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Posted
on 23-Apr-04 11:59 AM
Heroes have some quality, be it physical or moral, that sets them apart
By MICHAEL ELLIOTT
If you want to know the forces that are changing the world we live in, you will find some answers in maps, statistics and graphs. But you will not have met the future until you make your acquaintance with a few of the most irresistible forces of all. As history has demonstrated, a relative handful of humans with strong ideas and a determination to pursue them has an outsize impact on the rest of us. If the great men and women of ancient times were kings and queens, nautical explorers and epic poets, now we have superpower Presidents, technological titans and religious zealots who can upend the status quo in a nanosecond. Who is that core group today? Let us introduce you to the TIME 100, the most powerful and influential people of 2004.
How did we choose them? Given that no objective measure is possible when it comes to human beings, we identified three rather distinct qualities among those who shape our lives. First there were those who came to their status by means of a very public possession of power. President George W. Bush is the pre-eminent example. Others, though they are rarely heard from in public, nonetheless have a real influence on the great events of our time. Think of Ali Husaini Sistani, the Grand Ayatullah of Iraq's Shi'ites, who in effect has a veto on plans to transfer power from those who occupy his country to its people. Still others affect our lives through their moral example. Consider Nelson Mandela's forgiveness of his captors and his willingness to walk away from the South African presidency after a single term.
The list of those who, in our judgment, are the 100 most consequential people (in some cases, pairs and partners) in the world right now reflects these three ways in which greatness can transform the lives and thoughts of millions—and not always in ways that we like to admit. The President of China has power—that much goes without saying. So does Jerry Bruckheimer, the Hollywood producer, who can make pretty much any film or TV series that he wants, or Fidelity's Abigail Johnson, whose family firm controls the destiny of nearly $900 billion of mutual-fund money. But Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader of North Korea, has power too—nuclear-weapons programs do that for you—despite the fact that his nation is an economic basket case. Stalin asked mockingly about the Pope, "How many divisions does he have?" Yet few would doubt that Pope John Paul II has changed countless lives. So, sadly, has Osama bin Laden, even though he is holed up in a remote village somewhere in the Hindu Kush with even fewer divisions, as conventionally measured, at his command than the modern papacy has ever had. Bin Laden's millennial ideology appeals to millions and impacts (think of the time you spend boarding a flight) those who despise it as well.
Among those included are plenty whose importance is a lot more subtle than bin Laden's or the Pope's. Bernard Lewis has been teaching since 1938, yet his theories on the failure of the Islamic world have only lately shifted the thinking of American policymakers. Bernard Kouchner and Samantha Power—one a French doctor, the other a U.S. scholar—have challenged us to understand that a nation's sovereignty does not give it the right to behave abominably inside its borders.
The heroes and icons on our list stand a little to one side. Some of them, to be sure, have power by any standard—Arnold Schwarzenegger is Governor of the most populous state in the U.S. Some of them have influence—otherwise, what would the doctor who invented the South Beach diet be doing in these pages? But we have a sneaking affection for the true heroes on the list, the people we admire because they have some quality, be it physical or moral, that sets them apart. The scarcely believable toughness of Lance Armstrong, the stubbornness of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi—these are examples of human attributes that inspire and amaze.
We don't imagine that any single reader of these pages will agree with all the choices we have made. But we think our list shows that greatness lives—that a few people can affect the lives of billions around the globe.
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Posted
on 23-Apr-04 12:05 PM
Presidents and prelates, soldiers and terrorists, lawyers and philanthropists—these are the men and women who give hope and direction to the world or who try to turn it upside down
George W. Bush
Hu Jintao
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Ali Sistani
Toshihiko Fukui
Abu al-Zarqawi
Kofi Annan
Condoleezza Rice
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
John Abizaid
Kim Jong Il
Bill Gates
Pope John Paul II
Atal Behari Vajpayee
John Kerry
Luisa Diogo
Vladmir Putin
Wu Yi
Osama bin Laden
The Clintons
From technology in Texas to perfumes in Paris and satellite TV in Qatar, the men and women who lead businesses the world over
Lee Scott
Carly Fiorina
Abigail Johnson
David Neeleman
Rupert Murdoch
Lindsay Owen-Jones
Howard Schultz
Azim Premji
Warren Buffett
Michael Dell
Al-Jazeera
Lord John Browne
Hiroshi Okuda / Fujio Cho
Sergey Brin / Larry Page
Bernard Arnault
Sepp Blatter
Belinda Stronach
Meg Whitman
Daniel Vasella
Steve Jobs
In music and movies, fashion and food, television and architecture, they have explored new territory, set new standards—and made the world an immeasurably richer place for all of us
Mark Burnett
Frank Gehry
John Galliano
Peter Jackson
Nicholas Hytner
Simon Cowell
OutKast
Norah Jones
Jerry Bruckheimer
J.K. Rowling
Ken Kutagari
Bruce Nauman
Katie Couric
Charlie Kaufman
Hideo Nakata
Aishwarya Rai
Ferran Adrià
Nicole Kidman
Sean Penn
Guy Laliberté
From their laboratories and university chairs—and sometimes seats of power—they have shaped how we see the world, and ourselves
Edward Witten
Steven Pinker
Eric Lander
Korean Cloners
Paul Ridker
Hernando de Soto
Jeff Sachs
Linus Torvalds
Niall Ferguson
Bernard Lewis
Tariq Ramadan
Jürgen Habermas
Samantha Power
Sandra Day O'Connor
Jill Tarter
Julie Gerberding
Joschka Fischer
Bjorn Lomborg
Jong-Wook Lee
Louise Arbour
With some, it is their bravery that inspires; for others, their physical skills. And then there are those—a Tibetan monk, an elderly South African man—whose heroism shines from the way they live their life.
