Martyrdom galvanized a cross-sector coalition that living advocacy could not

Evidence

It was predictable, therefore, that the image of Saro-Wiwa as writer-martyr would provoke intense journalistic outrage as well as the most vocal literary protest since the Rushdie affair. Pinter, Soyinka, Boyd, Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, Fay Weldon, and Arthur Miller were just a few of the writers who spoke out publicly against Abacha and Shell. So in death Saro-Wiwa extended—surely, beyond his imaginings—the remarkable coalition of international interests he had begun to forge while alive, an alliance that brought together environmentalists, minority rights advocates, antiracists, opponents of corporate deregulation, and defenders of free speech. Whether his principles ultimately prevail will depend as much on the future of this coalition as on the timeliness of the ideas themselves. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 341