This is a very important question. Another pertinent question would be if we must learn to accept criticism about national heroes? There are lots of examples similar to the above mentioned. The situation is even more complicated when there are no national heroes, as is the case in most European countries, but only one national hero, as is the case in many non European countries.

فعلا يحتاج إلى إعادة تقييم ولكن يجب أن يكون ذلك على وفق أسس موضوعية

Can you be specific, Ardian, and Wahag, yes of course objectivity is essential.

Yess of course Stanley. What I wanted to point out is that in European countries there is a tradition of many national heroes, while in countries, like Albania, Turkey, and many other countries is predominant the monoheroic model, i.e. only one national hero, that enjoys special official status. In these countries exist specific laws that penalize challenging the national hero, such insulting, or not keeping up with the official narrative of the national hero. Evidently, it is a different model, and a much harsher academic environment.

Yes, this is evident all around the world with many heroes. Therefore it presents an academic investigation I suggest. One thought-although this does not present an overall answer-is what are they trying to hide?

I think that it depends on the specific case. Sometimes, they just don't want to change, but sometimes seems that the image of the hero serves to the established paradigm or even to the establishment to keep its grasp of the society.

But that means-your last point-that certain behaviours are approved of. When a hero is idealised then we are dealing with other paradigms surely? They are no longer of course a mover, of sorts, in history but in effect history itself.

Yess. Exactly this is the point.

Let's consider Churchill. Many I suggest would be indifferent to his behaviour over India, which he probably saw as a British possession (an object)and many at the time would have seen the Indians involved equally as dispensible, then it confirms his ruthlessness/seen as a virtue. It validates that characteristic. But underneath, in the cultural streams and rivers we all paddle in, racism and errant behaviour towards the Other would be on one or two levels accepted.

Churchill, I think, has been challenged from some authors. I would like to ask, how many British personalities of the past are held as national heroes, and which one of them is considered as the most heroic of all heroes?

Can't say offhand. Schools now teach the heroism of black people such as Mary Seacole who travelled independently to nurse soldiers in the Crimean War, but her role has been a tad exaggerated-even if yes she is worth memorialising. She was mixed and never considered herself black. She actually considered herself British also not Jamaican.

I think it varies. History teaching in fact creates heroes, etc. My heroes since a boy were military figures but in my teens mainly literary figures. I leave heroics to myself rather than admire them in others.

I do not believe that this is a matter of academics. Academics are critics. Being a critic is not the natural state of man. The information is not sterile. It comes to us from sources beyond contemplation and these sources are real. Contemplation occurs after a physiological process has occurred. The mob mentality is a very real thing that must be addressed when dealing with a subject like this one. The idea that everyone that celebrates a person of the status of Admiral Nelson, is subject to a mob mentality is infantile.

The British academic of African descent, Afua Hirsch, seems to believe that she actually has a dog in this fight. I disagree. Is she a princess of some sort? They have their own problems. She could not have it better than she actually does today. Her experiences in Africa as a journalist should be enough to make that clear to her. There is a vast difference between the ability to deconstruct and to then reconstruct the image of a person or a thing when the past is gone. Why does she really want to destroy what has enabled her to become what she is today? If this tension “ frustrates Hirsch,” perhaps she can change humanity in its entirety. There is a psychology to this academic disease that is becoming a rampant plague on the world. It has become the avant-garde of academics and others that prefer destabilization to stability so that they may become recognized. If this women actually had anything significant to share with the world it would not be in this category. The past has happened, and it will not change. Britain’s present is very different from the past

Horrifying to believe that a women of color, a mixed race women, in England, would be asked where she is from and then extrapolate that to become a part of her unappreciated memoir. Women, race, and religion are the most destabilizing things in academia and journalism today. People claiming to be journalists and historians have become dupes and remain so.

The statement from Stanley Wilkin, who posted this discussion, ends with the sentence; “Is it not time for all cultures to reassess their pasts?” The new or different factors that come with a reassessment are the present not the past. The certainty of uncertainty does exist. I believe that Afua Hirsch is neglecting humanity and does not recognize it as a real thing.

Agreeing with you, I would add that this is linked to the deconstructionist mania that tends to justify every step against the existing cultures. There are risks in both directions. If we think that everything is right and does not need reconsideration or that nothing is right and everything needs to be deconstructed.

I disagree, Harold. Instability is always to be valued and sought as it predicts change. I think that perhaps you have not identified the merits here. Is it because as a coloured woman you feel she is ungrateful?

