This is a very complex topic. It's NOT simple, like some would have us believe.
I urge caution. This is the sort of topic that truly inflames passions, but I would personally warn us not to get too carried away. Fanaticism is at the root of a lot of humanity's ills.
Seeing sesame prop up the "achievements" of Wallace (not an attack on you, seasame), I am reminded of a critical insight we've probably all heard, but which I think needs repeating:
"Wars not make one great" -- Yoda
I don't really care about valour or commendation or submission to authority or anything of that tawdry nature. Of course, bravery is important. So is recongition for hard work. So is respect of authority when earned. But arguing for a person's character based on superficial intepretations of these things (one might call it awe) seems very dangerous indeed.
It's not that I'm remotely knowledgeable about Wallace; I'm not. That said, I did read some anecdotal stuff about atrocities he's alleged to have committed in a couple of more erudite reviews of "Braveheart" on IMDb. More than that, the film is clearly gussied up, and, in effect, also made "safer" by the presence of a Hollywood hearthrob in the leading role. Human beings crave the familiar and the known; it's what gives us comfort and assurance, like a baby picking out and responding to its mother's face. Likewise, Mel Gibson in the role of a complex historical figure, by default, says to the audience: "This guy is a hero; don't worry; you're not cheering a bad man."
The "patriot and a hero" rhetoric is equally dangerous -- and just as easily refuted. To many, Adolf Hitler was a patriot and a hero in his life; to some, he still is. Now apply that to Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Benito Mussolini, Fidel Castro and whoever else. As a wise man said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. That's not to say that Wallace was necessarily a sadist, a bigot, a tyrant or whatever else (again, I don't know enough to comment), but that definitions like "hero" and "patriot" are relative, and mean markedly different things to different people. Clearly, owed to an appalling death -- barbaric legalised torture and murder -- Wallace has become a martyr. Any criticism of a martyr can easily be taken as denigration.
Is terrorism justified? In and of itself, no. Innocent people should NEVER be killed. If someone has a beef with the people in power, they should target those people and those people alone. Even that fills me with moral dread, but at least you can see a limited rationale behind targeting, say, a right wing fascist regime, which was a very powerful point previously raised by someone in here. If you have no political voice and no platform to project one, what options do you have? Maybe one or two, but I haven't walked a mile in anyone else's shoes, so I wouldn't like to judge. Someone like Martin Luther King was a brilliant man, clearly, but he was operating in a democratic society and made appeals to egalitarian sentiments. In less civilised countries with little or no democratic infrastructure, peaceful protest isn't merely not logical, but often, if not always, impossible.
|