So this ones going to be a contraversial one.
Recently the Hezbollah regime ransomed the bodies of two dead Israeli soldiers with the demand of the return of five Lebanese prisoners. The Israeli government agreed, releasing the five prisoners. One of these prisoners, Samir Qantar, was greeted with mass celebration, parades and a public holiday. So what did Qantar do to deserve the adulation of his countreymen? Did he bravely fight the tyranny of persecuting government? Was he a celebrated revolutionary, a politcal prisoner, a wrongly imprisoned man?
In actual fact Samir Qantar, adored by lebanese across the country, had been arrested for killing an Israeli man (shooting him in the head) in front of his four year old daughter, who he then brutally blugeoned to death with the butt of his rifle while her mother and sister hid terrified in a closet. Now that is the act of a true hero, a great among men.
But then the view of who is a hero and who is a villain depends widely from which side you are looking.
Let us take Ernesto “Che” Guevara, hero of the disillusioned teenager and symbol of resistance, individuality and bravery. Che Guevara started life travelling around South America, observing the poverty and inequality of that continent. This way he developed his communist ideals of equality. He fought for the Guatemalan government against a successful CIA funded coup. Helping to fight for a country against a foreign incursion against a democratically elected government is indeed brave, it is some of his later actions which are questionable. Ironically it was this victory which led Guevara to believe that the USA was an imperialist power, acting to keep inequality rather than reduce it, and led to his own contribution to a virtual dictatorship. He then met the Castro brothers, underwent guerilla training and helped with the overthrow of Batista’s cuban dictatorship (which was fortunate giving his near failed attack on the Bueuycito barracks). During his insurgency, Guevara sent kill squads to hunt down deserters as well as well personally executing people he believed to be deserters, spies and informants. When in power he was elected chief prosecutor and proceeded to purge the army of anyone he thought were traitors, sending many men to their deaths. Next Guevara travelled through fourteen countries, spreading the word of communism and inciting people to revolt against democratically elected governments. Back in cuba, Castro had effectively set up his own dictatorship seizing land and giving low interest “bonds” instead. He put Guevara in charge of agrarian reform and he widely failed a this. During the cuban missile crisis, Guevara told a British newspaper that if the missile were under his control he would fire them all into America. Later Che would go on to criticise the Soviet regime, thus losing favour with the Castros and disappearing from the public spotlight, train fighters for a failed coup in Bolivia where he was ultimately executed by undercover CIA operatives.
So was Che Guevara really a revolutionary, liberating a people under the thumb of a hardline dictator and a rightful symbol of the fight against opression, or was he a failed politician, diplomat and insurgent who replaced one dictator with another whilst murdering thousands of innocent people? I’ll let you decide because everyone has their own point of view. What i do find ironic is that Che Guevara’s face sells millions of item of clothing a year and he has thus provided a major contribution to the capitalism he hated so much when he was alive.
Now for the revolutionary whos denouncement will be more controversial. I will admit that this person has made huge contributions to freedom and equality around the world, especially in Africa. I agree that in some ways he is a great humanitarian and a “hero”. I don’t agree with everyone throwing their full support behind him without knowing some things about him. What also confused me is why we the British recently decided to throw him a 90th birthday concert when he is South African and we were the people he fought against. If you havn’t guess it yet, that person is Nelson Mandela. Mandela did bring down the horrific apartheid government and has acted for many other charities and causes. What most people don’t realise is that before resorting to diplomacy, Mandela along with the ANC fought the government with violence. He was in fact imprisoned for crimes including sabotage. The other point i’d put across is that Mandela actively voices his support for many seperatist movements including tha basque and the chechens who use violence, including bombings, to fight for independence. Of course he can hardly be called a villain, carrying out some exceptional work towards world peace and equality. With Nelson Mandela, the positives far outweigh the negatives in my opinion, i just disagree with him being painted as a modern saint.
I think the point is that nobody is a hero to everybody. To free one people you have to opress another. People should at least know all the facts before throwing themselves behind the next revolutionary who comes along.
