The Humane Utility of Brutal Dictators
Yes, we love to detest dictators; they are invariably social psychopaths with great charisma, strong personalities and an iron grip on their countries' institutions, not the least of which would be the military, geared to serve them, not the country they represent.The world has seen many such historical monsters and we hate what they represent; invariably a chill curtailment of human rights, and an utter vulnerability visited upon the citizenry, often accompanied by the necessity to become secretly subversive for fear of life and limb, and with good reason. We fear the inevitable (under some circumstances) rise of such indomitably immune-to-human sensibilities, sensitivities, innate discrimination between right and wrong, prototypes, and cheer on any attempts from within or without their countries of origin to depose them.
And sometimes events conspire long past their reigns that give us pause to re-think their utility in certain areas. What they seem to have in common is the ruthless ambition to sweep away any obstacles in the course of their establishment of personal power and prestige. And once established, they seek to restore some semblance of universal equilibrium within their countries to ensure that the "natives" don't revolt. There is no equality, there is the elite and their supporters and the vast masses of the unprivileged. But there is social stability.
Joseph Stalin and his appointed minions were responsible for the deliberate destruction through mass starvation and outright murder of many parts of the population they controlled which might have sought to challenge their primacy. Of course in many instances the targeted-for-death groups had no such intentions, but the grim neuroses of their overseers imbued them with the potential and that was sufficient to mark them for death. Nasty man to be sure. He ruled with a steely resolve and under him the U.S.S.R., (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) became a true union of duress where competing, distrustful, vengefully tribal countries were constrained from attacking one another because their honoured dictator would not abide internal dissent of any kind. Countries as diverse as Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Chekoslovakia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan (and all the other 'stans) lived together in forced harmony: "separate but equal" under Soviet rule.
With the break-up of the Soviet Union came a rapid dissolution of even its disparate parts with only the Cheks and the Slovakians parting company fairly amicably, while countries such as Yugoslavia, sans Marshall Josip Tito, another creature of Stalin's, unleashed pent-up tribal hatreds focussing on evening the historical "score" on one another. Croats, Albanians and Serbs suddenly realized they were no longer linked by a controlling overseer and began their enthusiastic cleansing of one another, including the Muslims and the Christians, good souls all.
Saddam Hussein, another of the world's suddenly-disempowered monsters caused countless deaths in his bid to control a proud and ancient land of fabled history. Ancient Iraq, Mesopotamia, one of the most ancient civilizations of the world. The Garden of Eden was rumoured to have existed there; one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon found its home there. Mesopotamia discovered a way to control the Tigris and Euphrates rivers 3,500 bc, building canals to irrigate crops. From there came cuneiform writing. Their architecture rivalled that of their neighbours in ancient Egypt, when they built massive Ziggarats from mud brick. From ancient Iraq came the waterclock, the plough, sailboats, and our lunar 12-month calendar. It existed next door to Persia with its fabled gardens, arts, letters, sciences, architecture, and the triumvirate (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia) gifted the world with an indelible pride in human accomplishment. And current-day Iraq? what a long fall from history's grace.
Saddam Hussein too kept the disparate elements of his barbaric kingdom from each others' throats, the Sunnis, the Shi'a, the Kurds, and offered in his munificence a modicum of "protection" toward Iraq's Christian colonies, its Jewish citizens. He brooked no obstacles to total domination, his word was as the word of god. He ordered the torture and murder of countless of his citizens who were either actively involved in dissent or perceived to be. His Ba'ath party was paramount, the Sunni minority held sway over the subdued Shi'a majority, and he was indeed responsible for torrents of tears; the survivors mourning their countless dead.
But guess what? The subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq, the attempted subjugation of its militantly insurgent element, compounded by the introduction of foreign jihadists has resulted in far more deaths than were occasioned by Saddam's rule. And more to come. In the name of Democracy, for the ostensible purpose of freeing a population from a demonic, brutal rule. Iraq now sees itself teetering on the brink of total sectarian break-down, spurred on by the violent rage of imported jihadists whose initial work in destroying some of the country's most venerated mosques encouraged its indigent populations to turn with deadly intent upon one another.
Well, let's look at poor Zimbabwe whose ZANU PF party under their mad president Robert Mugabe has turned that country from a virtual breadbasket of Africa to a teetering state of endemic starvation. In his zeal to wrest land back from white African farmers who had a long history of successfully cultivating that generous land, handing it over holus-bolus to black soldiers of fortune with no background in agronomy, no interest in farming, the land now lies fallow, while the thousands of former farm labourers, now unemployed, themselves face starvation, along with the rest of the country.
Remember that white interloper, that dictator whom the world loved to despise, president Ian Smith who ruled Rhodesia as though he personally owned the land? Now, alas, starving black Zimbabweans, once Rhodesians, rue the day they cheered their liberation from the rule of their former despot, when Ian Smith under the world's approving eye handed the country over to the ZANU PF. Under Ian Smith, they now lament, they had meat for just a few cents; now they cannot even find sufficient grain to feed the starving populace.
What a study in contrasts. Tyrants, Dictators, Despots, the monsters of society. Who might ever have dreamed that in their zealous efforts to control they might in fact have done far less lasting damage to the people who demanded freedom from their rule than the much-feted saviours have brought to bear upon their lives
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 09, 2006
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