#034: Atefah Sahaaleh, Fabrizio Quattrocci, And The Sisters of The Galveston Storm

"Did the one die well?" - John M. Ford, The Final Reflection

It is often said that 'it is not how we die that is important, but how we live.' This is no doubt true. Nevertheless, there are times when an individual stares Death in the face and their reaction to the Angel reveals who they really were all along.

As Marcus Aurelius put it, "Death smiles at us all." Let us remember three incidents where the Tattered Remnant smiled back in different ways.

The Gypsy of Neka: Atefah Sahaaleh (1988-2004)



In the first few years of the new century, in the benighted Islamic Republic of Iran, a teenaged girl wandered the streets of a small town of Neka, a small coastal town on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. The town, a minor railway junction little noted by the outside world, is at the outer fringes of the Iranian republic. Nevertheless, the power of the Mullahs and the Islamist judges who rule Iran with an iron fist have reach in this little town as they do throughout the country. And their destruction of a teenaged girl in this small town brought Neka to the attention of the world.

Atefah Sahaaleh was a child of tragedy. When she was very small, her younger brother drowned; shortly thereafter, her mother died in an automobile accident. Her father was as a result incapacitated by a drug addiction, and the girl was left essentially an orphan; she did not go to school, and she spent her time caring for her aged grandparents. She wandered the streets, and was known throughout town as a bright girl with no regard for the social rules controlling women of her city. She was known as "The Gypsy of Neka" for her bright and ungovernable ways: a living, true-life Carmen who, like the heroine of the opera, paid for her nature with her life.

She was, in the time and place of her people, considered to be sexually out of control; she was arrested on three occasions and convicted, each time, of having sex with an unmarried man. Each offense carried with it the penalty of 100 lashes.

At one point, she came within reach of a fifty one year old taxi driver, who used her as a sex slave. Let his name be remembered: Ali Darabi, a married man with children. Over the course of three years he used her at will, brutally, sometimes leaving her unable even to walk.

In 2004 she was arrested by the "Morality Police" on charges of sexual immorality after she complained of her treatment by Darabi. They tortured her, obtaining a confession to "crimes against chastity".

Then she was brought before Haji Rezai.

Haji Rezai was the very picture of the hanging judge. Appointed as one of the 95 Revolutionary Judges after the Iranian revolution, he had made a career of destroying those whom the Islamists designated as 'enemies of God.' The blood of countless victims was on his hands.

The judge, in investigating the case, raped her himself. He tortured her. Acting both as judge and jury, he found her "guilty." He decreed the death sentence, and to guarantee that she would be executed immediately, declared that she had to be "22" years old based solely on her physique.

At this moment, Atefah did something that was utterly shocking, in that time and place: she removed her head scarf, her hijab, and declared that she was the victim, not the criminal in the case.

And then–-the grossest possible insult–-she removed her shoes and cast them at the judge.

Defiance of a judge is always dangerous, but in this case, the outcome was foregone. When a girl is being judged for sexual immorality by her own rapist, what other outcome is possible but death?

He claimed that the sentence of death was for defiance and "her sharp tongue." It was, in reality, for 'speaking truth to power.'

One week later, on August 15, 2004, she was brought to a city square. Haji Rezai, torturer, rapist, judge, jury, legal appellant–-for it was he, himself, who went to Tehran to secure permission for immediate execution–-at last placed the rope around her neck with his own hands.

"This will teach you to disobey," he said.

The rope was raised and the girl died, hanging from a construction crane.

The body remained hanging there for an hour. After it was buried, it was almost immediately removed from the grave and it has not since been found.

We really know very little about The Gypsy of Neka except that she dared to shine with feminine beauty in a world where sexuality is viewed as a deadly enemy, and that, when faced with a judicial monster, she had the spittle to stand up to it and resist with the only weapons she had, her hair, her beauty, and her defiance.

But her death is remembered.

Now, how can a teenaged girl, who was, at best, a 'wild child,' be viewed as a member of the Tattered Remnant?

In a society such as Iran's, where women are to be submissive slaves, nothing but receptacles for men's desire, with no independent authority, even as adults, to live their own lives unless attached to father, brother, husband, son.... such a girl as Atefah is a beacon of light, a beacon which, alas, attracted uncontrolled male desire, but which showed the other women in her community that they need not live like slaves. She was an example of what girls can be if they are not involuntarily hidden beneath the black cloak of sexual obliteration.

And it should be noted too: the full veil, even with face exposed, is evil if it is imposed involuntarily. (An adult woman can freely choose to dress that way if she wishes--after all, nuns do precisely that--but universal imposition is unacceptable and a fundamental violation of human rights.)

Perhaps she was 'sexually immoral.' But even so: so what? Her 'immorality' in that time and place was and is far more moral than the sexual fascism that declares that women are nothing but bedbugs.

Under these circumstances, it is no wonder the monsters killed her.

