Great Acts of Defiance

[C. Flower]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj3xGkNTgQg&feature=related"]Child vs Tank - YouTube[/ame]

[Sam Lord]

Castro's 1953 speech from the dock after the failed attack on the Moncada barracks.
(dedicated to a dodgy Galway businessman with lots of unsavory links to mass murderers in the US military )

I believe I have sufficiently justified my point of view. I have called forth more reasons than the Honorable Prosecutor called forth to ask that I be condemned to 26 years in prison. All these reasons support men who struggle for the freedom and happiness of the people. None support those who oppress the people, revile them, and rob them heartlessly. Therefore I have been able to call forth many reasons and he could not adduce even one. How can Batista's presence in power be justified when he gained it against the will of the people and by violating the laws of the Republic through the use of treachery and force? How could anyone call legitimate a regime of blood, oppression and ignominy? How could anyone call revolutionary a regime which has gathered the most backward men, methods and ideas of public life around it? How can anyone consider legally valid the high treason of a Court whose duty was to defend the Constitution? With what right do the Courts send to prison citizens who have tried to redeem their country by giving their own blood, their own lives? All this is monstrous to the eyes of the nation and to the principles of true justice!

Still there is one argument more powerful than all the others. We are Cubans and to be Cuban implies a duty; not to fulfill that duty is a crime, is treason. We are proud of the history of our country; we learned it in school and have grown up hearing of freedom, justice and human rights. We were taught to venerate the glorious example of our heroes and martyrs. Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Gómez and Martí were the first names engraved in our minds. We were taught that the Titan once said that liberty is not begged for but won with the blade of a machete. We were taught that for the guidance of Cuba's free citizens, the Apostle wrote in his book The Golden Age: 'The man who abides by unjust laws and permits any man to trample and mistreat the country in which he was born is not an honorable man ... In the world there must be a certain degree of honor just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without honor, there are always others who bear in themselves the honor of many men. These are the men who rebel with great force against those who steal the people's freedom, that is to say, against those who steal honor itself. In those men thousands more are contained, an entire people is contained, human dignity is contained ...' We were taught that the 10th of October and the 24th of February are glorious anniversaries of national rejoicing because they mark days on which Cubans rebelled against the yoke of infamous tyranny. We were taught to cherish and defend the beloved flag of the lone star, and to sing every afternoon the verses of our National Anthem: 'To live in chains is to live in disgrace and in opprobrium,' and 'to die for one's homeland is to live forever!' All this we learned and will never forget, even though today in our land there is murder and prison for the men who practice the ideas taught to them since the cradle. We were born in a free country that our parents bequeathed to us, and the Island will first sink into the sea before we consent to be the slaves of anyone.

It seemed that the Apostle would die during his Centennial. It seemed that his memory would be extinguished forever. So great was the affront! But he is alive; he has not died. His people are rebellious. His people are worthy. His people are faithful to his memory. There are Cubans who have fallen defending his doctrines. There are young men who in magnificent selflessness came to die beside his tomb, giving their blood and their lives so that he could keep on living in the heart of his nation. Cuba, what would have become of you had you let your Apostle die?

I come to the close of my defense plea but I will not end it as lawyers usually do, asking that the accused be freed. I cannot ask freedom for myself while my comrades are already suffering in the ignominious prison of the Isle of Pines. Send me there to join them and to share their fate. It is understandable that honest men should be dead or in prison in a Republic where the President is a criminal and a thief.

To you, Honorable Judges, my sincere gratitude for having allowed me to express myself free from contemptible restrictions. I hold no bitterness towards you, I recognize that in certain aspects you have been humane, and I know that the Chief Judge of this Court, a man of impeccable private life, cannot disguise his repugnance at the current state of affairs that compels him to dictate unjust decisions. Still, a more serious problem remains for the Court of Appeals: the indictments arising from the murders of seventy men, that is to say, the greatest massacre we have ever known. The guilty continue at liberty and with weapons in their hands - weapons which continually threaten the lives of all citizens. If all the weight of the law does not fall upon the guilty because of cowardice or because of domination of the courts, and if then all the judges do not resign, I pity your honor. And I regret the unprecedented shame that will fall upon the Judicial Power.

I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hideous cruelty. But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.

[Holly]

Those Palestinian kids are certainly courageous.

[Sam Lord]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15p5HB-FpjI"]Rosa Parks_Dec 1, 1955 achievement - YouTube[/ame]

[MauriceColgan]

[Edit Mod SL - off topic]

[Sam Lord]

Wilmar Villar, Cuban dissident who died , 50 days after beginning a hunger strike ,In January 2012


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16644899

Charged last year it appears with assaulting his wife, injuring her in the face, and then assaulting police who were called by his mother in law. His careeer as a "dissident" began after this but was not helpful to him in evading justice as he was sentenced to 4 years for the domestic assault in November. Cuban authorities deny that he was on any sort of "hunger strike" and state that despite the best medical available he died of "a multi-organ dysfunction that followed a severe septic respiratory process that led him into shock by sepsis."

May not have been much of a defiance after all.

[Sam Lord]

Oliver North failing to recollect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DGDz...eature=related

No defiance here. He never saw any such documents. That's all.

[fluffybiscuits]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg_emQoerBA&feature=related"]Stonewall Riots of 1969 - YouTube[/ame]

Kicked the bollox off the cops

[fluffybiscuits]

http://www.b92.net/eng/

The station that defied the Milosevic government

[5intheface]

Regime lies.

According to his own family, Wilmar's interest in politics only began in September 2011 a few weeks after his arrest for domestic violence. Do you know anything above and beyond that?

Apparently his father died in custody some years before and that did not prompt any dissident reaction from him.

[Kev Bar]

Smiling.

[Kev Bar]

Oliver North failing to recollect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DGDz...eature=related

Devotion/Deceit/ Dementia do not equal defiance.

I know it's difficult but you have to get beyond the "de..."

[Trow]

Battle of Thermopylae.
[Quote]..Both ancient and modern writers have used the Battle of Thermopylae as an example of the power of a patriotic army defending native soil. The performance of the defenders at the battle of Thermopylae is also used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain as force multipliers and has become a symbol of courage against overwhelming odds.[unquote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

[Saoirse go Deo]

Mairéad Farrell on dirty protest. As well as excrement the women smeared their menstrual blood on the walls.

Female republicans were allowed to wear their own clothes which maybe makes their protest even more admirable - it was out of solidarity with their male comrades in the H - Blocks.