This week my attention was drawn to two very different men, but who shared one thing, the courage of their convictions.
The first is well known and who sadly died. Charlton Heston, a man who filled many of my Sunday afternoons with epic scenes of bravery and grandeur, as El Cid in Spain or General Gordon in Khartoum.
Other Epics such as Ben Hur, and Eco movies such as The Omega Man (recently badly remade with Will Smith), and Soylent Green (maybe the harshest warning to mankind about our future ever filmed) also filled my consciousness and imagination. Because of this association as "Epic King", people forget that he put in many very fine performances in smaller films such as Touch of Evil, The War Lord, Will Penny and The Mountain Men to name just a few, as well as notable stage performances.
Of course he is now more well known as a supporter of Gun ownership in the US, and in truth although I have blogged on the Second Amendment, I accept that at 90 guns for every 100 citizens in the US, it would make no difference if gun laws were changed now.
However I prefer to think of him as a man of his convictions, such as being a notable white supporter of Dr Martin Luther King and the 1960s Civil Rights movement, because he believed that "all men were created equal", and before many Democrats or liberals, he was marching at the forefront of the protests. A not inconsiderable risk for such a notable white supporter of a national black movement.
He stuck to his political convictions all his life, despite their fluctuating popularity, from the Actors Guild, through to the National Rifle Association, he held to his beliefs, and that takes courage and he famously said that the government would have to take his rifle "From my cold, dead hands!". It wasn't his politics that moved, its was the politicians that moved around him.
The second man of conviction is Ragip Zarakolu, a Turkish publisher, who along with his late wife Ayşenur Zarakolu publishes books examining those aspects of Turkish history or life that are hidden and censored. In a country that claims to be "European" and fit to join the EU, this should not be a notable thing, but in fact the Justice Ministry in Turkey recently revealed that 1,700 people were tried under Article 301 ("insulting Turkishness") in 2006 alone.
Most of these cases have involved comments on the Armenian massacres, which despite overwhelming evidence and testimony the Turkish state denies and imprisons anyone who offers a contrary view.
The fact that a country that claims to be as European as Sweden or Denmark, can prosecute over 1,700 writers for "insulting Turkishness", is an irony that obviously bypasses the Muslim mind, but because they do, and writers such as Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, get murdered, means that it still takes considerable courage to continue to try and shine a light into the dark recesses of the Turkish nations psyche. Mrs Zarakolu spent two years in prison for these beliefs in the 1990's.
He continues with his efforts, and only recently had another court appearance under article 301, and he has vowed to continue, while other Turkish writers have all fallen silent under the prosecutions.
Different men, different causes, same courage.
The first is well known and who sadly died. Charlton Heston, a man who filled many of my Sunday afternoons with epic scenes of bravery and grandeur, as El Cid in Spain or General Gordon in Khartoum.
Other Epics such as Ben Hur, and Eco movies such as The Omega Man (recently badly remade with Will Smith), and Soylent Green (maybe the harshest warning to mankind about our future ever filmed) also filled my consciousness and imagination. Because of this association as "Epic King", people forget that he put in many very fine performances in smaller films such as Touch of Evil, The War Lord, Will Penny and The Mountain Men to name just a few, as well as notable stage performances.
Of course he is now more well known as a supporter of Gun ownership in the US, and in truth although I have blogged on the Second Amendment, I accept that at 90 guns for every 100 citizens in the US, it would make no difference if gun laws were changed now.
However I prefer to think of him as a man of his convictions, such as being a notable white supporter of Dr Martin Luther King and the 1960s Civil Rights movement, because he believed that "all men were created equal", and before many Democrats or liberals, he was marching at the forefront of the protests. A not inconsiderable risk for such a notable white supporter of a national black movement.
He stuck to his political convictions all his life, despite their fluctuating popularity, from the Actors Guild, through to the National Rifle Association, he held to his beliefs, and that takes courage and he famously said that the government would have to take his rifle "From my cold, dead hands!". It wasn't his politics that moved, its was the politicians that moved around him.
The second man of conviction is Ragip Zarakolu, a Turkish publisher, who along with his late wife Ayşenur Zarakolu publishes books examining those aspects of Turkish history or life that are hidden and censored. In a country that claims to be "European" and fit to join the EU, this should not be a notable thing, but in fact the Justice Ministry in Turkey recently revealed that 1,700 people were tried under Article 301 ("insulting Turkishness") in 2006 alone.
Most of these cases have involved comments on the Armenian massacres, which despite overwhelming evidence and testimony the Turkish state denies and imprisons anyone who offers a contrary view.
The fact that a country that claims to be as European as Sweden or Denmark, can prosecute over 1,700 writers for "insulting Turkishness", is an irony that obviously bypasses the Muslim mind, but because they do, and writers such as Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, get murdered, means that it still takes considerable courage to continue to try and shine a light into the dark recesses of the Turkish nations psyche. Mrs Zarakolu spent two years in prison for these beliefs in the 1990's.
He continues with his efforts, and only recently had another court appearance under article 301, and he has vowed to continue, while other Turkish writers have all fallen silent under the prosecutions.
Different men, different causes, same courage.
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