Professor Bill Lindeke
“We don’t need another hero”
Tina Turner
Surely by now people are tired of reading my opinions. They are only offered here, because a long-time friend and colleague, Kae, asked for a contribution to this Heroes’ Day project. Heroes’ Day is an important time for Namibians from all corners of the country to pause, even if briefly, to ponder the immense journey that brought the people of this wonderful country to its current position.
It is a reality check for those that did not live through the experiences that left such raw scars on the people of this cherished land. In the quest for a better future for all, these past experiences are sometimes under valued. Heroes’ Day helps maintain some perspective.
As may be clear from the initial tone, heroes are not such a big deal for me. Accomplishments matter most, and they are usually achieved by ordinary people doing the best they can, under whatever circumstances.
It is not that I have no experiences with heroes. Much of my formative youth was spent watching the U.S. Civil Rights struggle of the early 1960s unfold on television. The marches, strikes, demonstrations and speeches were embedded in my conscious being and formative values. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech still brings goose flesh.
Nonetheless, democratic notions emphasising the accomplishments of ordinary people are preferred more. These meagre scratches are no more profound than could be gained from the average villager or person on the street in Namibia. But this Day is about heroes, so let’s muse about that subject.
The Chinese in various times in their grand cultural history have engaged in a debate about character that may be of use in these considerations. In the 1960s this debate was especially intense with respect to how characters in literature and other cultural expressions should be portrayed. The debate was couched in terms of “middle characters”.
In this cultural debate, orthodox supporters of the regime argued against these so-called middle characters. For them good characters needed to be really good : “all good, wholly good, nothing but good”. Likewise, bad characters must be all bad, wholly bad, nothing but bad. In contrast to this official view were the intellectuals and artists.
For them such portrayals should not serve ideology so exclusively, but rather should serve art and truth. Like the ancient Greeks, they might say that all characters, except the gods, have flaws and blemishes. This is similar to the clich