It often puzzles me to see so many people walking around proudly bearing t-shirts of Che Guevara in his "Guerillero Heroico" pose. Wasn't he a beastly militant with no mercy? Why do all these "Free-thinkers" and libertarians praise him? And it led me to wonder how dictators and militants of certain eras were heralded as heroes later on.
Starting off with Julius Casear, tall, astute, Roman, the original aristocrat - the very fact that he was a dictator has no positive connotations to it. He was, however, loved by his people and the Empire of Rome was built by him and fell after his demise. Adding to that, his elevation to tragic hero status because of his assassination by his friend and betrayer, Marcus Brutus (aided by Shakespeare's dramatisation of his story). It is befitting that this dictator was romanticised - he even had Cleopatra!
El Che. El Che, the guerilla warlord, was a brutal and ruthless commander. So perhaps it was The Motorcycle Diaries - a book and later film of his travels in the early 1950's, that moulded him into a true revolutionary - that idealised him into a hero. And yet there is more. His fiery passion, his affinity for the poor, his unwavering beliefs against capitalism - it is something to be admired, a man's unfaltering faith and conviction, to believe in something and live your life acting for that belief, living for that truth.
It be only fair after discussing El Che, that I spare a word for his leader, Fidel. I daresay I do have a soft spot for Fidel Castro ever since I watched a documentary on the History Channel about how the CIA planned to murder him by inflicting him with an aggressive cancer after several other failed assassination attempts - this plan aborted only because the CIA decided in that time to assassinate JFK instead. What would Cuban cigars be without him? He spent his life dodging bullets, relentlessly continuing to be vocal about communism and socialism - and yes, it may not work in the real world but the actual ideology of pure communism is a beautiful, humanitarian one. No, he will never be romanticised as El Che - the reason being I think he lived too long, and will now probably die of natural causes, rather than as a martyr.
What all admired dictators, militants, great leaders of the past share is an incredible intellect and admirable unwavering conviction for their beliefs. Very few people can manage to live an idealistic-reality so the ones that fight for it to the end...right or wrong, black or white...in our grey world they hold a place in history as admired men.
And so a look to the future and our possible contenders. French president, Nicolas Sarcozy, makes a fair run for it - divorcing his wife, marrying an Italian model who is now trying her hand at acting - but whilst this is very Henry VIII of him, he is more like the mid-life crisis man than a zealous inspiration.
Kim Il-sung, bless his soul, passed on in 1994 yet remains the eternal president of North Korea. His ideology of Juche: independence in politics; self-sustenance in the economy; and self-defense in national defense, holds convincing, fervent conviction and the theory (of Juche - not the reality of North Korea) allows plenty of sentimentalisation.
Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was a flamboyant Colonel in his youth that led to admiration by many women. His fame has grown over the years due to his eccentricities, ludicrousness and unpredictable behaviour. He has female bodyguards, he travels with a tent that is resurrected in whatever country he visits and he has time and again reinforced his beliefs in socialism eg refusing a rank and title higher than Colonel since his coup d'etat, claiming Libya to be a "direct" democracy. To most, he's just plain nuts! But then it is said that most psychiatric patients have phenomenally high IQ's.
Last contender...Robert Mugabe. His impassioned speeches and flair of execution of words leaves little to the competition: "The problem we have had is the problem that has been created by a former colonial power wanting to continue, to continue to interfere in our domestic affairs and wanting to continue to have a share in our natural resources. And this is what we have resisted. We have said the land, Zimbabwe's land, belongs to Zimbabweans and as we proceeded to acquire that land and to apportion it to Zimbabweans, our erstwhile colonial masters said no. And what did they try to do? They interfered with our processes, wanted to reverse them and they still want to reverse them. They spoke of regime change and you heard them. They spoke of regime change and they still speak of it. They imposed sanctions. We had not attacked Britain, we had not done anything to Britain. We had not attacked the Americans, we had not offended them in any way. Why, why, why the hand of the British? Why, why, why the hand of the Americans here? Let us ask that. Let us not ignore the truth as we move forward, we must accept reality."
Some strong contenders, but I'm convinced that ALL my grandchildren will be wearing t-shirts of Uncle Bob.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
idealistic-realism: Balancing the scales
idealistic-realism: Balancing the scales: "The beauty of life lies in that its melody is a sweet, melancholy lament. It's scale is in D minor - the magnificence of which is that there..."
Balancing the scales
The beauty of life lies in that its melody is a sweet, melancholy lament. It's scale is in D minor - the magnificence of which is that there is a perfect balance in the sound, of joy with sadness, upliftment and depression...melancholy (great word!).
