One Year After the Murder of Brad Will

As people who’ve been reading this blog for a year or more know…  Brad Will was a guy I worked with (along with many other people) on some activist projects sometimes over a period of at least seven years, mostly during my heavier activist and anarchist days.  I can’t say that I became close pals with Brad, but he was good friends with people whom I was pretty good friends with for a while, and after some awkwardness over a few years (which I felt with quite a few people in his circle), I did get to like the guy.  Plus, all along, I had to respect him for his commitment and the skills in activism that he had learned - which he was so glad to teach others as well.  Later on, there was no denying his commitment as a journalist. 

I’ve parted ways with the New York anarchist scene as I knew it, for the most part anyway, and I’ve lost touch with people (or certain people completely lost touch with me - for whatever reason).  So, even though I thought maybe I’d attend some kind of memorial for the one-year anniversary of Brad’s death, since nobody mentioned it to me, I’m sorry to say that the one-year point (and any local commemoration that might have gone with it) completely passed me by.

But I’m in New York City, and it looks as though the real memorial was in Oaxaca anyway…  It was interesting to see at a WordPress blog called Mexico Reporter that 20,000 people marched in memory of Brad Will, and in protest of the fact that a year had passed since his murder and no justice had been done.  (No surprise there.)  They also remembered a teacher named Alonso Fabian who, as the blog notes, “was shot dead the same day during clashes between teachers and members of the APPO, and municipal police and government forces.”

It’s good to see such a strong response to at least two such injustices.  If we saw this kind of reaction to a bunch more of the so-many murders that are committed by governments and their agents against activists and journalists (or people just involved in social action or journalism) …well, at the very least, things would get more interesting.

Brad’s death both shocked and depressed me, but I know of several people for whom it was probably far more devestating…  Not only among the people whom I had known before his death, but also during the year since it happened…  I actually met or corresponded with some more people whom Brad had affected in a personal way, whom he had inspired or helped or consoled in troubled times, and I have to say, that was impressive. 

There are the people who will use Brad as some symbol for their cause, try to turn him into a saint or martyr or the next Che Guevara, and I have some distaste for that sort of thing.  (That could be one reason that I didn’t go to the big memorial last year - though I know it’s not a good excuse.)   But for the people who knew him well, for whom this loss was so personal…well, I hope it’s at least a little consolation that so many others are remembering him as well, for his commitment and the awful sacrifice that he made.

And no, I don’t think that dying for a cause or in the line of duty, whether as activist or journalist or revolutionary, is a great thing.  Frankly, I think it stinks.  All the more reason to hope for some kind of justice when this kind of thing happens to someone - though justice can be a rare thing.