Where’s the fire of heroes now?

Anna Hazare

When Kisana Baburao Hazare, the leader of India Against Corruption, appeared on TV last year, I at once found the hero I had been looking for. In him, India’s society was massaged in the warmth of the fire-conserving ashes. To heal her wounds, our society needs more of such warm ashes. But where can we find them?

We have a rich history which, unfortunately, we rarely exploit fully and profitably. For me, that may explain the retrogression we see around; where once was a leader and progress, all of a sudden there is no one to animate others to action. And so we fall into stagnation, if not retrogression altogether.

In my history folder you find names like Mandela, Nyerere, Cardinal Malula and Mahatma Gandhi, and so on. In them we have a rich and inspiring history useful for our society today, but it is disappointingly unutilised. What a pity! Isn’t it time we learnt to relate to history in a more active way?

I needn’t introduce Nelson Mandela to South African readers.

Julius Nyerere, teacher (Mwarimu) and politician of Tanzania, a Catholic for whom a cause for sainthood has been introduced, surely was an exemplary politician. He disproved adages that describe politics as invariably a dirty game for dirty people. Nyerere’s life proves by his life that it is a service, in fact, a possible brick for sainthood.

Nyerere and Mandela are shining examples of presidents who left the seat of honour to become ordinary citizens, though of course still respected. In Africa, we do not have many models of leaders who leave power willingly, unconstrained by external pressures such as unpopularity or constitutional barrier. And it’s not just so in Africa: witness the vicious, if not insulting, cycle into which Russia has fallen.

The late Cardinal Joseph Malula, known as “Le père d’Eglise du Congo” (the Father the Church of Congo), has left abundant traces and echoes that testify that here lived a man who in his pastoral orientations and reflections sought to enable Congolese Catholics to own and live the Christian faith as their own. Malula is a household name in Congo, especially in Kinshasa.

What then is this I call the problem of relating to history? Precisely this: in the speeches today we find constant reference to such icons, what they did and what they said. But look at the action of those who quote them! Their behaviour often is diametrically opposed to the inspirations of such figures.

The true honour we can bestow upon this rich history, and indeed the profit we can gain, does not reside so much in how we eulogise our heroes or repeat their celebrated statements or even observe a day in their remembrance. It is when we keep burning the fires which they set ablaze.

For that, there must be fire-conserving ashes, or everything grows tepid and we die of cold.

The people we call heroes rose to the challenges of their time. Those challenges may be different from ours today. Where are our heroes today, moving forward and rising to the challenges of today, we need new people who embody their fighting spirit. Where are they?

Mediocrity has set in. Whatever happened to the fire?

For this reason I regard Kisana Baburao Hazare of India with great esteem.  Popularly known as Anna Hazare, he is an Indian social activist who made headlines worldwide for his anti-corruption movement in India last year, using non-violent methods like Mahatma Gandhi, to whom he has been compared.

Doesn’t South Africa too need a new Mandela for its challenges today? Doesn’t Tanzania need a new Nyerere? Doesn’t the African Church need a new Malula?

Whatever happened to the fire of such brave men? Or am I just being pessimistic?