[Essay]One Man's Hero

[devonin]

Man, I'm really going a little overboard with the new threads today, but CT has been slowed up a lot recently and could use a new injection of stuff to talk about, so why stop now?

This is a paper I wrote for a class called "Heros, Hype, and History" that looked at the evolving concepts of heroism in a historical context, and the way that they are often portrayed in the media of the time.

This particular assignment was to look at contemporary newspaper writing, looking for accounts of heroism, and to follow the course of the coverage to see how the hero was portrayed.

I completely abandoned the original assignment as ridiculous, and changed my topic with no approval (I got an A- anyway, yay) and instead looked at two opposing views of the same account.

The purpose was to demonstrate how even if we set forward a fairly objective definition of "heroism" with all its positive connotations, the adage is still true: "One man's hero is another man's villain"

Throughout history, there have been no shortage of heroes to come forward, and no shortage of villains for them to oppose. But as the famous saying goes: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The perspective from which events are judged determines the label any given person receives. The victors may write history, but in the case of the following articles, no victor has yet been found, and so we have a unique opportunity to judge one person by two perspectives, the hero and the villain.

The two articles I have chosen for this assignment are both dealing with the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian and the leader of the liberation and resistance group Hamas. The first article, “Israeli Air strike Kills Hamas Founder” is written from the perspective of Israelis, who viewed the Sheik as a person of almost utter evil, leader of a terrorist organisation, and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis due to Palestinian suicide bombings and various attacks. Involved in this report are the Sheik, a taxi-driver who witnessed the attack, one Yussef Haddad, and several other people quoted afterwards for statements, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and a Hamas official named Ismail Haniyeh.

The second article is entitled “Emotional Protests in Slaying of Sheik” and is about the outpouring of emotion from Palestinian citizens at the assassination of somebody they perceived as a spiritual leader, a religious symbol, and now, as a martyr to his faith, dying in the cause of Palestinian freedom. This article also involves the Sheik, and also quotes various Israeli and Palestinian political figures.

As a hero, Yassin meets several of the criteria discussed in this course. He had a practical enemy in the Israeli people, personified in Ariel Sharon. He had several friends and allies in president Arafat, and the other members in Hamas. He most assuredly had a quest, being the freedom of the Palestinian people from what he perceived to be the invading aggressors, the Israelis. His fatal flaw was that he was too open in his life, making it very easy for the Israeli government to know where he would be, and make it that much easier to make an assassination attempt, since he made no attempt to keep a changing schedule, or stay away from getting into routines, often a downfall of public figures who have made enemies. He also quite evidently met the requirements for a tragic death, as well as a heroic sacrifice. He was struck down coming from a mosque, where he had been saying his morning prayers, being now hailed as a martyr for his cause.

Both reporters have a definite bias in their articles. The article in which Yassin is portrayed as a hero is attempting to garner international sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people. It continually emphasizes Yassin’s role as a spiritual leader, as someone who called for moderation within Hamas, and as a man who was crippled, confined to a wheelchair. The reporter is clearly trying to make the point that this assassination was completely un-called for, and well outside the bounds of legality, as well as an act likely to cause far more violence than it stops. The proposed audience for this article is the entire international community.

Conversely, the other article portrays Yassin is a vicious butcher, and the mastermind of 112 suicide bombings resulting in the deaths of over 400 civilians. It emphasizes the brutality of Hamas’ actions, and the swarm of violent reprisals, and counter-attacks likely to occur from the killing. Its audience is also intended to be international, and is designed to defend Prime Minister Sharon’s decision in ordering Yassin assassinated.

From one perspective, Yassin was the epitome of the self-made and sacrificing, national hero. He started from a hovel, and became the leader of a large resistance group, dedicated to the freedom of an oppressed people. He was the champion of Palestinian life and freedom, funding a number of free clinics and schools, while encouraging resistance of Israeli occupation. In Israel, as well as several leading nations in the world, including the United States, Yassin is very much the anti-hero. Mastermind of bombings and attacks, he had been viewed, as CNN headline news put it, as “Evil incarnate.”

These two reports tell us many things about both our society, and the society about which the reports write. We as North Americans are very quick to pass judgement on situations, with very little information about them. The situation with Israel and Palestine is unfathomably complex, even to those who live it every day, the situation with groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah even more so. That two such differing reports of the same event could occur within respected news sources is very telling.

That it was so difficult to find a publication of an article casting the Sheik in a positive light shows the extent to which the world has already made up its mind about him. Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation in several countries including Canada and the United States. As a result, they are not allowed to maintain an internationally accessible website, and their news publications are only readily available within Palestine. All available news from the very large-scale news publications, as well as the Israeli news only mention the positive aspects of the Sheik’s life in passing, or to counterpoint their own arguments into his inherent evil. This shows a society quick to condemn, quick to take sides, and refusing, whether justified or no, to fairly judge someone perceived to be on “the wrong side.”

Within the societies to whom the articles refer, several conclusions can also be drawn. Israeli society feels its presence in Palestine; the West Bank in particular, is justified. They view attacks on the Israeli citizenry and military forces as acts of terrorism and that they are inherently wrong. Likewise, within Palestine, there is increasing support for the idea that the Israeli occupation is wrong. The frequency and destruction of attacks, protests and suicide bombings against both sides is more than enough evidence of that. Both sides feel they are in the right, and so no medium can be reached

In a situation such as this it is nearly impossible to decide which approach comes the closest to accurately describing Sheik Yassin. Certainly as the nominal leader of Hamas he is at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of many Israelis, which would lend itself to deciding that he qualifies as an anti-hero, but at the same time, many heroes are formed as resistance heroes, battling against oppressors, and from his nations point of view that’s precisely what he did.

The introduction to this paper made reference to the quote ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ and that is really what the whole concept of a hero is all about. As much as Napoleon did to increase the fortunes of France, one would be hard pressed to find such sentiments in England. Likewise Manfred von Richtofen, or Garibaldi. Even meeting the basic criteria for a hero may not be enough to gain one accolades from the world at large. Nobody can say that Sheik Yassin was anything but a hero to the Palestinian people. He was revered as a pillar of the community, and now as a martyr to his nation, working tirelessly to aid Palestinians against their oppressors. At the same time, almost as a Hitler figure, Israelis reviled him as having declared war on Israel, and on Jews specifically. This event has already been referred to as potentially a repeat of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, responsible for sparking off World War one, with respect to the far-reaching consequences. Sheik Ahmed Yassin was a hero for the Palestinian people by any standard, and as such, whether hero or villain, his killing will most certainly have far-reaching historical consequences.

I think the focus of the discussion should be along the lines of the quote from my intro "The perspective from which events are judged determines the label any given person receives. The victors may write history, but in the case of the following articles, no victor has yet been found, and so we have a unique opportunity to judge one person by two perspectives, the hero and the villain."

How important is perspectivism in the way our society functions? How much of what we are shown, and told to believe about events happening worldwide and throughout history is so strongly biased in one direction that we can't even consider the other side's viewpoint?