Terry Sarten: Stricter guidelines needed for what constitutes true heroism

Julie Christie - made a dame in the Queen's Birthday honours, possibly for services to reading.

A hero is a person who does something brave with no thought of reward, such as saving a person from drowning, rescuing someone trapped in a burning car or defending a defenceless person who is being attacked by thugs.

It is certainly not cup-winning yachties or All Blacks who are paid extremely well to be incredibly good at what they do, but do not face the risk of death for saving a life.

Describing them as heroes for winning a sports competition undermines the true notion of what constitutes heroism. It devalues courage and the brave act of risking life to save another's life with no thought of reward.

It's like giving knighthoods to business leaders or politicians who are paid to do a job.
John Key got one for "Services to the State".

He was prime minister - that was his job, and he was paid to do this work. The nearest he got to risking his life was probably when he pulled the young women's ponytail in a café but his bodyguards would have protected him from a slap from the waitress or his wife.

The Queen's Birthday honours list has a special category called the New Zealand Antarctic Medal which, I gather, does compensate for spending your time somewhere extremely cold. Sir Ed would have liked that.

There are honours for military personnel (DSD) which it can be assumed are to acknowledge work done in very dangerous combat zones.

But some give pause for thought ... I think that Julie Christie gets to be a Dame for her services to reading - she created so many dreadful TV programmes that many people gave up watching the box and went back to reading books. I guess that could be construed as a service to literacy, bookshops and libraries.

She is one of reasons we don't have a television. She got paid lots to do this work - it was her job. She did not risk her life and, like professional sportspeople and politicians, she did what she was paid to do. She is not a hero.

There are others who are heroes. They are the people who make a huge contribution to society without financial reward but it is unlikely they will ever be considered for a knighthood.

To be eve considered for such an honour it appears to be necessary to have made lots of money.

There seems to be another lower tier of honours, the Queens Service Medal, that goes to those who do great volunteer work in their community.

Perhaps they get the lesser accolades because they did not get paid while doing what they felt needed to be done to help others.

The honours list continues to exhibit all the hallmarks of a class structure inherited from Britain - it is a class divide that lies between where money equals knighthood and unpaid services to the community equals a QSM.

It is another indicator of the growing gap between those who have lots and those that do lots.

This signals that being good at a job for which you are well paid or simply becoming very rich is worthy of recognition in itself.

When a cleaning lady who works two jobs, including a night shift, and takes in foster children gets to be a Dame we will know the honours system will actually be living up to its name.

Terry Sarten (aka Tel) is writer, musician, social worker by trade and professional optimist by inclination - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz