No messiah in sight

Do you find yourself staring at the television and pining for a good leader 8212; a person who will rise and make the world right again? Do you long for a Mandela, a Churchill, a Gandhi? Then grow up. Our political debate8230; increasingly focuses on a search for an elusive Messianic leader. This is the opposite of rational politics. This search for leaders is based on a desire to return to childhood8230; It is difficult and disturbing to try to figure out what is wrong in the world, and how to put it right. How much more tempting to simply snuffle out somebody who you think is good8230; and assume they will sort it all out. But this discourages us from8230; figuring out solutions for ourselves then going out and campaigning to make them happen. Every civilising advance in history 8212; from workers8217; rights to women8217;s rights to gay rights 8212; was won because ordinary people banded together and agitated for it8230;

There is a bigger danger still. It is that, in finding a 8220;good8221; leader, we then blindly follow them into dark and fetid places8230; Nobody needs to be reminded of Mandela8217;s stunning heroism in the fight against apartheid. But because they were so awed by that, most South Africans followed him unquestioningly as he perpetuated economic apartheid. People who are heroic in one respect can be fools or monsters in another8230; who now remembers that Gandhi killed his wife, and told Europeans to allow the Nazis to conquer our continent? The British jailed Gandhi and his wife Kasturba in 1942, and she soon developed bronchial pneumonia. But Gandhi believed 8220;Western8221; medicine was immoral. He said she should drink muddy water from the 8220;Holy8221; Ganges instead8230; he told her she would 8220;bankrupt his faith8221; and hers if she took penicillin. So she died. Six weeks later, Gandhi himself got ill with malaria 8212; and glugged down the 8220;Western8221; medicine happily8230;

What about Gandhi8217;s nemesis, Winston Churchill? Today we only remember his heroic opposition to Nazism. But while he was against gassing and tyranny in Europe, he was passionately in favour of it for 8220;uncivilised8221; human beings whose riches he wanted to seize. In the 8216;20s, Iraqis rose up against British imperial rule, and Churchill thought of a good solution: gas them. He wrote: 8220;I do not understand this squeamishness8230; I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.8221;

8230;Don8217;t misunderstand me. There are no perfect leaders, but there are always better and worse ones. I would have backed Gandhi against Churchill, and Churchill against Hitler 8212; while always condemning their flaws.

Excerpted from a comment by Johann Hari in 8216;The Independent8217;