There's no end to the giving nature of Christiaan Briggs, peace activist and former "human shield" in Iraq. He continues to center his life around making others happy:
A New Zealand peace activist has been arrested in London and charged with punching a rising teenage pop star and putting him in a coma.Christiaan Taylor Briggs, 30, is accused of punching Billy Leeson, 19, the lead singer of young British band Les Incompetents after an argument on a city bus.
British media reports says Leeson was on his way home on a No. 29 bus after performing at a sellout gig when he confronted a man harassing his girlfriend.
The two men got off the bus together in Camden Road, north London, and Leeson was punched.
He fell to the ground, hitting his head on the footpath and fracturing his skull, just before 11pm on June 22. His attacker ran off laughing.
His reasons for going to Iraq were deep, profound, and reflective of his innermost character:
I am joining the Iraq Human Shield campaign because I believe in a very simple concept: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” But here in lies the twist. The change I wish to see is not simply that of countless Iraqi lives spared, but that of possibly inspiring just a small group of people I know; my family, friends, and community (Napier, New Zealand), illustrating to them an unbelievably important and simple lesson I learnt recently: Wanna be happy? Just centre your life around making others happy.
You can peruse Gandhi's website here.
Posted by floridacracker at July 5, 2006 03:08 PMNo one could make that stuff up. A fascinating look in to the human heart, and the abyss.
I tried to give the post a trackback, but no luck.
Posted by: pwyll at July 5, 2006 09:29 PMNo, it's got a trackback there. TBs are always strange.
His website makes for interesting reading in light of his actions. I like to picture him writing these things then running away laughing. That makes me happy, but then that's what C.B. does best.
Posted by: Donnah at July 5, 2006 10:17 PMsort of like a guy that has a penchant for the sado-masochist (more sadist, to be sure) side of things..getting a job as a corrections officer.
Or as a nurse..
If I was to interview folks that aspired to be human shields, I am certain there would be some cross link to some weird crap.
Probably doesn't have a pot for the Les Incomatents PI attorney to piss in, either.
I wonder what the word *harrasment* in this story means... feeling her up, stealing her seat ???
Posted by: csason at July 6, 2006 09:14 AMWhen I was in school all those decades ago, the example always given was the graphically violent letters of the anti-vivisectionists. I think they should change that to violent pacifists.
Posted by: Donnah at July 6, 2006 12:38 PMHey, feel free to plagarize him to your black, flabby heart's content, me buckos:
"Our tradition of recognising 'intellectual property rights' is dangerous in that it results in the deification of the publicly recognised 'thinker' and 'artist' at the expense of everyone else."
Posted by: mojo at July 6, 2006 12:47 PMI pray for his victim, who had talent, youth, and hope, perhaps all taken from him.
The first thing that occurred to me when I read his top post about the revolutionary righteousness of plagiarism was "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote," by Jorge Luis Borges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard_(fictional_character)
Please do read it, if by chance you missed it. Creativity and the hopeless envy it inspires in the untalented seem to me relevant to this horrible story.
If history repeats itself so that the first cycle is tragedy, and the second farce, what is is the fate of those like Christiaan who are the Nth iteration, willfully ignorant of what has gone before them? What if they are repeating not history but fiction, and not very good fiction at that? If they would only leave everyone else alone, they would be just tedious, but Christiaan could not even achieve tediousness.
Christiaan will never even attain the level of the ordinary criminals he will meet in prison. They at least did whatever they did for motives rooted in this world and the nature of real things in it.
Posted by: Mitch at July 6, 2006 11:21 PMObviously comas are happy places.
Posted by: David (Connecticut) at July 7, 2006 12:42 AM