
<p>Two individuals died recently. ; Both had an enormous impact on the world – but their passing evoked a remarkably different memorial celebration. ; In fact, the one who arguably had the greater impact was least honored in death. ;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mikhail-gorbachev"><strong>Mikhail Gorbachev</strong></h2>



<p>Former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30<sup>th</sup> of this year. ; He – along with American President Ronald Reagan – negotiated an end to the 44-year Cold War between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the free world – bringing down the Iron Curtain that had isolated the Soviet Union from the free world. ; The Chinese communist half of the Cold War ended in 1972, when President Nixon traveled to Beijing – bringing down the so-called Bamboo Curtain.</p>



<p>By Soviet standards, Gorbachev was a small-d democrat. ; He created an elected President to replace the “Leader” as the head-of-state in Moscow – meaning the chairman of the Communist Party. ; He served as Russia’s first President. ; He infused a level of transparency in the previous ultra-secret government operations – and provided a modicum of justice into the system.</p>



<p>As Reagan had demanded, Gorbachev tore down the wall that separated East and West Berlin. ; He presided over the independence of the so-called “Captive Nations” that comprised the “union” in the Soviet Union. ; More than a dozen nations that were “captive” within the Soviet empire became independent republics. ; Several even joined NATO – an alliance created to check the imperial aggression of Russia.</p>



<p>Gorbachev opened an evolving era of capitalism in the old Communist empire. ; Western businesses flocked to Russia as they had to China after the Nixon initiative. ; One of the most publicized and celebrated business ventures was the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow.</p>



<p>The new era of cooperation made Gorbachev one of the most popular and admired world leaders – except with an obscure KGB agent languishing in East Germany. ; A guy named Vladimir Putin. He would undo all that Gorbachev had achieved – putting the world back into the dark days of the Cold War.</p>



<p>In 1990, Gorbachev was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize – an honor that would have been shared by Reagan had it not been for the petty leftward lean of the Nobel Committee.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Queen Elizabeth II</strong></h2>



<p>Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8th after an unprecedented reign as the British monarch for more than 70 years. ; She was succeeded in world monarchical longevity by the 72-year reign of the boy king, Louis XIV of France.</p>



<p>Like Gorbachev, Elizabeth was the head-of-state – but the titles were the only similarities. ; Under the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain, she was a figurehead, with virtually no political powers. ; She had largely ceremonial or magisterial duties – but still, great influence based on respect and admiration for her modest demeanor and renowned intelligence. ; Gorbachev, on the other hand, was an autocratic ruler with virtually absolute power over policy and politics.</p>



<p>AS Queen, Elizabeth was the “defender of the monarchy” – a responsibility she executed with extraordinary competence. ; During her 70-year reign, she was sensitive to the external pressures and threats to the monarchy – and initiated reforms to quell each of them as they arose. ; She allowed for the taxation of royal income. ; She opened the palaces and gardens for public visitation. ; She mitigated the wrath of the public over the issues relating to Princess Diana by bowing deeply as the coffin of her controversial daughter-in-law passed by.</p>



<p>In an astonishing display of diplomacy, Elizabeth shook the hand of Martin McGuinness, the one-time head of the rebellious Irish Republican Army that had assassinated her cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in 1979. ; It would be no exaggeration to say that Elizabeth was responsible for the peace in Northern Ireland in the past decades.</p>



<p>Despite the fact that the British monarch is to remain apart from public policy and political matters – and she almost never shared a public opinion on such matters &#8212; it would be wrong to say she did not have a significant impact on both British domestic and foreign affairs. ; Her private counsel was sought by every British Prime Minister and virtually every world head-of-state. ; Behind the façade of the matronly mother and grandmother was a woman of impressive intelligence and a strong will.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Irony</strong></h2>



<p>Is it not ironic that two of the most important leaders of the last half century passed on with such remarkably different memorials?</p>



<p>For Elizabeth, it is more than a week of major events as her coffin is moved from one site to another – with each move and enshrinement witnessed by hundreds of thousands of bystanders and literally billions more on television. ; It is an official state funeral with all the pomp and pageantry that is the British monarchy.</p>



<p>Every obituary and royal event received constant coverage in the media. ; Elizabeth’s 96-year biography is repeated over and over in news reports and hour-long documentaries. ; Her death has supplanted the war in Ukraine, the American border crises, the crime wave, inflation, and – to a large extent – even Donald Trump as a major news story.</p>



<p>By contrast, Mikhail Gorbachev slipped away into the annals of history with little more notice than one might expect of an aging Hollywood star who has not made a movie in a generation. ; Even in Russia, the event drew little attention from the government or the national media.</p>



<p>There was a reason for that – and his name is Vladimir Putin. ; The Madman of Moscow hated Gorbachev. ; In Putin’s mind, he was a traitor to Mother Russia. ; Gorbachev was the reason Putin has had to go on an aggressive warpath to reclaim the pieces of the old Soviet Union. ; Putin’s hatred and ambitions crystallized as he witnessed the re-ordering of the world order from his modest KGB post in East Germany.</p>



<p>The deaths of important people are generally celebrated according to how they die – or more importantly when they die. ; That could not be truer than the recent deaths of Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev. ; But that reality neither enhances nor diminishes the accomplishments of these two remarkable world-changing individuals. ; May they both rest in the peace they BOTH so richly deserve.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis.</p>

Queen Elizabeth and Mikhail Gorbachev
