Last stand?

Reader question:

Please explain “last stand” in this sentence: Border officials declared that they would make a “last stand” here.

My comments:

Sounds like border officials in America trying to prevent Mexicans from crossing the border illegally.

By making a “last stand” here, border officials declare that their border station is the last line of defense, as if it were the last line of defense in a battlefield.

In the battlefield, of course, the last line of defense is the last ditch or trench dug out. Soldiers who pledge to take a last stand will defend this line of defense till death.

Or till surrendering, because when the last line of defense is breached, the battle is lost.

Here, “stand”, as in the phrase “take a stand”, refers to the firm position one holds on something, usually something debatable. For example, one who takes a stand against higher taxes is one who firmly believes that high taxes is harmful and who is, therefore, staunchly against them.

Stand, as noun, is the standing position we take – an upright position while being supported by our feet.

In our example, border officials are essentially saying: We will stop illegals from crossing the border no matter what the cost is.

In other words, border officials will hold their line – or their portion of the borderline to be precise – and will not budge.

Not an inch.

To sum up, “last stand” is someone’s final and often valiant attempt to defend or prove themselves before they are done.

And here are recent media examples:

1. Tens of thousands of evangelical Christians gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to pray for America’s atonement and for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Organizers of the event, billed “A Million Women,” described the gathering – and next month’s presidential election – as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from forces of darkness. For hours, the gathered masses sang worship songs, waved flags symbolizing their belief that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and prayed aloud for Jesus to intercede on behalf of Trump in November.

“If we don’t stand now,” said Grace Lin, who traveled from Los Angeles for the rally and came wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, “then the enemy will take over our country. If that happens, that’s the end.”

Lou Engle, the self-described prophet who organized the event, said God told him in a dream to call on a million women to march on Washington in order to restore God’s dominion over the nation. Engle is a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement of charismatic Christians who for years have portrayed U.S. politics as a spiritual clash between good and evil and Trump as a flawed leader anointed by God to redeem the nation.

“Listen to the cries of your people,” Engle shouted Saturday as thousands of followers lifted their hands to the sky. “Save us, God!”

From a stage overlooking the Washington Monument, Engle and other speakers warned of a multitude of threats they say are facing America: crime, religious persecution, abortion and the growing acceptance of LGBTQ people.

Thousands of women came wearing pink shirts emblazoned with the words “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” – the name and slogan of an anti-LGBTQ activist group that claims library books, public school teachers and pop culture are tricking children into changing genders.

Susan Marsh, who drove from Maryland, said she attended because she fears if Democrats maintain power, her 10-month old grandson will grow up in a nation where he’s pressured to identify as a girl. As she sang and prayed, Marsh waved a large Appeal to Heaven flag – a prominent symbol of the Christian movement to end the separation of church and state in America.

...

Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the nonprofit Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Maryland, said those comments are representative of a dangerous and increasingly widespread embrace of apocalyptic political messaging on the Christian right.

Taylor, who attended the march Saturday as part of his research, has spent years studying the New Apostolic Reformation and its unwavering support for Trump. He documented in his book, “The Violent Take It by Force,” how false claims about widespread election fraud by Engle and other Christian nationalist leaders helped fuel the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Taylor said he worries that the dire messaging – and the portrayal of Trump as God’s chosen candidate to defeat evil Democrats – could set the stage for more violence.

“This is about activating the most ardent Christian supporters of Donald Trump, putting them into an apocalyptic mindset that says this election is do or die for America,” Taylor said. “The danger is that these folks can easily be converted over into Capitol rioters if the right circumstances come about and if their leaders give them that guidance.”

Taylor – and many others in attendance – noted that the crowd was more racially and ethnically diverse than most conservative political rallies. Churches from across the country, including some majority-Black denominations, chartered buses for the event. Organizers chose to hold the event on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, because it is a day to atone for sin.

LaTrece Curry, a Black mother who said she voted for Barack Obama in 2008, drove from Ohio with her husband and four children. She said her support for Trump – a twice-divorced billionaire who’s facing a range of criminal charges related to his business practices and alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election – has led to divisions and arguments with her Black friends and family members. But she believes he’s the only candidate who will set America back on a moral course.

“I do think it is a last stand,” Curry said. “But God has given us so much time. Now judgment will come.”

- Christians flock to Washington to pray for America to turn to God – by electing Trump, NBCNews.com, October 13, 2024.

2. A discrepancy in the official Israeli account of Yahya Sinwar’s final moments has emerged since his death which appears likely to add fuel to the martyr’s cult fast developing around the Hamas leader.

The Israeli autopsy carried out on Sinwar concluded that he died from a gunshot wound to his head, at odds with the initial Israel Defense Forces (IDF) version which implied he was killed by a tank shell fired into the wrecked building where he made his last stand.

The IDF released footage of a tank firing at the building in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan refugee camp, and the military spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said: “We identified him as a terrorist inside a building, fired at the building and then went in to search.”

