Repressive colonial prosecutions turn suspects into revered martyrs

Evidence

In the autumn of 1871, the paper lamented: … Unfortunately, the Government has adopted a course which has converted justice in more than Mahomedan opinion into something very like persecution, and has out of criminals, suspected by the masses, made martyrs they are now inclined to reverence. The Government, however, seem to consider that long-winded trials, and a species of despotism, is the best way of being prompt in asserting authority, and making swift punishment wait on treason. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 149

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism by which state overreach manufactures sanctity rather than deterrence is a durable political insight, not just a period detail.
• XREF: Resonates with the martyrdom logic in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and with the sacrifice/sacral-king material in ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses’.
• SEED: An essay on how states accidentally canonize their dissidents — from the Wahabi trials to modern political imprisonment.