Everybody is searching for a hero on heroes' day

Who is your hero today? As we commemorate National Heroes' Day, this question keeps resonating in my mind, as it does every year on Nov. 10. While this is a valid question, I find the answer somewhat disturbing: I have no heroes to speak of, not today. Or rather, this nation is short of real heroes today.

Sure there is my mom, my dad, some of my uncles and aunties, my older brothers, older cousins, and perhaps some of my teachers at schools and lecturers at the college I went to. These are "heroes" to me because they were people I have looked up to, or at least, did earlier in life. They were the ones who, for better or for worse, helped to turn me into what I am today.

But they are a different kind of hero. They are my own very personal heroes, not the ones I could necessarily share with others, unless by coincidence, like if we had happened to have grown up to together, and gone to the same school or college.

I would also exclude Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Deborah Harris (who? you well might ask), Al Pacino, George Best, Mario Kempes, Diego Maradonna and a few other music and sports stars whom I thought were heroes during my adolescence.

Looking back, they were merely passing idols, not heroes in the real sense of the word.

On this National Heroes' Day, the question of "who is your hero?" refers to whether I think there is anyone out there, alive preferably, who deserves the title of national hero; someone whom we can all agree on, or at least enough of us, to make him or her our hero.

I suspect that most people in this country today, when asked the question, would struggle equally as much to answer the question.

Very few people in this country probably have been raised to the same heroic stature of those young men and women who fought a bloody battle in the streets of Surabaya on Nov. 10, 1945.

Fighting against heavily armed Dutch and British forces, these young men and women literally gave their lives to defend the nascent republic against the Netherlands' attempt to reimpose control over Indonesia after the end of the World War II.

These poorly armed young men and women had nothing in them but a determination to fight for their country and people. They were real heroes in every sense of the word, and I have no qualms about spending one minute's silence for them every year.

The young men and women who demonstrated against Soeharto's regime and his repressive military by occupying the House of Representatives building in Jakarta in May, 1998, must also be counted as heroes. Their action forced an abrupt end to more than 30 years of Soeharto's tyranny and suffering to the people in this country.

There are only a handful of other people who have made a real difference to this country who could count as national heroes.

But the trouble with commemorating the National Heroes Day is that the government seems to have taken on in itself the task of naming new heroes every year. So the question always comes back to haunt us, who are our national heroes. More to the point, are there still more heroes left around who we should honor?

My feeling is that we should award such honors sparingly, so that we are not saturated with too many heroes.

We have come to the point that the nation almost forgets completely the contribution of even the real heroes.

Ask any young person in Jakarta what year the Diponegoro War took place. Some will reply "1996". To many people today, the Diponegoro war refers to the bloody street battle between soldiers and thugs on the one hand, and the supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri -- a leading opposition figure then and now the country's president -- on the other, on Jl. Diponegoro in Central Jakarta.

Few of us would be able to name the years that the real Diponegoro War took place (it's between 1825 and 1830, I looked it up in case you're wondering), although we were constantly drilled during school history class.

While still on the subject of saturation, the heroes cemeteries in Jakarta, and in just about every city and town in this country, have also tainted the image of national heroes.

If you ever visit the Kalibata Heroes' Cemetery in South Jakarta, you will find buried there people whose names are more known for corruption or atrocities against their own people. They too have tainted or degraded the concept of national heroism.

The episode of 1945 and 1998 tells us that the real heroes tend to be young, and nameless, and therefore (sadly) forgotten.

It is sad to know that the courage of those students in 1998, and the sacrifices they made, have not been fully appreciated by the very people they fought for. Since Soeharto's resignation, this nation has managed to elect a bunch of clowns who are not all that much better in running the country.

Yet, it is at a time like this that our nation needs its heroes more than ever. So far, we have yet to find anyone to fulfill our need. But, perhaps, before we expect to see real heroes emerging and bring us salvation, we must first learn to recognize and respect the past real national heroes, or at least their services.

-- Eric Musa Piliang