What is Revolutionary Suicide? In our continued discussion of the late 1960s, this term holds much significance. One way to define this phrase is going against the current system, even though you know that it may seriously harm or even kill you. This is something that can be observed in many of the leaders from this time. People knew that going against the government and attempting to spark change carried a risk that there would be people who did not agree with them and would try to suppress their voice. The important thing to note is that this threat did not deter some of the great leaders from this time, such as Martin Luther King, Huey Newton, Robert Kennedy, and countless other people who lost their life. They were willing to give everything that they had, including their life, for the cause.
Another way to look at this term of revolutionary suicide is that revolution itself was causing society to self-destruct. In this interpretation, it is not the person whose life is at risk, but rather society in general. The leaders of this time were not happy with what was happening and they wanted to create systematic change in whatever way they could. If this meant that they had to go after society by challenging the government, police, and other high standing people, then they were willing to do that. They wanted society to change, whether that was through reform or completely changing everything.
Either definition of revolutionary suicide reflects the desperate nature from the radicals of this time. They were willing to do whatever it took to create change, whether that meant giving up their own life or challenging how our entire society works. I think it shows that desperate times lead to drastic measures. The drastic measures are remembered as historic events, such as the events that we saw during this short time.
I’m writing this after reading The Price of My Soul, and I think that memoir offers another interesting view to your blog post. Bernadette Devlin approached revolutionary suicide at a completely different angle than all the other leaders we’ve read about. She infiltrated the system and tried to weed out the corruption in it from the inside. In doing so, she almost destroyed her career (getting arrested after the Battle of the Bogside) and completely destroyed her private life. In the end, Devlin stated that she was surprised she survived the era, highlighting that she was truly willing to lay everything on the line to fight for what she believed in. Whichever way you choose to define revolutionary suicide (and I think both are very apt), it is clear that Devlin didn’t seem bothered by the consequences of the suicide – whether it be her’s or society’s. In order to create real change, perhaps this is the mindset needed by leaders.
The second definition of revolutionary suicide is the most interesting to me. I wonder whether or not people who admired the term would agree with this definition in some ways. I think it’s fair enough to say that most protestors knew there was a great potential for societal destruction. I think, like you said though, that this is something that they wanted. They were fighting for the system to be dismantled. I think for them, any repercussions of this destruction were worth the old system being uprooted and changed. They felt that it was a corrupt system that lacked justice and so it was therefore acceptable to commit disruptive crimes that brought attention to the society’s shortcomings.
I had not previously considered the second definition of revolutionary suicide that you present here. This concept of society effectively committing suicide by way of sweeping reform is interesting to me. Perhaps individuals such as Newton would not need to die for the causes they represent if society became more willing to subject itself to needed change. Perhaps if movements did a more effective job at targeting these “high standing people” then they might be pressured into actually working for change. As it stands, it seems that society is unwilling to alter its ways, so some push must come from somewhere.
This comment got me thinking about the role of these leaders after the end of it all. Actually, it is somewhat difficult to see what they would be like after the historic “climax” of the late 60s because many of them, such as Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King, were killed at that time. The radicals lost. Even with MLK being revered the way he is today, most of his actual ideals for the future were never met. So that makes me think about the “post-climactic” time period for these leaders. This is one of the examples where history is not like the plot of a novel, despite all of our best attempts to frame it that way. Huey Newton became a drug addict and was eventually killed. People like Eamonn McCann, while still active in politics, give off a strong feeling of despair. This is why the figures that did commit themselves to revolutionary suicide, are in many ways more impactful. Thinking about these leaders as ideas (not as people), many of them might as well have died in ’69. They no longer resemble people’s favorite movie hero, and therefore the idea of them dies even when the person is still there.