Romania’s commie despot Nicolae Ceaucescu, during his and his wife’s quickie trial in Dec. 1989, claimed that the uprising that ended his regime was directed against his enemies.
His wife, who was also his deputy prime minister, at one point berated the prosecutor, saying “I am a member and the chairwoman of the Academy of Sciences. You cannot talk to me in such a way!” This reminded me of Roman emperor Nero’s last words before stabbing himself in the throat (he preferred suicide to the Senate’s plan to execute him by flogging him to death): “What an artist the world loses in me.” (I must admit, however, that
I’m more partial to the emperor Vespasian’s last words: “Dear me, I must be turning into a god.”)
There’s Saddam who, after hearing a poem in his honor recited by the director of a struggling missile project who missed a deadline, applauded the daggan-kisser, instead of sending him to prison or torturing him, like what Hussein’s son Usay used to do to Iraqi athletes who failed to win in international competitions.
In the P.I., Marcos never doubted that he won the 1986 election which was so blatantly rigged it triggered a popular uprising backed by his own military. Three years before, while watching the funeral of the father of the current president — the opposition senator murdered by the regime — and seeing the thousands and thousands of ordinary people who were no longer afraid to openly criticize Marcos, his Imeldific wife said: “So, after all these years, all our efforts, our trying and striving, it has come to this?” One of her trusted aides later wrote in her memoirs: “Had their isolation misled them so completely that they never even suspected people hated them with such unnerving passion? They simply could not plumb the depths of the people’s rage, could not accept the evidence of their wrath. How was it…that they did not know?”
Tyrants are often the last to know because they feed on lies. There has to be one lie after the other because the basis of such regimes is itself a lie: the leader alone can save his nation because he alone knows best. Absolute power not only corrupts absolutely but it also makes you insane.
The leader, after a while, ends up believing his own propaganda — his own lies.
The ancient Romans knew the perils of power and when they overthrew their monarchy, they created a republic based on separation of powers and checks and balances. Moreover, whenever they hold a public ceremony to pay tribute to a victorious general, the hero of the moment “would ride through the streets in a chariot wearing a laurel wreath and a purple toga, with a slave holding a golden crown over his head and whispering in his ear, ‘Look behind you; remember, you are only a man.’ ” (The Roman republic ended in all but name when Octavian defeated Cleopatra’s lover boy Marcus Antonius in Actium, which is another story. For an entertaining account of how absolute power unhinged Roman emperors, see Suetonious’ “Twelve Caesars.”)
Like other despots, in any case, Gadhafi died perplexed — he was puzzled by the fury of the rebels, of his own people. Six years ago, the colonel’s favorite son, Saif al-Islam, was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and during one of the “media coffee” events, he told the other panelists: “Do you know why we Arabs have lost all our wars against Israel? Because Israel is democratic and we are undemocratic. So in one of our states, the worst general becomes chief of staff, because he is no threat to carry out a coup d’état. Loyalty to the strongman is all that matters. Democracy, on the other hand, is a competitive mechanism….”
There are no despots in the CNMI but like other democracies, it has leaders impatient with critics, specifically with an independent press (i.e., the newspaper you’re reading now). But as I’ve said before, the free flow of information, transparency and criticism are the best friends of public officials. They tell you what you’ve been doing wrong and how you can do better. They prevent you from deluding yourself. And though you may lose power one day, at least you will retain your sanity.
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