A Cry Heard Round The World: Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
Looking At And Longing For Mars: Reflections on a childhood dream.
A Robot May Not Harm a Human Being. Is The Opposite True?: Thoughts on the future rights of artificial intelligence.
Long After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone: What makes a relationship work?
Winter Of Our Feline Discontent: What the cat wants, the cat gets. But what DOES it want?
To Tell The Truth: There may be no honor among thieves, but can't we find it even in a few good men and women?
Should The Human Brain Retire?: We know that we cannot win forever. We know that machines will continue to improve. So why don't we let the human brain retire gracefully now, with honors?
Read Bear Left in:
Chinese
German
Japanese
Korean
French
Italian
Portuguese
Spanish
Translations powered by Alta Vista Babelfish
To learn how services incorporated into this blog may use personal information, click here.
Total entries in this blog:
Published: Sep 16, 2005 01:41 PM
Sun - June 27, 2004
A Cry Heard Round The World
But first Kim Sun-Il's Al Qaeda captors bound and blindfolded him, taunted and threatened him in a language he could not understand with a malice that needed no translation.
They wanted him to suffer. More than that, they wanted the world to suffer, to watch in helpless outrage his pleas for improbable mercy taped in the waning hours of a pitiful prison existence.
Yet the tape of his torment demonstrated something Kim Sun-Il's captors did not appreciate; something that free peoples understand and that despots invariably ignore: the value of an individual life.
- It showed that you can kill a man or rob him of his freedom but that your power over his flesh won't erase his thirst for liberty.
It showed that the sacrifice of one man for the "crimes" of a state cannot purify disdain for his personal culpability.
It showed that democracy enshrines the rights of individuals, while demagoguery eschews them.
It showed that even at knifepoint, at the end of his days, a man clings passionately to the conviction that his own life matters.
It showed that you can move a man to tears; likewise, a nation but that tears shed for tyranny can water the budding seeds of nascent democracy.
All this the world saw in Kim Sun-Il's plight—and more.
- It saw that the defense of freedom demands personal sacrifice, while the defense of despotism demands a sacrificial lamb.
It saw that zealotry requires conviction for a cause, while democracy requires just cause for a conviction.
It saw that free men protect ideas they hate, while terrorists hate the idea of free men.
It saw that those who do not value their own lives never respect the lives of others.
True, Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
His appeal for freedom resounded around the world.
And the world will not soon forget the lessons it stands for.