The Silent Warriors..
One thing that is certain about history is that it tells us what happened and when. But the “why” seems to be the link that changes everything. Perception of events and actions in a certain era may fluctuate from a person to another depending on intellectual and educational facets. However, so much is lost or defaced although precisely recorded, as it was taken for granted by the recorder of events to miss out some details that can be understood in a different way by people who do not share the same knowledge or simply living in a different age. How many books have been written or beliefs have been fabricated based on wrongfully accused characters or sets of mistakes or perhaps lies that were taken for granted. It’s hilarious how history, or historians for that matter, keeps record and yet the truth gets distorted in the process! Napoleon once said that “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon”. Yet, another fact remains; we learn from history that we do not learn anything from history..
And to add to its biting wit and severe mockery, the history pages seem to miss out on most of the crucial characters that helped shaping the culture that we live in; praising the obvious and diminishing the obscure despite the fact that the influence of the hidden heroes can be far powerful than the man-made legendary players. Just to think through this thought, if we put an unknown fictional character for instance in the events of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and this fictional character was to propose a new maintenance plan with a complex procedure and expensive maintenance cost months prior to the actual disaster date that could help eliminate the disaster that occurred by improving the reactor overall design thus eliminating the failure that is to happen. And we might add another character, let’s say in the aviation control procedure just prior to the events of the infamous September 11th, and this character also proposed a new ploicy or design that will make the flight cabinet impossible to penetrate or affected by whatever events happening with the passengers, and probably there will be no apparent contact between the captain’s cabinet and the rest of the plane. What will happen to these two fictional characters who proposed these two ideas? How the world will see them, if remember them at all? In fact, they would be satisfied if the people just stop hating them for complicating their lives! Ironic isn’t it? How if we know the consequences, our actions would radically change..!
Just imagine how many people went through history unnoticed while their actions helped saving thousands, maybe millions, of lives.. In the contrary, how many people were marked “Great” just because they won battles and wars, forgetting how many human lives were spent and the bloodshed they caused..!!
History is not an entity by itself, it is the people who wrote it, as well as the people who perceive it.. And once we know that, we will realize how cruel it can be.. it is hilarious that when you look back at any bloody event in history, it won’t be so historical if not for the fact that so many people died in it now would it..?!!
In the same way, when applied on businesses today, the people working in the background coming up with strategies in different units and divisions in any organizational structure, applying policies and procedures that not so many people can comprehend, making so many simple things get complicated for a purpose that not so many people can attain. Those people are really like those fictional characters in the previous analysis. Those are the ones who work hard to prevent disasters. Those in my humble opinion are the hidden heroes that we refuse to praise; the silent warriors whom our own minds try to neglect..
Disasters occur not by mere chances, It is in the actions that we do not take and the facts that we keep ignoring every now and then as Martin Luther King said: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” And now in a global financial crisis where financial institutions collapsed and entire banking systems failed, when the most powerful tool of capitalism lost its validity, we have to go back and see what went wrong and where did the world missed the presence of the silent warriors..
And to add to its biting wit and severe mockery, the history pages seem to miss out on most of the crucial characters that helped shaping the culture that we live in; praising the obvious and diminishing the obscure despite the fact that the influence of the hidden heroes can be far powerful than the man-made legendary players. Just to think through this thought, if we put an unknown fictional character for instance in the events of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and this fictional character was to propose a new maintenance plan with a complex procedure and expensive maintenance cost months prior to the actual disaster date that could help eliminate the disaster that occurred by improving the reactor overall design thus eliminating the failure that is to happen. And we might add another character, let’s say in the aviation control procedure just prior to the events of the infamous September 11th, and this character also proposed a new ploicy or design that will make the flight cabinet impossible to penetrate or affected by whatever events happening with the passengers, and probably there will be no apparent contact between the captain’s cabinet and the rest of the plane. What will happen to these two fictional characters who proposed these two ideas? How the world will see them, if remember them at all? In fact, they would be satisfied if the people just stop hating them for complicating their lives! Ironic isn’t it? How if we know the consequences, our actions would radically change..!
Just imagine how many people went through history unnoticed while their actions helped saving thousands, maybe millions, of lives.. In the contrary, how many people were marked “Great” just because they won battles and wars, forgetting how many human lives were spent and the bloodshed they caused..!!
History is not an entity by itself, it is the people who wrote it, as well as the people who perceive it.. And once we know that, we will realize how cruel it can be.. it is hilarious that when you look back at any bloody event in history, it won’t be so historical if not for the fact that so many people died in it now would it..?!!
In the same way, when applied on businesses today, the people working in the background coming up with strategies in different units and divisions in any organizational structure, applying policies and procedures that not so many people can comprehend, making so many simple things get complicated for a purpose that not so many people can attain. Those people are really like those fictional characters in the previous analysis. Those are the ones who work hard to prevent disasters. Those in my humble opinion are the hidden heroes that we refuse to praise; the silent warriors whom our own minds try to neglect..
Disasters occur not by mere chances, It is in the actions that we do not take and the facts that we keep ignoring every now and then as Martin Luther King said: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” And now in a global financial crisis where financial institutions collapsed and entire banking systems failed, when the most powerful tool of capitalism lost its validity, we have to go back and see what went wrong and where did the world missed the presence of the silent warriors..
Comments
now to think of it, it's like football, the goal scorer is the one who takes all the credit.. while the rest of the team is responsible for scoring..!! lame example, i know.. lol.. but it works there too..!