My most provocative and soulful moments during trips abroad happen when I have a close encounter with the spirit of a fantastic leader, a unique human being who liberates his country and its people from physical and mental slavery.
Recently I came face to face with the greatness of the late Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh as I stood before his mausoleum on a gray rainy day in Hanoi.
Instantly I felt reverence, admiration and gratitude for “Uncle Ho,” a skinny old man dressed in loose village clothes, flashing a poor man’s smile, his flowingly long white goatee hanging limp as if to symbolize his sacrificial love and absolute service for the Vietnamese people. This frail-looking man with a high forehead is the single most heroic person who caused the downfall of Western colonizers’ predatory rule in Asia.
Ho’s ill-equipped Vietcong guerillas defeated the mighty French Occupation Army at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the tech-savvy American armed forces with the fall of Saigon in 1975. These two wars shocked the world for the brutality and carnage inflicted by Western powers on the village people of Vietnam.
In India 30 years ago, I experienced the same sense of awe when I visited an old wooden house in Bombay where the great Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi stayed. “Bapu” [Father] Gandhi accomplished what seemed to be an impossible task: that of uniting the hearts and minds of people living in a complex society composed of a multi-layered caste system which pre-destined injustice and prevented social mobility within the vast Indian society. The problem was compounded by rigid sectarianism within many religious sects that bred intolerance and fanaticism. All these complexities existed under the imperial hubris of India’s British masters.
Gandhi had two difficult audiences: Indians engaged in religious and social conflicts, and British colonial sahibs brandishing their style of English chutzpa.
Gandhi’s big idea? Unflinching moral suasion. His implementation strategy? Civil disobedience. Personal sacrifice through days of fasting to dramatize his protest against the injustice of British rule. His private and public persona? Ascetic, spiritual, devoid of material trappings. His tone of voice that of a peacemaker, His secure, turn-the-other-cheek calmness. His achievement? Independence for India in 1947. His legacy? Pride, honor and dignity for all Indians.
Uncle Ho and Mahatma Gandhi’s emancipating and transformational leadership styles captivate and inspire to make the whole nation feel proud and dignified. Their pro-people ideology and uniquely individual magnetism create adherents who think and act as one—a character transformation, which makes me green with envy. How I wish a leader of human virtues will emerge from our dark landscape, someone who can emancipate us from our mediocre politics of self-destruction and transform our people into a mature constituency.
Ho Chi Minh and Mohandas Gandhi were not beholden to political blocks or vested interest groups. Ho Chi Minh and Gandhi broke rules. They imbued their leadership not only with visionary seal but also with the transcendent and spiritual faculties innate to Asians.
The seeds for social transformation planted by Ho Chi Minh and Gandhi are now bearing fruits in a new globalized economy.
North and South Vietnam, formerly with conflicting political ideologies (communist North and democratic South) are now united as a socialist republic exercising a strong political will. Government officials are constantly aware of Ho Chi Minh’s admonition that uplifting the people of Vietnam is a continuous self improvement struggle for both the government and the governed. Vietnam is now a fast-tracked country, second only to China, en route to become a powerhouse economy in the Asian century.
Gandhi’s India is securely moored in democratic institutions. Its huge manpower population has intensified the acquisition of cutting-edge knowledge in information technology, medical science, mass transport and uniquely niched lifestyle products derived from the rich Indian culture. India and Vietnam are in sync with the globalization paradigms.
We had a glimpse of Ho’s and Gandhi’s leadership virtues in our late President Ramon Magsaysay, an authentic man for the masses, a heroic guerilla fighter, and savior of democracy. There was also genuine and palpable patriotism in Luis Taruc, that poor and humble khaki-clad village revolutionary obsessed with uplifting the lives of the poor farmers. But fate denied Magsaysay and Taruc the tenure to fulfill their dreams of pride and dignity for the Filipino people.
What’s our prospect for a great leader beyond 2010, someone who will liberate us from a sick and dysfunctional government? Extremely dark, if the current crop of the pretenders are it. They are all run-of-the-mill politicians, behaviorally subservient to a political culture of warped values and a graft-ridden system. They will only perpetuate our never-ending spasms of collective hopelessness and injustice. They’ve damned us before. They’ll damn us again. In 2010 and beyond.
Minyong Ordoñez is retired chair of the Paris-based Publicis Communications Group. He is a freelance journalist and member of the Manila Overseas Press Club. Email: encarbordonez@yahoo.com.ph
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