It is certainly possible that martyrdom for a cause is a waste of a life, (I have not read the Riddell book) but nations and religions sure don’t act like it. Almost every nation and religion and cause inspires its followers with stories of past people who served the cause, and the ultimate sign of this dedication is dying for the cause, i.e. martyrdom. Still, there are at least some people who point out the problems with the approach.

First, some examples of martyrdom “working’, or at least of successful organizations using tales of martyrdom and it becoming part of the political culture of a particular group.

Religion is the obvious one, and probably no religion has gone in for martyrdom as much as the Christians. The Christian Bible itself has a story of a guy who gave up his body and blood to redeem a fallen world. He was martyred on a cross, and you can often see crosses in Christian churches and used as jewelry as such. Did it work? As with so many other things it is hard to say. We can’t re-run history and see how things would work out differently, but most Christians would probably see that story and example as being something that is essential to Christianity.

In many cases “religious” martyrdom shades into more “modern” political martyrdom There are lots of examples of this. ‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’, a collection of stories of Protestants martyred by Catholics had almost the same status as the Bible in Britain for a long time. (In 1571 the Convocation of the English Church ordered it to be displayed next to the Bible in all cathedrals, and it was frequently used in sermons.) It became part of British Protestantism, but also of British identity. To be British was to know these stories, be inspired by them and be revolted by Catholicism.

Buddhist monks immolating themselves to protest the South Vietnamese government may have seen what they were doing as a religious protest, but it is hard to disentangle this from Vietnamese nationalism. Jean-Paul Marat rejected Catholicism for the Revolution, but David’s famous painting of him dead in his bath made him look like the crucified Christ, and in his eulogy the Marquis de Sade made the connection directly.

Like Jesus, Marat loved ardently the people, and only them. Like Jesus, Marat hated kings, nobles, priests, rogues and, like Jesus, he never stopped fighting against these plagues of the people.

Just like churches, nations and movements create martyrs. People may be hoping to succeed, but when they fail, and die, they can be made into martyrs. Nathan Hale may or may not have said “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country ” before being hanged by the British as an American spy, but that was enough to build a whole cult around.

One of the things that makes Nathan Hale (or Lei Feng https://chineseposters.net/themes/leifeng) good for martyrdom is that they are young people who really did nothing in their lives. The only real identity they have that of someone who died for the cause.

Ok, so lots of groups create and publicize martyrs. But what do they -do-? There are at least two big things that martyr stories are usually supposed to do. One is to encourage your opponents to respect your cause, and maybe even join it. The other is to inspire those already in your group to greater sacrifice, and maybe even martyrdom. Here are two poems to illustrate these. The first is by Claude McKay, addressed to the black U.S. soldiers who were murdered in the Red Summer riots of 1919

If We Must Die

If we must die, let it be not like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay, 1919

He is clearly hoping that their willingness to fight and die will impress their opponents. Did it work? I would argue no. The willingness of black men to fight back against whites who were attacking them did not win them the respect of whites, or encourage whites to join the Civil Rights movement. (Emmitt Till, maybe…)

W.B. Yeats, speaking for James Connolly and Pádraig Pearse, both executed by the British after the 1916 Easter rising.

The Rose Tree

'O words are lightly spoken,'

Said Pearse to Connolly,

'Maybe a breath of politic words

Has withered our Rose Tree;

Or maybe but a wind that blows

Across the bitter sea.'

'It needs to be but watered,'

James Connolly replied,

'To make the green come out again

And spread on every side,

And shake the blossom from the bud

To be the garden's pride.'

'But where can we draw water,'

Said Pearse to Connolly,

'When all the wells are parched away?

O plain as plain can be

There's nothing but our own red blood

Can make a right Rose Tree.'

William Butler Yeats -1921

This one is aimed more at those who are already supporting the Independence movement, but maybe not willing to die for it. The problem with this is that if you get Yeats but not McKay, all you get is death. That is, it is possible to convince people to be willing to die, but for their deaths to not really do anything to recruit new followers or convince your opponents to respect you. Every time Gandhi flirted with death by launching a hunger strike it both inspired people in India and won him support in Britain. The Irish hunger strikers of the 1970s seem to have…just died.

It is a complex issue, and there are many different aspects to it. If Riddell’s point is that movements can turn into death cults where people are willing to die, but it is not really changing any minds, I would agree with that. If she is arguing that martyrdom never “works” I would say she is wrong.