Monday, April 05, 2004
No such thing as an unflawed hero
Lately, I've been reading Patrick O'Brien's series of novels following the careers of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the Royal Navy. (You may be familiar with these characters from the movie Master and Commander). Both men are wonderfully drawn flawed heroes, and seem all the more real for it. That's the only way heroes come.
But it's always been hard for me to accept this, and so I have few heroes. I don't admire many presidents or Supreme Court Justices or Congressmen. But maybe my standards are just unreasonable.
In any case, today two of my real-life heroes were in the news. They are Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda who lead a rebellion/invasion against the genocide of 1994, then imposed a remarkably successful reconciliation government. But he is not without flaws. Two million Hutus responsible for the genocide fled to the Congo, where they refused to disarm and generally sowed chaos. Kagame's pursuit of these groups helped plunge Southern Africa into years of war. Nor has Kagame shown any eagerness to relinquish power. But Kagame didn't just save his people; he formed a multiethnic government and has worked to put the ethnic violence of Rwanda firmly in the past. Compare his actions to the cowardly refusal of the US to allow any UN peacekeepers to be sent to Rwanda to prevent the genocide. Fearing a repeat of Somalia, in which the killing and multilation of US soldiers embarrassed the Clinton admin, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright made it clear no UN effort, with or without the US, would be allowed.
This brings up a second Rwandan hero, General Romeo Dallaire, a UN peacekeeper who begged for as few as 5000 men to prevent the massacres. Since the Rwandan genocide was carried about by gangs with machetes, Dallaire was confident even a small armed force could prevent it. Had he been heeded, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis would have been saved, and the Congo war likely prevented. Dallaire retired to Canada after his failure, and sank into depression. So I was pleased to see he returned to Rwanda to for the first time in ten years. Kagame admitted today that he considered attacking Dallaire's forces, ordered into inactivity, to acquire their weapons.
In a totally different area, I saw an acamedic hero, Paul Krugman, speak today on the politics of inequality. Nothing really new, but a few good lines. It's remarkably how much the events of the last few years have shifted the discussion of economic inequality from economic causes (skills-biased technological change, trade) to political ones (partisanship, alliances of the religious and economic right, tax policy, campaign contributions by the very rich, redistricting, etc). Where will it all end? Krugman fears a return to the "age of the Great Gatsby", or even the robber barons. What would stop it? Well, since the benefits of Bush tax policy accrue mostly to the top 1%, or even the top 0.1%, Krugman thinks we may eventually get the March of 100,000 Assistant Vice-Presidents...
It is a bit frightening that the real core constitutencies of the GOP, the ruling party, are CEOs and fundamentalist Christians who think the world is going to end. But it does explain why they are partying like there is no tomorrow....
But it's always been hard for me to accept this, and so I have few heroes. I don't admire many presidents or Supreme Court Justices or Congressmen. But maybe my standards are just unreasonable.
In any case, today two of my real-life heroes were in the news. They are Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda who lead a rebellion/invasion against the genocide of 1994, then imposed a remarkably successful reconciliation government. But he is not without flaws. Two million Hutus responsible for the genocide fled to the Congo, where they refused to disarm and generally sowed chaos. Kagame's pursuit of these groups helped plunge Southern Africa into years of war. Nor has Kagame shown any eagerness to relinquish power. But Kagame didn't just save his people; he formed a multiethnic government and has worked to put the ethnic violence of Rwanda firmly in the past. Compare his actions to the cowardly refusal of the US to allow any UN peacekeepers to be sent to Rwanda to prevent the genocide. Fearing a repeat of Somalia, in which the killing and multilation of US soldiers embarrassed the Clinton admin, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright made it clear no UN effort, with or without the US, would be allowed.
This brings up a second Rwandan hero, General Romeo Dallaire, a UN peacekeeper who begged for as few as 5000 men to prevent the massacres. Since the Rwandan genocide was carried about by gangs with machetes, Dallaire was confident even a small armed force could prevent it. Had he been heeded, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis would have been saved, and the Congo war likely prevented. Dallaire retired to Canada after his failure, and sank into depression. So I was pleased to see he returned to Rwanda to for the first time in ten years. Kagame admitted today that he considered attacking Dallaire's forces, ordered into inactivity, to acquire their weapons.
In a totally different area, I saw an acamedic hero, Paul Krugman, speak today on the politics of inequality. Nothing really new, but a few good lines. It's remarkably how much the events of the last few years have shifted the discussion of economic inequality from economic causes (skills-biased technological change, trade) to political ones (partisanship, alliances of the religious and economic right, tax policy, campaign contributions by the very rich, redistricting, etc). Where will it all end? Krugman fears a return to the "age of the Great Gatsby", or even the robber barons. What would stop it? Well, since the benefits of Bush tax policy accrue mostly to the top 1%, or even the top 0.1%, Krugman thinks we may eventually get the March of 100,000 Assistant Vice-Presidents...
It is a bit frightening that the real core constitutencies of the GOP, the ruling party, are CEOs and fundamentalist Christians who think the world is going to end. But it does explain why they are partying like there is no tomorrow....
