Blind, one-eyed rulers, celebrities

LAHORE: Taliban Supreme Commander Mulla Mohammed Omar, who was Afghanistan’s 11th head of state from 1996 to late 2001, is not the only notable human in history to have succeeded in holding massive sway in the corridors of power despite being visually impaired.
The October 10, 2001 edition of the “Christian science Monitor” had stated: “Those who have met Omar, say he’s tall (6 foot, 6 inches) bearded, reclusive, and a lover of war stories. A fierce commander, he was wounded four times in the jihad against the Soviets, leaving him with one eye.”
We still don’t know whether he is alive or dead, but this is not the first time that reports of Mulla Omar’s passing away are flashing headlines in both Pakistani and Western media.Apart from Mulla Omar, numerous other global rulers, politicians and Army generals are or were one-eyed too, but had never let their disability deter them from achieving their aim in life.
And among them are illustrious people who were either born blind or were blinded due to disease or accident, but had commanded absolute authority despite this serious physical blight.Former British Prime Minister James Gordon Brown (born 1951) is blind in his left eye.
During a Rugby match at the University of Edinburgh, where he was studying, Brown received a kick to the head and suffered a Retinal detachment, leaving him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room.
Having served as British Premier between 2007 and 2010 and Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1997 and 2007, Gordon Brown had also noticed the same symptoms in his right eye while he was while playing tennis in later years.
Founder of the Sikh Empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), who had captured Lahore in 1799 and had successfully invaded Amritsar in 1802, had suffered from smallpox during his childhood. The disease had led to the loss of one of his eyes. Moshe Dayan (1915-81), a former Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence, had lost his left eye during World War II.
On June 7, 1941, while he was serving in the Army, Dayan was struck by a French rifle bullet fired by from several hundred yards away, propelling metal and glass fragments into his left eye and causing severe damage.
The damage was such that Dayan could not be fitted with a glass eye, and he was compelled to adopt the black eye-patch that became his trademark. In the years immediately following, the disability caused him some psychological pain and he had confessed it.
Former British Home Secretary David Blunkett (born 1947) is blind since birth, and so is Floyd Morris (born 1969), the sitting Senate President of Jamaica.
The three-time former Dominican Republic President, Joaquin Antonio Ricardo (1906-2002), was completely blind at the age of 90 in 1994 when he had decided to run for the Presidency fourth time in life.
Ian Fraser (1933-2014), then first life peer appointed to the British House of Lords in 1958, was blinded in action during the First World War.
Another British parliamentarian Nicholas John Griffin (born 1959), who had served as chairman and then president of the far-right British National Party (BNP) from 1999 to 2014, is blind in one eye following an accident in 1990 involving a shotgun cartridge.
Numerous American legislators like F.B. Teter (1873-1922) and Senator Thomas Gore (1970-1949) were both blind.
Similarly, a former New York Governor David Paterson (born 1954), is blind since birth as well.
Diane Finley (born 1957), an incumbent lady Canadian Minister for Public Works and Government Services in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is visually impaired due to disease.
Another female Canadian politician, Marlene Jennings (born 1951), is partially blind due to detached retinas and cataracts.Leading French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen (born 1928), the three-time presidential candidate in his country and a Member of the European Parliament, is blind in his left eye.
Abdur Rahman Wahid (1940-2009), former Indonesian President from 1999 to 2001 and founder of the National Awakening Party, was blinded due to a car accident on March 14, 1993, a suspected sabotage by military regime at that time.
Apart from the gentlemen and ladies named above, Cambodia’s sitting Premier Hun Sen (born 1952), a Chinese Tang Dynasty Emperor Fu Sheng (268-178 BC), former Brazilian general Golbery Couto Silva (1911-1987) and the notorious Moldovan King Bogdan III (1470-1517) etc were all visually impaired in one way or the other.