EDITORIAL: A SOLDIER'S DEATH
 
He may have been strapped to a gurney, but Ponchai Kamau
Wilkerson was standing tall when he died. He fought his
jailers to the last breath, making every minute of his life
count.
 
Wilkerson died a soldier's death. Had he been an
acknowledged soldier of an acknowledged army representing
an acknowledged nation, he would be accorded all the honors
of a hero. Deep within enemy territory, locked inside a
modern high-tech dungeon, knowing that his captors had the
absolute power of life or death over him, he resisted to
the last. He was allowed no banner, no flag to hold high,
but his conduct and his demeanor became his banner. He
would not bow his head or cast down his eyes in token of a
false respect, though they tried to beat it out of him.
 
What gives a person the strength to stand up--not just to
physical threats but, even more difficult, to the
overwhelming social intimidation wielded by a state that
boasts every day of its monstrous power? It had to have
been the knowledge that his actions would have great
meaning to others, long after his own life was taken away.
 
Wilkerson was not alone, as many people murdered by the
state before him have been. His unbroken spirit blended
with that of many people he knew, inside and outside the
prison injustice system. When he refused to walk peacefully
to his death, refused to sign away his life, refused a last
meal, when he said, "I will not cooperate with your act of
murder," he knew he was not just casting his pearls before
swine.
 
He knew that the movement against the death penalty,
growing ever stronger and bolder, would hear his words,
feel the pulse in his veins, thrill with his great courage
and honesty. He knew that millions around the world
acknowledge his resistance to be just and right, and the
actions of his tormentors to be the vilest arrogance of
power. He knew that his defiance would make the movement
itself braver and more resolute.
 
Most of the world knows that the death penalty has been
resurrected in the United States because of racism, pure
and simple. And racism itself is but a disgusting and
tattered excuse for the super-exploitation of a huge
section of the working class. Could a system that has
produced the grossest social inequality of all time
continue without the poison of racism?
 
The one person who could have saved Kamau Wilkerson's life
at the last minute was Texas Gov. George W. Bush. This heir
to the "old boy" club of wealth and power aspires to be the
next president of the United States. Wilkerson's struggle,
therefore, was invested with worldwide significance, for
the U.S. capitalist ruling class is hell-bent on dominating
the entire world, and Bush wants to be the one to do it for
them. Wherever U.S. multinational corporations are
plundering the people and the environment, there will be
sympathy and respect for Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson.
 
This execution, the 123rd under Bush's reign, will long be
remembered as marking a turning point in the struggle. It
is not only the prison guards who must now fear the rising
resistance against these killing machines. It is the entire
system, from the Supreme Court to the governors to the
wardens to the bailiffs. They may be able to physically
terrorize their captives, but they have lost control over
their minds. Prisons full of people determined to think
freely are breeding grounds for revolution.
 
Just before they killed him, Wilkerson spat out a key to
his handcuffs. Was he telling the world, "We ourselves hold
the key to our liberation"?