Neda Ascends

Like many others, I have watched the recent video of Neda Agha-Soltan being shot dead in Tehran. Like many others, I found the images disturbing. But I'm not sure it was for the same reason in my case. At the risk of sounding callous, my concern was not that Neda died. It was the way the people around her shouted at her, manhandled her, and tried to keep her alive. It seemed to me to rob the event of all dignity, and her of her dignity, and must have made the experience of dying, which ought to be an epiphany, more difficult.

Why do those who are still alive see life on any terms as so important, and death as so unthinkable? When they swarm someone who is dying like this, and shake them, and shout “come back, come back,” are they really expressing any concern for the dying, or only for their own fears?

Such hostility to death seems to me a type of plain madness, since death is what necessarily happens to us all. And anyone who is a true Muslim or Christian should welcome it, even if we do fear the pain and possible indignity that we face just before that threshold.

Pain and indignity that we must often fear most from the living.