The age of superheroes and contemporary anxiety

I have not read comic books since I was a nerdy teenager tampering with writing computer programmes and believing I was some kind of genius- would- be- hacker. 

But this year a republished 80s graphic novel story caught my eye. I missed it because at the time it was issued my favourite magazines and papers had started to trickle down in the bookshops in Tripoli.

So when I was filling up my basket with all sorts of books on one of my trips this year the beautiful colours on the cover  " The Watchmen " caught my eye . So I could not resist... it then lay  for months on a shelf in my room when it finally got picked up to be read on a flight where I knew there would be no movies.

The flight went like a dream and I spent the night completing the book at the hotel instead of doing my homework. Gripping plot!

Reading the book I  felt nostalgia towards the Superman era when as a child, part of me wanted to  believe he was real. But unlike Superman, the Watchmen at the end of the day were very much human and that is their appeal and that is also what makes us slightly uneasy...

We all love heroes and I think we Arabs more than others perhaps adore them, I think many of us are probably waiting hoping deep down inside for a superhero to redress the wrongs, free Palestine, unite the Arabs and generally create a miracle. This story shows that heroes whether human or not actually have limited powers just like the Greek Gods and if we believe that they are omnipotent then we are in for trouble.
However,  I enjoyed the story on another level as well.. I had forgotten that back in the 80s the world was griped by a bloody superpower proxy war which started technically with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan  against the backdrop of  the India - Pakistan conflict. I forgot how much Afghanistan and Vietnam were very much present for Americans and by proxy the rest of the world had to suffer too.  I did not realise how much the ordinary American people feared communism to the extent of paranoia and hatred. How much they were afraid that a nuclear war on them would take place ( and they still do but a bit less now,  forgetting they were the only nation who had ever used nukes on humans ) and how much this fear had warped the thinking. How much they were seeking WMD to give them a tactical advantage.

Reading the Watchmen I realised that this fear is very much true for people on the street and that the media,  politicians'  ego and ambitions and business corporations are the main culprits and the root of all evil.

This 'comic' transported me for a few hours back in history.

The handling of Afghanistan 20 years ago has put the wheels in motion for  this century's worldstage  anxieties. The scarriest bit is that no one has learnt the lesson and that it is still business as usual. When will we realise that a hero does not simply appear to save us while we wait at the bus stop of life.  The hero is within each one of us ready to pounce and seize the day when we are ready to shed our fears!