A revolution is a struggle to
the death between the future and the past.
By
Elizabeth H. Elys:
The
Concept of Assassination
The
violent act of assassination is defined as the murder of a political, royal or
public individual. The term is derived from the order of the Assassins, which was an 11th
and 12th century Muslim sect that advanced its political goals by
murdering high-ranking officials. The origin of the word is “Assassium”, Arabic
for fundamentalist, from the world ASSASS, foundation. The suicide squad of the
assassins, which was a militant arm of the Islamic Isma’ili sect, was founded
by Hassan Sabah and operated from the Alamat cliff top fortress in the Elburz
Mountains of Persia, now known as Iran.
The
Assassins, according to the legend, were called Hashishiyun, smokers of Hashish
by their enemies as the hashish was believed to be the source of their vision,
which commanded their violent acts.
Marco
Polo wrote of the sect and an impregnable fortress in the mountains of Persia
when detailing an account of his travels. The term assassination was not
defined until the Muslim sect materialized in the 11th century,
their method or tool or political murder had been in use since as early 900B.C.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans did not have a word that corresponds with our
word Assassination. A killing was simply a means to an end.
An
individual who killed a public figure was a murder or a tyrannicide, and the
later term was synonymous word for LIBERATOR, one who freed his country.
According to Cicero, some of the most celebrated figure in Greek and Roman
history very tyrant –killers, Brutus, who murder Caesar, was born of long line
of tyrants killers. Assassins make history.
Never
in history of mankind there were so many assassinations like to former Cuban
president Fidel Castro who recently died on November 25, 2016.
VIVA FIDEL CASTRO!
There
were more than 600 assassinations attempts on his life. He lived a long and
dignified life. Fidel Castro will remain in memory to us, as a symbol of
resistance to the hegemony of the US government, the hero of the Cuban
revolution, same like his companion Latin-American revolutionary leader Che
Guevara, who was assassinated in Bolivia on October 1967. Together, they
managed to oust the US backed president Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel
Castro became one of the biggest targets of the American government. He was
seen as a massive threat to capitalism as well as national security, after
pledging allegiance to Soviet Union.
The
most famous attempt on Castro’s life was the Bay of Pigs crisis; a group of CIA
backed Cuban exiles mounted an attempt at a coup which failed. That was only
one of thousands of different CIA plots on Castro’s life.
A
former Aide of Castro, Fabian Escalante, wrote a book called 638 Ways to Kill
Castro, and these are some of the most ridiculous plots outlined in it. One
plan reportedly involved adding extra toxins to his cigars so his beard would
fall out leading to a drop in his popularity. Another involved spiking the
cigars with LSD so he burst out laughing while making a public address.
The
closest they came was enlisting one of his many girlfriends, Marita Lorenz, to
feed him poisonous pills. He found out and handed a gun to her to do the job,
Lorenz had of course had a change of mind by then.
In
Panama in 2000, 90 kg worth of explosives were placed under a podium at which
Castro was due to speak. The plot was foiled by his security detail. One of the
plotters was a Cuban exile and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles.
MARTIN LUTHER KING
Assassinations
are tragic but sometimes inescapable, part of history. Speaking about political
figure, we can emphasize Civil Rights giant Martin Luther King. He was the main
man behind the American Civil Rights Movement.
The
movement was an attempt to abolish the racial discrimination of African
American. On April 4th 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel
room, King was fatally shot. Following the assassination, there were riots in
over sixty cities across the USA, and later president Johnson declared a day of
mourning. Two months later escaped convict James E. Ray was captured in London
and he was extradited to Tennessee where he faced the charge of murder against
King. Ray was a white man who was opposed the African American Rights
Movement.
MALCOLM X was one of the most
galvanizing political figures of the 1950s and 1960s. He became a member of NATION
of ISLAM. He soon began promoting its ideas.
Unlike
Dr. King, Malcolm X rejected non-violence as strategy and advocated for black
separatism. He was shot on February 21, 1965 by three Nation of Islam members,
while he was giving a speech at Audubon Ballroom in New York.
JOHN LENNON
On
December 8th 1980 was one of the most tragic assassinations in
history of popular music. John Lennon
who became a music icon, peace activist a member of the band The Beatles was
shot four times by M.D. Chapman who was charged with murder. The assassin
remains in prison to this day.
Next: Part III
