by Chengde Chen *
Approaching the 20th Anniversary Commemoration of 9/11, Pi is pleased to bring you a poem which originally appeared in The Guardian, in 2001. It is as relevant now as it was then—a poem, wrote Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, ‘to help us commemorate and try to understand’.
When released from the fear of death
men can be MC² times more powerful
Once they turn their mass into energy
the power is as great as our fear
The terrorism of killing with suicide
is different from that of only killing
Killing is terror
while suicide is a philosophy
Men who don't fear death are dead men
because fearing death is part of life
But by cancelling this premise of psychology
they have invalidated all we can do
We may talk to ordinary terrorism with war
but it makes the suicidal one more suicidal
If a death sentence is a home-delivery gift for them
cruise missiles would answer the wrong question
The way to conquer the suicidal
is to make them fear death again
That is to find the reason why they don't
and to eliminate it as a psychiatrist would
* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems, and of the novel: The Thought-read Revolution. chengde.chen@hotmail.com
Yes, it is a powerful poem, and it asks an important question. What comes to mind, too, is the transmission of such fearlessness through time. Who or what transmits it?
ReplyDelete"fearing death is part of life"
ReplyDeleteI'm not really in agreement with all this. Many people don't fear death. I suppose people who bungee jump are like this! What is objectionable about suicide killers is the killing, not the suicide.
Thanks Martin. Fearing death is a human instinct to life, hence part of life. A man who takes risks to do something doesn’t mean he doesn’t fear death; a man of bungee jumping is taking a risk rather than committing suicide – his fear may be with him all the way before (or even after) his landing. While a suicide killer is seeking death, which is beyond human instinct, hence a dead man.
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