The execution of a sixteen year old girl, particularly for "crimes" committed by her own judge and executioner, resonates. The day will come when her death, and her courageous resistance, with the only weapon she had – her own beauty – will be celebrated, mourned wondered at by future generations of Iranians.

Iran will not forever be held in the hands of the Mullahs. And Atefah Sahaaleh's sacrifice–in this case, on a perverted altar – will be recalled, lamented, and commemorated for generations to come.

How An Italian Dies: Fabrizio Quattrocci (1968-2004)

We also know very little about Fabrizio Quattrocci. He was a "security contractor," who was, admittedly, a well paid civilian guard of certain NATO facilities in Iraq. In 2004, he was kidnapped, along with three other Italians, and was held by agents of Al Qaida.

They decided to make an example of him.

While he was being filmed he was forced to dig his own grave, and knelt in front of it --

–- and before his enemies could kill him, he did one thing that rendered him immortal: he ripped his mask partially off and cried:

"Vi faccio vedere come muore un Italiano!"

I'll show you how an Italian dies!

He fell in a hail of bullets.

Fabrizio's Quattrocci's resistance had one immediate effect: he ruined his captors' intention of filming his execution for propaganda purposes, striking from their hands the very reward they were going to give themselves for killing him.

But it also resonates in a larger sense. It is strange that, only two generations after the Second World War, where bravado and defiance of this sort were quite commonplace, that a small act of resistance would be thought so remarkable.

But so it is.

He taught us all that it is still possible for an Italian--or any man, or woman–-to yet die manfully (yes) in the face of evil, in a world where it seems to be evolving into an invertebrate state, and we are now ruled by the tremulous, by what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests."

There is yet a place in the world for cojones.

In 2006, Fabrizio Quattrocci was awarded Italy's highest civilian honor, the Gold Medal of Civilian Valor.


"Queen of the Waves": The Sisters of the Galveston Hurricane, 1900



A dear friend of mine, a priest who lives in New York City, sent the following to me via Email. It describes another way to face death, a bit different from the defiant resistance of Atefah Sahaaleh and Fabrizio Quattrocci, but still fully in keeping with the nature of The Tattered Remnant. He tells the story of a small order of Religious in Galveston, Texas, who died protecting the orphans in their care from a hurricane that took the lives of almost all in the orphanage.

Although, given these were Sisters, i.e, Religious (not formally nuns, but never mind) who were devoted to the care of orphans, their status as members of the Tattered Remnant is established pretty much by definition, their deaths in the Galveston Hurricane showed that they died as they had lived, devoted to their Savior and the care of others.

And it must be said: If Fabrizio Quattrocci died manfully, the ten Sisters died womanfully, protecting the ninety-three children in their care, of whom only three survived.

The indented text below is Father Joe's:

Queen of the Waves, look forth across the ocean
From north to south, from east to stormy west,
See how the waters with tumultuous motion
Rise up and foam without a pause or rest.

A couple of days ago I went to Ellis Island, to see the "Women & Spirit" exhibit: it is a panorama celebrating three hundred years of contributions to American life of Catholic Religious Sisters. What a wonderful exhibit. It is traveling the country; it is at Ellis Island, which is a wonderful visitor site anyway, until January. I couldn't recommend it too highly.

But fear we not, tho' storm clouds round us gather,
Thou art our Mother and thy little Child
Is the All Merciful, our loving Brother
God of the sea and of the tempest wild.

Among the vignettes of service there was the Galveston Hurricane, which destroyed the most vibrant city in Texas. The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word ran a two-building orphanage, built on the bluffs overlooking the gulf. As the storm worsened they gathered their charges in the second floor of the newer building; as things got more desperate they brought out rope and tied the orphans, four or five to a nun, so they wouldn't lose any of them in the storm. All to no avail. A 24 foot wave struck and the building collapsed; all of the nun died, only three boys survived.

Help, then sweet Queen, in our exceeding danger,
By thy seven griefs, in pity Lady save;
Think of the Babe that slept within the manger
And help us now, dear Lady of the Wave.

Two nuns were found across the bay, dead; one still clutched two orphans for she had said, "I won't let go." Another was found, and buried with four orphans tied to her, for so she had died.

Up to thy shrine we look and see the glimmer
Thy votive lamp sheds down on us afar;
Light of our eyes, oh let it ne'er grow dimmer,
Till in the sky we hail the morning star.

From the surviving boys, details were learned, including that the nuns had calmed the children by having them sing "Queen of the Waves," a hymn French fishermen would sing when the sea got stormy (it was their "Nearer, My God, To Thee.").

Then joyful hearts shall kneel around thine altar
And grateful psalms re-echo down the nave;
Never our faith in thy sweet power can falter,
Mother of God, our Lady of the Wave.

To this day, every year on September 8th, the Anniversary of the tragedy (and the feast of the Nativity of our blessed Lady), the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word stop, wherever they are, to sing this hymn.

We do not know their names, but we remember. We remember....

We still remember, We who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
Thy starlight on the western seas.

- JRR Tolkien.