Omar Hassan: An Obituary

I vocalised before that I am a fan of 24, and and after the announcement of the revival of the show I decided to go back and re-watch the show to get myself ready for season nine. I didn't think I'd get through it so quickly but hey ho, I'll just have to watch it again before the show starts again. I figured I'd end up writing about David Palmer or something by the end of it as he is a close confidant of Jacks, but watching the series non stop made me realise that there was one President I was even more fond of, the dearly departed Omar Hassan.

Omar Hassan was the leader of the IRK, and Islamic Middle Eastern country who decided to align with the US and many other major countries to sign a peace treaty that many of his citizens were against. Now, politicians doing stuff that angers the people that voted them into power is nothing new, but President Hassan actually did it for the good of his country, and the World rather than selfish reasons. He brushed off assassination attempts, even from his own brother, to sign the peace treaty because he felt it was the right thing to do. Not only that, but he was willing to give himself over to terrorists even though he knew he would be killed, all for the good a nation that wasn't even his. He didn't even have to think about it, he even went against the President of the USA who was trying to protect him to do this which shows true bravery and selflessness. He would leave behind a family and a nation who would mourn for him, but he'd rather have his death than tens of thousands of people dying because of him, which would most likely lead to more of an uproar.



Sure, he's not completely perfect as we've seen from his affair but from what we've seen of him he is truly the most selfless politician that came across 24, even more so than David Palmer (who I'll always have a soft spot for) and Allison Taylor who has been irrevocably  damaged now. We don't even mention Charles Logan. It's hard to believe that President Hassan went from Salesmen to one of the most influential politicians in the World. The end of his character was heartbreaking, I've seen it three times now and I still cry every time. No death on 24 has affected me so much. Thats the only issue I have with the show's handling of the character, I didn't want to say goodbye to the character. There were no flaws, he was actually perfect. The same could be said about David Palmer but he had a longer tenure in the show, whereas Hassan only had 15 episodes. But he convinced me in his abilities in those 15 episodes, if I were one of his citizens I would follow him to the ends of the Earth.

Good Bye President Omar Hassan, you left us too soon.

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