Heroes of the past: #2

In case you have forgotten what this was meant to be about, let me refresh your memory: up through history certain men and women have brought about major changes, both within their native cultures and throughout the world at large.

And some of these, again, I decided, deserve special mention. So what more could I do than create an impromptu list made up of four individuals and two siblings? So far Dwight D. Eisenhower, one time war hero and US president; Hans and Sophie Scholl, key members of a WW2 resistance group called the White Rose; and the more or less overlooked monk called Telemakos, have been included in this 'exclusive' group of people who've made their indelible mark on history.

#2: William Wilberforce

The second from the last entry on my list is a man who with few friends and allies fought an uncompromising war, lasting several decades, on a terrible institution within contemporaneous British society: slavery. Wilberforce, a committed Christian, was one of the alarmingly few who in his time regarded native Africans as people having the same inalienable rights as whites.

This realization drove him to tireless agitation for the abolition of slavery, a foolhardy pick as far as struggles go as it would bring him into direct confrontation not only with his colleagues in Parliament, but also against the movers and shakers of English 18'th century. Politicians at that time, too, had multiple roles, which inevitably meant that many of them would fight Wilberforce out of sheer self-interest: their companies, their finances, and thus their power base, would falter, ultimately to collapse, if Wilberforce were to succeed in his attempt to rid Britain of legalized slavery.

Energized by supporters like the famous writer of "Amazing grace", John Newton, William Wilberforce would ultimately go on to secure a total success on behalf of the vast masses of downtrodden, black slaves, who had been forcefully displaced from their homes and families, only to see their lives being spent on someone else's field - and this without any pay, fair treatment or decency in old age.

But by the time the fruits of his labour could be reaped, William Wilberforce was already a dead man. He did not live to see slavery banned from American soil either, and his reputation as an abolitionist has ben totally eclipsed by that of Abraham Lincoln. But mr. Wilberforce deserves the recognition posterity has seen fit to bestow on him.

He, a David, took on an enemy many times the size of a Goliath, and he, too, felled his enemy in the end.