However, according to Chen Kugel, the director of Israel’s national forensic institute, who carried out the autopsy, the cause of death was a bullet wound to the head. In an interview with the New York Times, Kugel did not speculate on who fired the fatal shot, whether it was during a skirmish with Israeli soldiers before the tank round was fired, or after he was found in the rubble of the building, or by Sinwar himself so as not to be taken alive.

Sinwar had a pistol with him, which some Israeli reports said had previously belonged to an IDF military intelligence officer, Mahmoud Hir a-Din, a Druze from the Galilee region, who was killed during a secret mission in Gaza in 2018.

The intrigue surrounding Sinwar’s death has fuelled a martyr’s cult that spread explosively across social media from the moment the Hamas leader was confirmed dead.

The fact that he was killed in combat fatigues and a combat vest after firing and hurling grenades at Israeli soldiers, even lashing out at an IDF drone with a wooden baton thrown with his one remaining working arm in a final gesture of defiance, sets Sinwar apart from his predecessors who were assassinated while they were on the run.

When the long-serving Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated by missiles fired by an IDF helicopter gunship in 2004, he was being pushed along in a wheelchair after prayers in a Gaza mosque.

There was little of his body left to photograph, but imagined pictures of the fatal missile strike became part of the iconography which almost instantly appeared on walls across the occupied territories, along with images of the white-bearded leader ascending to heaven. Pictures of Yassin are still common in Gaza and the West Bank, often showing him in the company of more recent martyrs.

Sinwar left a war-ravaged fighter’s corpse behind, that some Palestinians may compare to the final image of Che Guevara, the Argentinian doctor who fought in Cuba’s revolution but who ultimately died at the hands of the Bolivian military in 1967, and became an icon for his cause. After Guevara was shot, his body was laid out on a table to be photographed, his open eyes staring vacantly at the camera.

Sinwar’s successors in the Hamas leadership celebrated the fact that he died in combat, in the words of his deputy, Khalil al-Hayya: “Facing and not retreating, engaging in the frontlines and moving between combat positions.”

An excerpt from a notable poem by the Palestinians’ most celebrated poet, Mahmoud Darwish, is circulating on the internet along with the claim that it foretold Sinwar’s end.

The lines from Praise for the High Shadow say: “Besiege your siege … there is no escape. Your arm has fallen, so pick it up and strike your enemy … There is no escape and I fell near you, so pick me up and strike your enemy with me … You are now free, free and free.”

Darwish wrote the poem at another low point for the Palestinian cause, in a boat taking him and other activists and militants from Beirut to Tunisia after Israel’s devastating war in Lebanon in 1982 aimed at destroying the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Darwish’s poetry recalls the horror of the shelling of Beirut and the massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese Shia Muslims at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon at that time. The themes of mass death in the face of international indifference and inaction, combined with the longing for someone to strike back, resonate with Palestinians today after Gaza’s destruction.

- Why Sinwar’s ‘warrior death’ will win him martyr status in Gaza and beyond, TheGuardian.com, October 20, 2024.

3. The gunman who killed four people and himself inside a New York City office tower on Monday afternoon has been identified as Shane Devon Tamura, a 27-year-old licensed private investigator from Las Vegas who once dreamed of a life in football.

Authorities say Tamura, who had a “documented mental health history”, arrived in Midtown Manhattan by car on Monday afternoon following a mammoth cross-country trip.

New York mayor Eric Adams indicated that authorities believe his target was the NFL, which has its headquarters in the tower. A note found on the gunman’s body mentioned the league.

The three-page note outlined Tamura’s perceived grievances with the NFL over its handling of the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is strongly linked to sports in which players experience repeated head impacts.

“Terry Long football gave me CTE and it caused me to drink a gallon of antifreeze,” Tamura wrote, according to CNN. “You can’t go against the NFL, they’ll squash you.”

The shooter was referring to former Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Long, who committed suicide by drinking antifreeze in 2006 after suffering from CTE.

“Study my brain please I’m sorry Tell Rick I’m sorry for everything,” the note read.

Tamura was born in Hawaii and grew up in Santa Clarita, California, where he was a high school running back. He later moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.

When Tamura arrived at 345 Park Avenue in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, he parked his black BMW around the corner before brazenly striding across a wide city plaza with his long-form M4 rifle in plain sight, by his side.

Tamura had his concealed weapon permit issued by the Las Vegas Sheriff's Department on him as he walked straight into the building’s lobby and opened fire.

Once in the lobby he sprayed it with gunfire, shooting an NYPD officer in the back and a security guard who took cover behind a desk, before heading to the elevator bank and headed up to the 33rd floor and the offices of Rudin Management who run the building and other offices across New York City.

Police believe was the shooting was premeditated and likely suicidal.

“It appears that he knew it would be his last stand,” said CNN chief law enforcement analyst John Miller, a former NYPD deputy commissioner.

“He fully intended to shoot his way through the lobby and make his way to that target – whatever that might have been.”

- Manhattan shooter identified as Shane Tamura, 27, of Las Vegas, DailyMiail.co.uk, July 29, 2025.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）