Tag Archives: dictator

A Short Note on The Dictator, The Mirror, and the Fragile Surface

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Zimbabwe

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When Robert Mugabe dies — I predict peacefully, in his sleep — he will go believing himself the most beneficent and magnanimous of leaders, the champion of his state, black and beautiful, bountiful and good.

If the children of Zimbabwe are starving or dying of the cholera he introduced to some parts, if the currency would seem to be forever foundering, if the cries of brutality, corruption, and injustice remain constant in the air and on the airwaves of either opposition or truthful radio, all of that would be no fault of his: he, Robert Mugabe, did what he could.

And he got away with it!

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Do dictators know what they do?

I don’t think they do.

At least they may not be aware of their effects with a depth in any way anchored in a human and sentimental heart.

In the Great Halls of Mirrors, the brightest reflections are of heroic men, each dictator alpha among others, struggling on their own behalf, their families (not really but it’s made to look that way, for image matters), and their people for place of pride against a world that would otherwise undo and enslave them.

Theirs is a fight for every inch and measurable Nth of property, business, and resource, while every reflection — the stuff of “narcissistic supply” — by way of paid and patronized advisers and associates, fawning (or faking it) family, and permitted controlled media agree with that outlook.

In the contempt and disparagement of others, in the inability to connect with a common humanity, in the abuse and intimidation of others, in the callous disregard of deep injustice and tragedy suffered by others directly or indirectly at their hands, there seems a surface ever ready to shatter, ever uncertain of its own basis in being that has long gone missing.

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I may slip from analysis to poetry to fiction here as the depth of what one witnesses in such figures eludes “observable-measurable” note making.  However, for this post, the following statement and the URLs accompanying it all report or reflect on what is known:

A power-sharing deal signed on September 15 aimed to bring together the current president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, signaled a moment of hope for the future of Zimbabwe. Instead, it marked the start of the country’s most recent descent into chaos: water and sanitation services shut down; inflation skyrocketed; food shortages spread across the country; hospitals and clinics closed their doors; outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, and possibly malaria threaten lives; and in a country where where AIDS kills over 400 Zimbabweans a day, care for HIV/AIDS and opportunistic infections have lost priority. While innocent civilians fight for their lives the governing parties clash over the rule of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Health System Crisis, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, n.d.

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▶ Robert Mugabe Denies Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe – YouTube 12/12/2008

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Zimbabwe Economy

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Intensifying Government Bankruptcy (Page 1 of 2) 2/8/2013

Face up to reality and start talking to Robert Mugabe – FT.com 9/10/2013

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe Sails Close to Economic Rocks (Page 1 of 2) 8/28/2013:

According to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation Act of 2007, foreign-owned companies are forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to local people. But economists warn that the indigenisation policy is driving investors away.

“Foreign investors are obliged to bring in 100 percent of the capital, bear 100 percent of the risk, provide 100 percent of the technology, and in turn settle for 49 percent of the equity and pay taxes,” independent economist Kingston Nyakurukwa told IPS.

China, whose labor has been keeping me in sharp western-designed clothing for a while, may prove up to burden of keeping the ever dapper Robert Mugabe looking equally as good.

Zimbabwe Gets Computers to Track Epidemics, Diseases 12/20/2012 — Still, the United States lends a helping hand.  However, notes this article, such aid, which admittedly focuses on HIV/AIDS control and contributes to the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) data base, arrives within this context:

As a result of bankruptcy, President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe is failing to meet the Abuja Declarations which recommends that African governments allocate 15 percent of their budgets towards health.

Saudi Gazette – Mugabe’s bankruptcy (near direct-to-print URL), n.d.

BBC News – Bitterness and unease in bankrupt Zimbabwe 3/6/2010

Zimbabwe Egalitarian and Equal Opportunity Measures

Robert Mugabe’s land reform comes under fresh scrutiny | World news | theguardian.com 5/10/2013

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa: Peter Godwin: 9780316018715: Amazon.com: Books (2007)

Mugabe and the White African | POV | PBS

Zimbabwe Food Security

Zimbabwe faces looming food crisis, says UN | World news | theguardian.com 9/4/2013:

Zimbabwe is facing a “looming food crisis” with one in four people in rural areas at risk of hunger early next year, the highest number in half a decade, the UN has warned.