And therein lies the point does it not? To find the balance? Yes there is even a place for the cynics of the world, to smash dreamers down into reality, and idealists to invent new aesthetics to debate the pessimists, and innocent children teaching naive parents the lessons they once new but forgot. All in the soulful march of seeking and maintaining balance.
More and more today, the herbalists, the vegans, the reiki and yoga masters are being given a voice. Scientists, dogmatic religious leaders and weight-trainers are being scolded - because its no longer the "healthy" way. The approach does seem terribly primitive, the whole "out with the old in with the new" manner in which new conformists are being born. *Sigh* at least one things has remained in check - the sheep, will always reliably be sheep.
But we are as always missing the point! Everything has its place and things should not be discarded and continuously replaced - this is why history has only repeated itself up to this point. And I choose religion and spirituality as my forum to exemplify this.
The truth of every religion lies in that they all have the same common core - one of honesty, goodness conquering evil (in the self, in the world and in the unseen reality) and all scriptures preach this to the same extent with very little difficulty in understanding. Religion therefore logically forms the baby-steps of self-growth and maturation into spirituality. But unfortunately religion has been so meticulously and cannivingly masked by the dogmatic dictators that it has formed no basis as a means but unto itself. But in the new age we are starting to see through that and free spirits are born, as they were in medieval times when witches were burnt, women scorched and free-thinkers hung.
We are a far cry from the middle ages so when birds tweet and mother nature sings loudly and the foodchain is disrupted because we no longer eat meat, this should be the happy ending of the story, fireworks have already started and we're once again distracted by our wisdom and advancements and discardment of religiosity or better interpretation thereof.
But pay attention a little longer and listen to those who wish to exist only in the realm of spirituality. To shed themselves of their human flaws and seek to be one with God by attempting to discard any sense of humanism, not for moments of meditation each day, but permanently in this state of trance, their "nirvana". It does seem logical does it not, that whatever your spiritual beliefs of our higher creator, we were made in human forms to exist as such, seeking balance in both humanism and spirituality together - rather than willing our physical selves to die before we're even dead. Which does lead one to wonder about our great leaders of the past (whose work should and will remain renowned and respected) like Ghandi - who adopted the philosophy of Brahmacharya and drank his urine towards the end of his life for its health purposes - surely he tipped over and teetered over into imbalance at the other side of the scale???
And therein lies the point does it not? To find the balance? Yes there is even a place for the cynics of the world, to smash dreamers down into reality, and idealists to invent new aesthetics to debate the pessimists, and innocent children teaching naive parents the lessons they once new but forgot. All in the soulful march of seeking and maintaining balance.
More and more today, the herbalists, the vegans, the reiki and yoga masters are being given a voice. Scientists, dogmatic religious leaders and weight-trainers are being scolded - because its no longer the "healthy" way. The approach does seem terribly primitive, the whole "out with the old in with the new" manner in which new conformists are being born. *Sigh* at least one things has remained in check - the sheep, will always reliably be sheep.
But we are as always missing the point! Everything has its place and things should not be discarded and continuously replaced - this is why history has only repeated itself up to this point. And I choose religion and spirituality as my forum to exemplify this.
The truth of every religion lies in that they all have the same common core - one of honesty, goodness conquering evil (in the self, in the world and in the unseen reality) and all scriptures preach this to the same extent with very little difficulty in understanding. Religion therefore logically forms the baby-steps of self-growth and maturation into spirituality. But unfortunately religion has been so meticulously and cannivingly masked by the dogmatic dictators that it has formed no basis as a means but unto itself. But in the new age we are starting to see through that and free spirits are born, as they were in medieval times when witches were burnt, women scorched and free-thinkers hung.
We are a far cry from the middle ages so when birds tweet and mother nature sings loudly and the foodchain is disrupted because we no longer eat meat, this should be the happy ending of the story, fireworks have already started and we're once again distracted by our wisdom and advancements and discardment of religiosity or better interpretation thereof.
But pay attention a little longer and listen to those who wish to exist only in the realm of spirituality. To shed themselves of their human flaws and seek to be one with God by attempting to discard any sense of humanism, not for moments of meditation each day, but permanently in this state of trance, their "nirvana". It does seem logical does it not, that whatever your spiritual beliefs of our higher creator, we were made in human forms to exist as such, seeking balance in both humanism and spirituality together - rather than willing our physical selves to die before we're even dead. Which does lead one to wonder about our great leaders of the past (whose work should and will remain renowned and respected) like Ghandi - who adopted the philosophy of Brahmacharya and drank his urine towards the end of his life for its health purposes - surely he tipped over and teetered over into imbalance at the other side of the scale???
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