Battlefield Iraq: A War in Search of Heroes

They are three of the most unlikely candidates for heroism. A 56-year-old man still living in the shadow of his not particularly distinguished father and even now widely lampooned as a clown forever stepping on verbal banana peels. A prime minister oozing the orthodontic charm of a used car salesman, who''s earned himself the sobriquet of Uncle Sam''s valet. And a murderous dictator who has oppressed his people for decades, waged bloody wars with neighbours, and now seeks to crown himself with the fiery halo of martyrdom.
It would be funny if it weren''t so tragic. Where have all the real heroes gone? Whatever warts history later discovered, there once were heroes. Roosevelt in his wheelchair; Churchill with his indomitable V sign and pugnacious cigar; Tito, from an obscure country most had never heard of; our own Nehru, anointed heir of the Father of the Nation. Icons all, for more than one generation.
What is it to be a hero? Is it just to project a larger-than-life image? If so, North Korea''s ''Beloved Leader'' would be a hero instead of what he is seen to be outside his own domain: A manic Asian punk rocker with nukes. Many would say that to be a hero is to know fear and somehow learn to cope with it and carry on. In this sense, hundreds and millions of anonymous people the world over — the poor and the dispossessed and the silenced — are unsung heroes. But we''re talking about public heroes, heroes in the Shakespearean — or the Mahabharat — style. Exemplars, role models who can lead and from whom we can learn how better to "shoulder the sky".
The central tenet of such heroism might be summed up in Bradley''s phrase: Character is destiny. Our fate, what happens to us, as individuals or as communities, is not happenstance. Nor is it the mechanistic determinism of genetic legacy, the clockwork ticking of DNA molecules. Who we are, or rather, who we choose to be, determines our narrative. Not what happens to us, but what meaning we give to what happens, and by doing so imposing a will and a shape upon the blind sands of chance. The heroes we put on pedestals (from which they''re often summarily dislodged) in effect tell us: You too can be the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. Or put in contemporary ad-speak for a cellular phone service: .
The hi-tech reference is apt. For it gives rise to the question: Can heroism survive the irresistible advance of technology? Heroism — proper, stage-managed heroism — needs its propaganda. But it requires the chiaroscuro of alternating limelight and mystery. Movietone News, not CNN. Andy Warhol remarked that television would make everyone famous (read heroic) for 15 minutes. TV''s in-your-face voyeurism strips heroism of its mystique, its sepia ambiguity. In action replay the hero can be seen to fumble, contradict himself, pick his nose.
War is often seen — erroneously so, say those who have been in one — as the ultimate crucible of heroism. Here too modern technology plays saboteur. All the grit-jawed ''heroism'' of the US military establishment could not withstand the cortege of televised body bags from Vietnam which turned each American living room into a vicarious mortuary. But surely hi-tech wars can be fought sans body bags — at least on the side of those who have the superior technology? Gulf War I was the first of its kind: A remote-control war, fought — for the Americans at least — on the safety of a computer screen. Heroics? Playing Pacman could be more hazardous. Gulf War II seems to be a lot messier, with the threat of extensive and perhaps prolonged close combat. A libretto suited to the operatics of high heroism.
Particularly when for the first time in history you have ''embedded'' media persons to record acts of valour. But there appears to be an unforeseen glitch. The conquering hero needs to be hailed by those in whose name he has performed his acts, shown grace under fire: The grainy documentaries of World War II showed liberated civilian populations — women, children, old men — greeting Allied troops with embraces, kisses, bottles of wine, the gift of absolution which redeems the carnage of war.
This has yet to happen in Iraq. Much though they might hate and fear Saddam, the local populace seems even more fearful of its self-styled liberators. So who then gets to wear the white hat of the good guys, the black hat of the villains? Eventually, of course, the ''embedded'' journalists of the ''willing coalition'' will manage to unearth Saddam''s atrocities, real and hyper-real, in a replay of the Nuremburg trials whose ghastly exhibits of Nazi death camps overwhelmed the silent scream of Hiroshima, mon amour.
But that''s still in the future. In the comforting perspective of a born-again Marshall Plan for West Asia which has yet to be thought of, let alone funded. Right now, the dazzling pyrotechnics of war, a rage in heaven of fire and steel, are reflected fleetingly on the lens of TV cameras, seared forever onto the eyes of children who make the collateral sacrifice that is the price of a just crusade, a game for would-be heroes. Who never ask themselves the simple question: When the children are gone, to whom will we tell of what we did, and why? Whom will we tell of our heroism?