LEADERSHIP
This is the first time that I found my mind running out of words and ideas, making it hard for me to express my thoughts, after a while I got back to it and I began to write about a serious and important case which I’m willing to give my life for. That case is leadership or as many of you might say who is the one or the character that is good enough to become a leader? Yes, that is the question that needs an answer. I’m not going to give you advices or tell you these are the qualifications of leaders but simply I’m going to talk about my ideas out loud with you.
Leaders are human beings, or are they? I ask myself this question on a daily basis, you may say why. Well there are too sides to that question; one of them is that no human being can bear to be in their shoes, trust me it’s very hard , the other side is that no one is human enough to be a leader, it’s a 24\7 job. Yes, it is a job. It is the job of the people who decided to leave it all and be there for us, to have no life and to give us lives, to make a war if something happened to one of their citizens. That is the phrase in most of the world’s countries passports “We will make a war for this citizen” do you get how this phrase make you feel safe, respected or simply a human being.
How brave is this leader? I mean, is the blood in his veins the same as in ours? Is it easy to be a leader, to be responsible for nations, for the legacy of their ancestors and foremost for the lives of their fellow citizens and for their future?
The leader should be thoughtful enough to see his country’s stance 50 years ahead. If we search the history of all nations, we will see that people tend to have leaders to take care of them. But unfortunately some of them are bad ones because simply they are not leader material. They spend their lifetime making life difficult for their people, but it isn’t their fault it is the fault of the people who gave him this kind of authority upon them. People always tend to let anyone with some power and brain and the ability to put you in hell and make you swear its paradise take control upon them.
I realized from this search that there are two sides in each leader’s story. Most of the leaders had some circumstances which made their beautiful ideologies transfer to tyranny regimes.
I chose to write about someone that most of my generation wears shirts with his picture printed on it; he is the one and only Che Guevara. Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, Politician, author, physician, military theorist and guerrilla leader. He got his “che” when he was in Cuba being a part of the revolution and they called him “che” due to how frequent he uses the Argentine interjection “che” which means “hey” or “pal”. Let us see how people remember him after 40 years of his execution, his father says and I quote,
“The first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels, the Spanish conquistadores and the Argentinean patriots. Evidently Che inherited some of the features of our ancestors. There was something in his nature which drew him to distant wanderings, dangerous adventures and new ideas.”
The Che life and deeds still remain a contentious issue. Some view Che Guevara as a hero, for example Nelson Mandela referred to him as "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom" while Sartre described him as “not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age.” Guevara remains a beloved national hero to many in Cuba, where school children begin each morning by pledging "We will be like Che." Moreover, Guevara has been sanctified by some Bolivians who call him "Saint Ernesto", whom they pray to for assistance. Conversely, others view him as a spokesman for a failed ideology and as a ruthless executioner. Johann Hari, for example, writes that "Che Guevara is not a free-floating icon of rebellion. He was an actual person who supported an actual system of tyranny." Detractors have also theorized that in much of Latin America. Moreover, Guevara has ironically been subsumed by the capitalist consumer culture he despised.
The primary variable of this phenomenon has been a monochrome graphic of his face, which has become one of the World's most universally merchandized images, found on an endless array of items including: T-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and even bikinis. Yet, Guevara also remains an iconic figure both in specifically political contexts and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.
That was a symbol of a leader beloved by his nation and many other nations and hated by others. My last thought is that there is no perfect leader neither perfect human beings, but there is great systems and ideologies that can make a difference and there is a leader inside each one of you but you need to search inside your soul to find him. All of you can make a difference and try to make a difference; to shout when you feel that there is something wrong or something that need to be changed and not to wait for the mercy of man. I wrote this article from my heart and I hope it will find a way into yours.
Written by: Israa A. Ameen.
