities to stealthily kill Katniss but couldn’t finish her off, Why? Because she has become the symbol of revolution, to kill her would stir a rebellion, and the clever President Snow knows that for sure! On the rebels’ part, Katniss cannot die for the same reason. She is the symbol of defiance and of hope for a successful revolution. It is the sight of her –alive! that will fuel the spirit of the poor, the  wounded and of the oppressed encouraging them to join the nationwide revolution against Panem’s center of power that is infested with corruption, greed, lies and deceit- the Capitol. For them, she (Katniss) is the mockingjay.

The revolution fought for by the people of Panem is not far from our very own history of revolutions and uprisings. For instance, the EDSA Revolution in 1986. What exactly triggered it? Like the outlying districts in Panem, the Philippines at that time was consumed by years of corrupt governance by a dictator which fueled resistance and opposition. But it was the murder of Ninoy Aquino that outraged and angered most Filipinos. Many Filipinos have since lost confidence in Marcos administration which led to left and right civil-disobedience, defiance and opposition until the revolution in 1986 that surprised the world.

We should also not forget the GOMBURZA ( an acronym for Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora) religious martyrs. Wasn’t their death caused a significant impact on many Filipinos in their fight against the oppressive Spaniards? One of them was our very own national hero, who was inspired by that fateful event and dedicated his popular novel El Filibusterismo in honor of their memory. Jose Rizal’s death on a later event also triggered a bloody revolution.

If you are a fan of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, you must remember that fictional scene about the June Rebellion. Following the death of General Lamarque who was regarded as the champion of the downtrodden and loved by the poor, fear and feeling of having lost a hero have devoured the opposition, and a supposedly peaceful mourning turned into a massive riot.

And of course, the great Martin Luther King Jr., an American activist and leader of African-American Movement. His assassination in 1968 has led to a nationwide race riots across America. Up to this day, his role to the advancement of civil rights of African-Americans is celebrated.

They are just among the political and religious martyrs around the world whose death has triggered most memorable revolution in history. What these factual events tell me is to kill a mockingjay is to give the already desperate people a martyr to die for!

This is the very reason that I, for one, do not believe that the late President Marcos could have master-minded the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, who was his open and popular critic and people’s HOPE for democracy at that time. Mr. Marcos was too brilliant and smart to know the consequences once a hero is killed. Again, basing from the novel, some of those who wanted to kill the mockingjay (Katniss) were the same people who wanted her to live. Those who rose to power after the success of the revolution, (*cough) President Coin for an instance, who was one of the heads of the revolution and has been secretly aspiring to take President Snow’s seat was the very same person who wanted the mockingjay crushed in the end. I propound a theory based on the political wisdom of this novel that whoever benefited and have gained political popularity after the success of the Edsa Revolution that had consequently resulted to the downfall of the Marcos regime were the same people behind Aquino’s murder.  (*cough, I don’t even have to drop names, do i?)