You don’t think Wynn’s death was a sacrifice?
What about Jesus? He stepped knowingly and willingly into his own demise. He allowed himself to be martyred on behalf of humanity. A symbolic death that sparked a movement that has lasted more than 2,000 years. If only Wynn’s death would save us, save our world.
You believe Wynn would have served his cause better had he stayed in the fight, instead of surrendering. But individuals have become powerless when it comes to enacting change. Even the courts are against them.
As our environmental emergencies intensify, governments around the world are introducing ever more draconian laws against environmental protest, protecting the profits of destructive industries against the very citizens they’re elected to protect. Extreme and tyrannical laws against dissent, surveillance and espionage, public shaming.
In the UK, environmental protesters are now forbidden to explain their motivations to juries. Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth lands you in jail.
Climate protestors are on trial for causing a public nuisance, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
When they seek to explain their motivation to a jury, judges instruct them not to mention their reasons for taking action - namely climate breakdown. When they disregard these instructions in an effort to tell the truth, they’re handed a jail sentence for being in contempt of court.
Such laws make a mockery of justice. Such laws cause people to lose faith in the courts, lose faith in their government. When institutions start to fray, what other choice is there but personal action.
It’s easy to say that suicide is never the answer. But when you’re at the end of your rope, when we’re all at the end of our tether, what’s the alternative?
Do you remember the self-immolations of the Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War? Those gruesome images on the front pages of newspapers around the world. So everyone could see the horror for themselves. So everyone couldn’t turn away.
To burn yourself by fire is to prove that what you’re is saying is of the utmost importance. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with utmost courage, frankness, determination and sincerity.
How can it be suicide when you sacrifice yourself to save others? Even the bible tells us there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your fellow man.
Wynn deserves to be celebrated for his self-sacrifice, not admonished or denigrated. Not ridiculed or eviscerated.
He was fifty years old. He wasn’t crazy. He loved cycling, hiking and being out in nature. He was a sweet, gentle, kind man.
He’d just had enough of the hypocrisy and inaction, the politics and the pain.
He died so we may live.
Thank you for reading this chapter of “The Sorrows”, an experimental serial novel about the end of the world written in real-time by Stefano Boscutti. Subscribe now to receive new chapters for free via email.