THE GESSLER'S HAT
“Brute
force, no matter how strongly applied,
can
never subdue the basic human desire
for
freedom.”
_
Dalai Lama
I do
not know why they had included the story of William Tell in our higher-primary
school-text. Perhaps, to inculcate in us – the little children – the importance
of knowing what is right and what is wrong… what is just and human and what is unjust
and inhuman. When I look back at those days – late sixties – I was, perhaps, of
the age of William Tell’s son. And, imagine, the impact of this story on a
young mind!
We, also, had,
in our History text book, the story of Martin Luther King, who had revolted
against the unjust and inhuman practices prevalent under the Pope’s leadership
of Christianity. I was a Roman Catholic and I was studying in a Jesuit college
(Roman Catholics). Ironically, a Roman Catholic priest was teaching us Social
Studies and, particularly, that lesson about how Martin Luther King had
revolted against the Pope and split Christianity to form the ‘Protestants’. Our
teacher, a Catholic priest, never snubbed us when we asked our innocent questions…
He let our thinking flower!
In the same
way, when we asked questions about William Tell, all that our teachers wanted
us to know, early in life, was this: You need to stand up against the unjust
laws, at times… You need to take strong stands, defy the unjust laws, even if
that means there is threat to your life…
Easier said
than done, Sir… But, that’s how every kind of ‘freedom’ comes!
Let me recount
the story – rather the legend – of William Tell…
William
Tell was a hero in the Swiss folklore. He was a strong man, a mountain climber
and an expert crossbow shooter. In lived in the thirteenth century, in a time
when the Austrian emperors were trying to strengthen their domination in Switzerland.
Albecht Gessler had been just appointed as Austrian Vogt of Aldorft in
Switzerland. Gessler had raised a pole under the village linden tee, hung his
hat on top of it, and demanded that the citizens bow before it…
One day,
William Tell visited Aldorft with his little son. He passed the hat but refused
to bow before it. He and his son were immediately apprehended. As a punishment,
Gessler made Tell’s little son stand under the tree, an apple on his head, and ordered
Tell to shoot the apple. When Tell succeeded, Gessler noticed another arrow in
Tell’s hand and asked why he was holding another arrow. “To kill you if the
first arrow had killed my son,” beamed Tell, without blinking!
William Tell
was given a life-imprisonment!
Later, one
day, the prisoner William Tell was being carried in a boat in which Gessler was
present. The boat was caught up in a dangerous storm… The frightened men of Gessler
pleaded him to remove Tell’s chains so that he could save all of them. The
chains were removed… Tell cleverly drove the boat towards a rocky place and
crashed it… while he jumped and escaped!
The story did
not end there… In the days that followed, William Tell made sure that he killed
the dictator with the second arrow!
This act of
defiance led to the mass revolt and laid the foundation for the freedom of
Switzerland…
To me, William
Tell. his little son, Gessler and his hat… Yes, all these are the imageries of
freedom.
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: dreamstime
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