The gloomy prediction was seen as a blow to analysts who have argued that Robert Mugabe’s widely condemned land reform programme is starting to pay dividends.

IRIN Africa | Army worm outbreak threatens Zimbabwe’s food security | Zimbabwe | Early Warning | Food Security 1/14/2013

Zimbabwe Health

IPS – Rebuilding Zimbabwe’s Health System | Inter Press Service 6/19/2013:

Every day, eight women and 100 children die from pregnancy- and delivery-related complications in Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most of them die of easily preventable causes and illnesses.

Kubatana – Archive – A call to the new government of Zimbabwe to prioritize the right to health and clean water – ZADHR- Sep 12, 2013

Zimbabwe Media

Media group says Zimbabwe police ban on hand-cranked, solar radios illegal ahead of polling | Fox News 2/22/2013

In Zimbabwe’s Media, It’s All About Robert Mugabe : NPR 5/13/2012

Zimbabwe journalists worried: Mugabe cabinet includes ‘media hangman’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 9/13/2013

Zimbabwe – Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s main Zimbabwe page)

Q&A: Zenzele Ndebele promotes radio in Zimbabwe – Blog – Committee to Protect Journalists 7/29/2013

Zimbabwe Refugees

Zimbabwean refugees: Between haven and hell – Features – Al Jazeera English 8/1/2013

UNHCR – Zimbabwe – “2013 UNCHR regional operations profile – Southern Africa”:

At the end of 2011, there were some 449,000 people of concern to UNHCR in Southern Africa, including 145,000 refugees, 245,000 asylum-seekers, 55,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4,000 returnees.

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When the day after comes, as it comes to all survivors, how will Zimbabwe remember Robert Mugabe?

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UNHCR Video: “Zimbabweans in South Africa”

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Remember: It’s Never the Narcissist: Erdogan Blames Woes on “Vandals and Terrorist Elements”

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Regions, Turkey

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Reference for the partial quotation in the above title:  Tattersall, Nick and Ayla Jean Yackley.  “Turkish riot police fire tear gas at Istanbul protest.”  Reuters, June 11, 2013.

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Erdogan’s in moral and psychological trouble, and that trouble starts with denial and the convenient pointing of the finger elsewhere, but by the numbers, he’s not in political trouble.

The opposition currently appears too weak to play a significant role. The Republic People’s Party (CHP) of Kilicdaroglu is not expected to total more than 25 percent of the vote; the ultra-nationalist ‘Grey Wolves’ of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are estimated at around 10 percent while the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party will probably total 6 percent of votes.

ANSAmed.  “Turkey: Erdogan has no rivals in 2014 presidential vote.”  July 17, 2013.

While I feel Erodan’s right to suggest protesters meet him at the ballot box, God knows how the autocrat has been working the ropes to rig them. He’s ditched a class of career military men and jailed or harassed publishers and journalists, for a start.

Ben Caspit writing for Al Monitor (“Erdogan’s Sin of Hubris”) last week noted the following:

Erdogan’s growing appetite has become truly swinish and planted in him the messianic belief that he was sent directly by the Divine Presence to return Turkey to its days of glory and rebuild the Ottoman Empire. This was viewed by many as the main source of Erdogan’s megalomania that is now absorbing a strong, unexpected blow from the masses in Istanbul’s squares, who call him “tyrant” and “dictator.”

Five days ago from Haberler.com:

Erdogan is no creator, nor a prophet, and has not been in heaven – only in North Africa here on earth. But he should take advantage of the deep faith of many Muslims and turn away from his intransigence against those who disagree with him, against awkward media and against his critics in Turkish society. Gül und Arinc have prepared the way. This is Erdogan’s last chance to break from his harsh policy.

Haberler.  “Opinion: Erdogan’s Last Chance.”  EN.Haberler.Com, June 6, 2013.

Does Erdogan read?

Does he know what he looks like to the free world — the world that hosts the United Nations, the Center for the Protection of Journalists, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and Haaretz?

