Martyrs or terrorists?

by Editor · Published August 26, 2009 · Updated March 6, 2012

This week we are publishing some of the letters we have received in reaction to a memorial service held in Cape Town on the 20th anniversary of the death of Catholic anti-apartheid activists Coline Williams and Robert Waterwitch, who were killed in July 1989 by a bomb they intended to place at a magistrate�s court.

At the service, Archbishop Lawrence Henry of Cape Town described them as �martyrs of our time�. Some of our readers evidently take issue with that notion, regarding the two young anti-apartheid activists not as martyrs but as terrorists.

It is unfortunate that an impression has arisen that Williams and Waterwitch planted the bomb that killed them with the objective to maim or murder others. All evidence suggests that the location of the bomb and intended timing of its detonation were scrupulously devised to prevent any injury or loss of life, so it is not accurate to describe them as �murderers�. Their act was not necessarily contrary to their Catholic faith.

Whether or not they were martyrs is a question open to debate. Just as one person�s terrorist is another�s freedom fighter, so can the terminology of martyrdom be applied subjectively in many cases, usually depending on the perspective of personal experience.

Martyrdom is not an exclusively Catholic concept. A martyr receives that designation by virtue of having died to further a righteous cause for the benefit of others. Waterwitch and Williams certainly could be described as martyrs in secular terms.

But, their supporters in the Church would argue, the two were willing to sacrifice their young lives to further the fight against apartheid � a system which the Catholic bishops of South Africa in 1957 described as �inherently evil� � as a response to the social teachings of the Church. If their motivation in fighting apartheid, and the manner in which they did so, was informed by the teachings of the Catholic Church, then a case can be made that they were Catholic martyrs in the sense that their death was animated by their faith.

Archbishop Henry evidently regards their action as righteous and even saintly � hence his invitation to the congregation at the memorial service to pray to them �to intercede for us�. Catholics are not obliged to agree with him.

Whether or not these two young people were martyrs, and whether or not their action was well-advised, they worked and sacrificed their lives for a better and just society. For that, they were witnesses to their faith (the Greek root for the word martyr, martys, means witness).

Regardless of the circumstances which ended these two people�s lives so abruptly, their death was a tragedy for their families, their friends and their fellow parishioners. There is no justice in that. It should fill us with sorrow, even 20 years on, that two faith-filled people so inspirited by a devotion to social justice should have been driven by a brutal and unjust system to reach as radical a decision as to sabotage a police station.

Their death, like that of so many others, should compel us to work towards a truly just society.