Nelson Mandela
Aung San Suu Kyi
Queen Rania of Jordan
Shirin Ebadi
Bono
Bernard Kouchner
Bill Belichick
David Beckham
Lance Armstrong
Yao Ming
John Bogle
Mel Gibson
Arthur Agatston
Dalai Lama
Tiger Woods
Paula Radcliffe
Oprah Winfrey
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Evan Wolfson
BKS Iyengar
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| forget-me-not |
Posted
on 23-Apr-04 12:09 PM
Taken from Time
Being No. 101: What kind of person just missed the cut?
By JOEL STEIN
If you're like me, which is to say ridiculously egotistical, you look at lists like the TIME 100 and wonder, Where do I fit in? Just how much did I miss by? Am I somewhere in the top 1 billion, or am I down around Dennis Kucinich?
But wouldn't it be worse to find out that you were 101, the person who just missed being recognized as one of the 100 most powerful and influential people on Earth? Wouldn't that haunt you for the rest of your life, knowing that if you had just not slept in that one morning or skipped your kid's stupid school play, you could have made it? Wouldn't that drive you Salieri-mad? That's why I needed to call someone who just missed the TIME 100 and let him know. It was the only way I could feel better about myself.
There were several candidates who just missed the list, but the one who intrigued me most was Paul Farmer. An M.D. with a Ph.D. in anthropology, Farmer, 44, is a professor at Harvard Medical School who spends most of his time at a charity hospital in Haiti that provides treatment each year for 340,000 poor patients suffering from such diseases as tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria. He has a MacArthur genius grant. The organization he founded, Partners in Health, has pioneered the treatment of HIV/AIDS and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in resource-poor settings, a fact I copied directly from Harvard's website because I don't understand it. Farmer recently upgraded from living in a church rectory in Boston to a college dorm for the few months he's not in his home in a squatters' settlement in Cange, Haiti. He is the only person on Earth who could have lasted in a guilt-off with Mother Teresa.
Telephone reception in remote Haitian villages is apparently pretty weak, so I had to wait four days for a peasant to switch a broken cord on Farmer's Internet-based phone. When we finally talked—after Farmer had driven four hours each way for a meeting with a Dominican health commissioner—I informed him that he wasn't top-100 important. He tried to take the news in stride, though he was clearly bummed out. "I was reading People magazine recently, and a pop star—her first name is Jessica, but her last name escapes me, a blond—was saying how nice it was to be at the top of some list, the name of which also escapes me." Jessica someone? I was not believing for a second that this guy has ever read People.
I explained to him that although he missed the TIME 100, Simon Cowell made it, for being honest enough to tell people they're singing Elton John songs off-key. To this, Farmer responded, "Who's Simon Cowell?" Maybe someone should spend a little less time saving people's lives and a little more time "reading" his People.
I tried to make Farmer feel better by telling him that other important people missed the list, like Tony Blair, Alan Greenspan, Colin Powell and Paula Abdul. I also suggested that he put on his résumé "101st on TIME's list of 100 Most Influential People," but Farmer told me his résumé is "Harvard format" and has no place for it. "But I'll make sure and tell people here in rural Haiti about it later in the morning," he said. "I'm sure the patients will be anxious to know about it."
The problem with Farmer's career, it seemed to me, isn't so much that he's slacking at his job but that he doesn't have a publicist, agent, manager or even a stylist. He's probably missing all kinds of lists, like People's Most Beautiful. After all, he's not a bad-looking guy, judging by pictures I've seen in magazine stories about him, and chicks love doctors. "Look what it did for George Clooney," I explained. Farmer joked that he had indeed made People of Haiti's Most Beautiful list. I was getting the feeling Farmer had a bit of a savior complex.
We had to end our phone conversation because I had a dinner reservation, and he had to deal with a peasant with an unremitting fever. But interviewing Farmer made me feel better about myself. By not making the list, we are in a way equals. Plus, I figure it's just this kind of socially responsible journalism that will move me up higher on next year's list. And if I ever come down with a communicable disease, I know a really good doctor.
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