Well it seems there is the same persistent and misguided confusion regarding the concept of bravery as there is regarding the related concept of heroism.
I was dismayed with the october 11, 2004 special issue of TIME (Asian edition). It announced on the cover in large-point lettering “Asia’s Heroes”. The cover graphic was a photograph of a ballerina in pose.
Heroic? Hardly, unless one considers the sacrifice her toes had to make for her career. I flipped to the feature piece and was informed that the 20 “heroes” profiled for the piece were selected on the basis of having done “something brave, bold or remarkable”. Well.
To me, a hero is someone who attempts to accomplish through brave actions a remarkable and worthy result. Out of 20 “heroes” were Liu Xiang (Olympic 110 m hurdles), Ichiro Suzuki (baseball player), Nigo (“Japan’s king of cool”), Shah Rukh Khan (Bollywood actor), Yuan Yuan Tan (ballerina), Anoushka Shankar (musician and daughter of Ravi), Song Aree (golfer), Muttiah Muralitharan (cricket player), and Yuuya Yagira (teen actor).
So, some athletes, a fashion leader, and a few performing artists make up roughly half the roster of Time’s “heroes” (note that I did not include in this laughable list Hong Suk Chun, the actor who was the first public figure in South Korea to admit – and pay for – his homosexuality). These farcical heroes were presented alongside people who actually did something that involved bravery and/or sacrifice, including John Wood (formerly China’s second in command at Microsoft China, who quit to bring literacy, education, schools, libraries, and scholarships to rural India, Nepal, Cambodia, and Vietnam), Pham Thi Hue (she contracted AIDS, and refused to accept the traditional shame and submission mandated in Vietnam, instead going public to educate about the disease; her business tanked and she attracted a lot of ire for it), Mukhtar Mai (Pakistani woman who was officially gang-raped, beaten, and paraded naked on the basis of “honour” because her brother had been seen walking with a girl; instead of submitting as the patriarchal swine wanted, Mai stated that she would sooner die than give up her right to justice; in spite of further threats and a culture generally hostile to women, Mai pursued her case and eventually secured punishment for six of the men responsible for her “judgement”), and so forth.
To compare the heroism, courage, and harrowing experiences of someone like Mai to those of a privileged athlete competing in branded commercial events is to me not only ridiculous, but also deeply insulting and a hideous reminder of the relentless march of stupidity.
How shall we define bravery? I submit “readiness and ability to face and endure danger, hardship, and/or pain for a cause”, barring of course masochism and similar abnormalities. Yes, the 9/11 hijackers and all the rebel fighters being massacred in Falluja deserve the label brave, as objectionable as their cause may be.
And Bush? He is, and no doubt will be until the day he dies, among the most heavily protected individuals on the planet. He doesn’t take risks, he has large reserves of people to do that for him. He even dodged his generation’s war, managing by dint of contacts and influence (not even by conscientious objection) to win a domestic post defending Texas from Alabama while worthier countrymen were shipped off to risk life and limb.
Leaders who are brave include those who actually do live with enormous risks – Arafat in Palestine, Mandela in S. Africa, Karzai in Afghanistan to name a few – not those who are kept snug and secure at the heart of the undisputed superpower, whose security operations capital expenditure is enough to run several smaller countries.
For Bush to do something brave I would expect him (as an example) to tell his various business cronies and interests “the buck stops here; I may have been elected partly thanks to you, but there’s a limit to everything”. I’d expect him to admit he --and his administration-- was wrong on (insert issue here – far too many to enumerate) and apologize, thereby risking the wrath of the democracy. That would be bravery. Being power-hungry, fanatic, ignorant, and stubborn is not bravery by any definition.