Things used to be so easy. It used to be that a hero would come riding over the hills, wearing bright, shiny armor, ready to do battle with a terrible dragon that threatened the local village. The knight would ride in on his white horse and valiantly defeat the dragon to the joy of the villagers, who would then throw a huge celebration in his honor.
So what the heck happened? Where did all the heroes go? What happened to the shiny armor and the white horse and the cheers of the villagers?
There are some who believe that heroes no longer exist, that they have passed away along with fairy tales into a world of make-believe, and all that is left is a harsh, hero-less reality.
I, however, being the hopeless romantic that I am, think otherwise, though I certainly sympathize with these pessimists' jaded vision. After all, can you blame them?
It seems society is almost determined not to see the true heroes of today's world, perhaps because we are too busy looking for someone who wears shiny armor and rides around on a horse.
For example, if a person were to set up foundation to raise money to support health care in underdeveloped countries such as Haiti, wouldn't he be considered a hero? Especially if he used his own money to start the foundation, and in the end he amassed more than twenty billion dollars? Surely then he would be cheered by the people of the world, just as the knight was cheered by the villagers?
It seems to be quite the opposite actually, for many people of this world have nothing but jeers for the man who started such a foundation because his name is Bill Gates.
Bill Gates created such a foundation to combat the awful dragon that is poor health care in third world countries. And yet critics still look for ways to bombard him. Some say, for example, that he did it just to make himself look good, since Microsoft Corporation is facing difficult legal issues stemming from anti-trust investigations. Others say 25 billion dollars isn't enough, as the richest man in the world can surely spare some more to help poor, disease-ridden people.
I say, however, that he is a hero, because he is helping people that the world seems to have forgotten.
So what if his motives are questionable? So what if he is doing it to make himself look good? I can assure you, the people of Haiti do not care — what matters to them is that they become healthy once again. Gates' money is helping them to do just that.
So what if he gave only $25 billion, even his fortune is estimated to be somewhere between $40 billion and $90 billion? What he gave is more than ten percent of his personal wealth to save a part of the world that no one else would.
"Fine then," the pessimists say, "heroes still exist, but they are restricted to those people whose personal wealth is in the billions of dollars, and we all know such people are pretty hard to find."
Well then, consider Mary Clarke, a Beverly Hills woman who was used to luxuries and riches, but who gave them all up to don the black habit of a nun and cross the border into Tijuana, Mexico. She lives even now in a Mexican prison, ministering to the prisoners.
According to The Arizona Republic, Mary Clarke, now known as Sister Antonia, "provides aspirin, eyeglasses, false teeth, and bail to thousands of petty thieves and other impoverished convicts." She also "counsels rapists and drug traffickers as well as the guards who carry automatic weapons."
She even heroically stopped a riot by "walking into a hail of bullets to make the shooting stop."
Surely she can be considered a hero?
The problem with finding heroes these days is that the world seems to be unable to recognize them. Heroes get no publicity. This is illustrated by the fact that you probably have never heard of Sister Antonia before today.
Second of all, those heroes that do get publicity are often criticized in some way, as Bill Gates is.
Of ccourse, these are just two examples of unsung heroes — there are many others.
The mother who leaves behind everything she owns and takes her son away from the clutches of an abusive husband, the drug-addict who decides once and for all to drop the addiction and seek a better life and the elementary school teacher who could have chosen a more "lucrative" profession are all heroes that the world will never hear about. But they still exist.
These people don't wear armor or ride on white horses into battle. They don't get to hear the cheers of the villagers as they succeed. But the dragons they face are still very formidable enemies, and the mere fact that they take them on makes these people heroes.
Because of unsung heroes like these, the world is very much a better place.
Jonathan Winkler is a mathematics sophomore. Reach him at jonathan.winkler@asu.edu.
