Resistance

There is an old newspaper account of a mass execution in 1922 of some Greek leaders after a failure in a military campaign against Turkey. The Greeks were brought into a courtyard and one of them was very ill, barely able to walk to the execution site. Supposedly, this one man was unable to stand for his execution and despite efforts to stand him up, the executioners decided to shoot him with his head on his knees. This account is somewhat misleading.

People interpret this as the man being very ill, but why is that necessarily the case? Could it also be that the man was resisting. If he is about to be killed, why make it any easier on his executioners? Why allow them to think there is a dignity in the process? Maybe the scene was filled with the dignity of a Picasso, a scene rife with challenges and hegemonic forces encountering their own resistances.