By identifying what is or was wrong in the behaviour of people in the past we can access what is wrong in those of the present, and thereby try not to repeat it or allow others to repeat such behaviour. We need to reassess what is heroic and what isn't, what we should feel pride in and what not. The popularists of today express the behaviour of the past, of those who perhaps were not popularists. This does not mean Nelson or Churchill is thought less well of because in essence we are reassessing the great figures of today, not yesterday.

For example, Nelson came from a relatively lowly background and yet made it to the very top in a society where class was associated with merit. He was extraordinarily brave. He was, according to the Duke of Wellington, gurrulous silly and vain but had a soft spot for his men, was devoid, unlike Wellington, of arrogance. He was disabled, yet thought nothing of it. He was an extraordinary strategist and took well-considered risks.

Churchill was not a first-rate academic, not even second rate. His father went mad through syphillis. He was plump and plain, but demonstrated extreme bravery in battle. He was persistent and determined. He was, on occasion, a brilliant writer.

We all contain that dichotomy and better it should be recognised in national heroes, so more easily recognised in ourselves.

Yes we must. But depends to what age group you address such deconstructions. At grammar school level there is a need to develop a certain form of patriotism and to some extent "national heroes" are important. Moving towards high school and university levels, the more mundane aspects of great personalities might be brought into the picture. Adults, in general, are able to understand the complexities of human nature. However, some would not be prepared to accept that "national heroes" do have their dark sides.

The point, however, is to what extent such deconstructions do serve an explanatory purpose and contribute to a better understanding of historical processes or events. Small biographical or intimate details do not serve much to the historical reconstruction of an epoch. Historical gossip, sometimes, serves well less gifted scholars.

Dragos, well put.

In the UK though there is a process of inclusion, which I agree with as long as history-its truth-is kept, not just another imbalance sought for political reasons.

Dear Stanley,

I fully agree with you. However, I do not see a danger as far as the most developed and sophisticated historiographies (France, Germany, UK, US - in alphabetical order) are concerned. Scholarship is produced according to high standards and disseminated through various channels, and reaches wide audiences. The problem appears when it comes to identity-based populism (like in Eastern Europe), where history is heavily used for political purposes. Populist arguments in the UK or US are rarely based on history, for the time being at least. This is why I think that is not really a problem with deconstruction of historical myths in a serious historiography with established institutions, professional journal etc.

In my country, Romania, there was a huge scandal initiated by politicians when the first alternative history textbooks were introduced after 1989 to replace the single and mandatory history textbook inherited from the communist epoch. The scandal broke out exactly because national heroes (the fathers of the nation - we don't have a mother of the nation, that's it - Dacian King Decebal and Roman Emperor Trajan, as well as the first alleged unifier of the country, the medieval ruler MIchael the Brave) were not properly represented as national heroes in one of the textbooks.

Dragos (excellent English by the way), I can understand their concerns as after being part of a greater whole under USSR based communism Eastern European countries were searching for a new identity, the previous one of course ruptured. These seem relatively harmless unless the heroes are associated with negative, grandiose attributes.

If one of your recent or present politicians is then accorded a host of magnificent qualities, especially both unlikely and unfeasible, which are ascribed to these past historical and quasi-historical figures, then you need to worry.

As someone who has had my national heroes reassessed by an occupying power (Soviet Union) and an alien ideology (Marxism-Leninism), I can say it is only a bad thing. Now, some 30 years after they pushed off, we are still putting the pieces together in Hungary and indeed, in all former East Bloc countries. Destroying a nations' heroes causes the people to lose their self-respect and become easy victims of any "-ism", such as consumerism. I believe it is a very bad idea.

Christopher, yes this I understand. In such circumstances its wise to encourage national years of old perhaps.

I do understand you point, which I think is important and necessary, but I think that's best left to academic historians and scholarly debate. The problem with 'debunking' national heroes is that people need other heroes instead. It's a complex problem, I'll grant you!

I agree. The question was devised to look at the wrong type as national heroes and the need for care. Who do you choose as a national hero? a beneficient character or a mass murderer?

Even that question is tricky, as -- especially as we go back into the past -- you might well find a 'great commander' who was no humanitarian, yet was a good administrator etc. Most of the medieval kings might be seen as 'murderers', yet were good for the country. An English example might be Henry VIII, whose personal and court life was rather awful, but who laid the foundation of English and later British greatness. And one could list examples from different places and cultures.