When to mourn/mention a death..

[Colette]

Now amidst all the hoo-ha surrounding Sir Ed Hillary's death some 2 weeks ago, I was reminded of some other notable deaths of the past few years, and how comparatively little media coverage these received, in the global scheme of things.

Not to detract in any way from the greatness of our late, preeminent mountaineer/Antarctic tractor-driver, but how many people here have read/ heard much about the following notable (or some might say notorious) figures of last century?

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(Pinochet - probably the most blood-thirsty dictator and torturer of the late 20th century); and more recently:

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(Suharto - corrupt power broker and imperialist; responsible for the deaths of 0.5-1M people within Indonesia and its annexed states and provinces)

Is it just me, or have we lost all sense of history and proportion here?

[quentin]

Pinochet - probably the most blood-thirsty dictator and torturer of the late 20th century

!

Not to defend a murderous dictator, but that's certainly overstating things. Pinochet was only responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people during his coup. There were quite a few dictators in the late 20th century responsible for many, many more deaths. Pol Pot was the most bloodthirsty dictator of the 20th century, easily - responsible for 1/3 of his own people's deaths, around 3 million.

[Colette]

!

Not to defend a murderous dictator, but that's certainly overstating things. Pinochet was only responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people during his coup. There were quite a few dictators in the late 20th century responsible for many, many more deaths. Pol Pot was the most bloodthirsty dictator of the 20th century, easily - responsible for 1/3 of his own people's deaths, around 3 million.

Fair point, although my focus with this thread was on proportionality of how we view historical figures, not trying to argue who was (or was not) the 'worst' dictator of their type. I'd also add that how we might regard a dictator may not always just be based on numbers killed alone, either ;)

There are many other dictators I could have mentioned (or other illustrious non-dictator figures, even), I just chose to give two examples, as a contrast to Ed Hillary's fanfare.

[Nomad]

Hillary illustrated how high we might climb.

Pol Pot and Suharto illustrated how far we might fall.

No one really likes to look at dead bodies. People like views from on high.

This, of course, does not necessarily represent the reality of a situation, just it's perception.

We are, after all, a small minority.

-Nomad