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You ask me about my freedom-of-speech hero. The truth is, I have always had a reservation about the word “hero.” There is something quite not right about putting people up on a pedestal like that. More precisely, there is something sad about being in need of heroes. The more repressed a society, the deeper the demand for demigods. But once we start doing that, we don’t see them as human beings anymore. In Bertold Brecht’s production of Galileo there is a dialogue that I find very intriguing. Andrea says, “Unhappy is the land that has no heroes.” And Galileo’s response to this is: “No, unhappy is the land that needs heroes.”

That said, there are people I respect and rate highly, of course. I try to see them with their strengths and weaknesses, the good and the bad. Because no one is absolutely honourable, angelic or simply perfect. Someone might be a great politician but perhaps he is a terrible father or a bad husband at home. He might have done amazing things for world peace but perhaps he could not connect with his own kin. One can never know the full story. All we have is fragments.