Heroes And A Villain

Getty Images Christopher Hitchens at his home in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 2010.

The past week, just before Christmas, has seen three deaths notable on the world scene. The first was that of cancer-stricken Christopher Hitchens, the British-American writer, polemicist, agitator, wit and formidable debater. His point of view on a wide range of subjects brought him fame as well as a circle of like-minded friends and admirers.

Enough reminiscences and memorials have been written about this extraordinary man with his uncompromising moral values to make most readers familiar with both private and public details of Christopher Hitchens's life. He was very human, made errors in judgement like everyone else at times, but more than compensated for his 'averageness' in that way, by his precision-clockwork-mind addressing issues of profound social, political and religious imperatives.

Pointing other peoples' minds toward balancing their own points of view with another opinion which was capable of providing insights not available to most introspective minds seeking to sway public opinion and instill a deeper understanding of events and human-contrived ideologies associated with those events. His penetrating analysis knew few equals and his mode of expression caused both wry assent and amusement.

Another individual of some importance on the world stage was the playwright-dissident turned reluctant politician, Vaclav Havel, who responded to his country's need as a passionate patriot. He was instrumental in helping to bring down the iron-fisted rule of the Soviet Union over its satellites, and he helped guide his country Czechoslovakia toward a civil separation resulting in the emergence of two countries; the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

His inspired Velvet Revolution stood as a hopeful beacon to other countries whose unity was called into question as varying ethnicities, religions, traditions and cultures sought to become independent of one another's hegemony. He was another defender of human dignity and the absolute necessity of calling autocratic regimes to account for their trampling on human rights for their populations.

These were two stalwarts of human consciousness at the highest level; neither was fearful of placing themselves in inconvenient places, each was uncompromising in their denunciation of moral fraud and state-sponsored fear and oppression. Others will come along and in their own way attempt to fill the vacuum left by Hitchens and Havel. They may partially succeed, without the distinct flavour each of these men gave to the battle for civility, human rights, and accountability.

Last, and most certainly least of the trio, is the death of North Korea's Kim Jong-il. As the other two represented an undeniable force for good in the world, Kim Jong-il, like his father before him, and possibly inclusive of his son-and-heir, Kim Jong-un, the new reclusive tyrant of a poverty-stricken country, investing its scant treasury in militancy rather than ensuring food on the table for its residents.

Dreaded and despised by its neighbours, North Korea under Kim Jong-il became a byword for treachery and danger in Asia. It has militarily threatened South Korea and Japan. Despite that its 24-million+ people live subsistence lives and hunger stalks the land, funding has gone toward establishing a nuclear program and to arming its military, the fifth-largest standing army in the world.

It has that distinction in common with Pakistan, incapable of providing for its indigent population, but invested in nuclear technology; as an un-neighbourly belligerent; both with their own arsenals of nuclear bombs and ballistics delivery systems. Pakistan was the fount of information on nuclear technology that led to North Korea's success in achieving nuclear proficiency.

And in a truly nasty interpretation of 'paying it forward', North Korea helped arm Syria, Libya and Egypt with missile technology, as well as being closely involved with Iran's nuclear development. When Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear facility in 2007, built with North Korea's scientific expertise, ten north Korean nuclear scientists were killed.

It is, of course, wishful thinking to hope that North Korea will somehow become a civil, decent society dedicated to the well-being of its people, and extending friendship to South Korea, apologizing in the process for its most recent deadly attacks on its neighbour, setting aside, by some miracle, its belligerence once and for all. China doubtless prefers the kind of stability it knows best on its border.

On the other hand, even China would gain substantially, should Kim Jong-un somehow be inspired to become a confidently humane leader to his people, who are prepared to worship him whether or not that occurs, but who, if famine continues to decimate the population as it did under his father, will attempt to find refuge in China, a country which would prefer they not.