Soon the square, home to days of protests over what demonstrators call an increasingly authoritarian government, was filed with chaos. Hugely loud bangs echoed through the area — likely the result of stun grenades. Thousands packed back into Taksim Square, surrounding a large bonfire that they were fueling with whatever they could pick ups.

Walsh, Nick Paton, Arwa Damon, and Gul Tuysuz.  “Tear gas, stun grenades, fire: Chaos overtakes Istanbul protests.”  CNN, June 11, 2013.

Once again, but differently then when the oldsters here first heard this chant: “The whole world is watching!”

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Slideshow: “Photos: Anti-government protests in Turkey.”  CNN, June 11, 2013.

You get the idea:  ” . . . vandals and terrorists . . . .” say the dictators, chief themselves among Vandals and terrorists.

(And sorry for putting up the Bobbies as Turkish footage — I need more powerful coffee to catch some who post footage from one context and past over it some immediately relevant headline.  That clip is gone, and all else seems to have come from Turkey in the last 24 hours or so).

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FTAC – Comment on an Hamas Missile Battery

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

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I am becoming a defender of Islam.

One of my Facebook buddies wrote in relation to the Hamas missile battery pictured to the left, “I love to hear the muslim’s [STET] cry about how offended they are! They can start a war by launching rockets at Israel and then they cry about it when they get retaliation for their acts.”

By now it should dawn on the infidel (and “The People of the Book” AKA “The People of the Five Books” AKA “the people who have written thousands of books” AKA “the people who write books, grow up to be doctors, and win Nobel Prizes out of all proportion to their small number” AKA etc.) that whatever Islam is or will be, it’s most conservative expression goes hardest on Muslims, and they’re not unaware of this.

So I responded:

All legacies in culture, language, philosophy, and religion evolve, and it’s good that they do. While we Jews have been a leading part of that — a light among the nations — ours may be not the only nation or only light, and it may be part of our character-in-eternal-myth to find that light in others as well.

Some, like Hamas and Hezbollah, make finding that light difficult for us, but it would be a mistake to think for a minute that others do not suffer before the strident and violent expressions in speech and in reality of such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Taliban, not to completely equate the two but to suggest than an INCLUSIVE universalism is greater in latency within our species than so many attempts by fascist entrepreneurs to leverage exclusive and deeply narcissistic programs, whether by way of nationalist or religious ambitions, into their own power or wealth. Some get away with what they do on the backs of others: Robert Mugabe foremost to my turn of mind. 🙂

I’ll tell you a not-so-secret secret: it’s not the dictator who destroys his people; it’s the dictator’s people who allow themselves to be destroyed, either in their humanity or in fact.

So it is with Hamas and others: they’re gettin’ rich (or they’re getting weapons, at least) while “their people” are allowing themselves to “get owned” in the worst ways imaginable. The day will dawn when they know they can fight back and will.

Contributing to that thought this morning was this reported this morning in the Los Angeles Times:  “I’m demanding that Morsi sit down with the opposition and listen to the different people of Egypt. He must also retract his decree and reform the police system,” said Arafat Moawad, a protester in Tahrir. “He needs to do these things in order to become a president for all Egyptians. Now, he is just a president for [his] Muslim Brotherhood movement.”  (“Egyptian stock exchange falls, protesters converge on Tahrir Square”).

To be clear: there is the voice (supported on the “Arab Street” by the presence of the body) protesting both the latest power grab by dictator wannabe (President-for-Life) Morsi and, associated with him, the ascendance of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

It’s not the dictator, is it?

Dictators, generally speaking, are but common assholes who have managed to elevate themselves above all others — not for nothing do we call them “malignant narcissists” — by way of intimidation, theft, and murder.

It’s The People, Los Pueblos, the Every Man and Woman, who allow them their outrageous license, which I believe they do in relation to their own cultural or social disorganization and lack of comprehension and prescience.  No one alone and innately possessed of a decent ethics and humanity can stand up to a thug; anyone alone, however, may band with others to shut down the same, and then, when that happens, the movement, the True Revolution, may be called an expression of righteous political will, this provided the same is itself possessed of a broad scope and related insight.

From the Haggadah with which I grew up: “With every generation, a little more freedom is won.”

Moses left Egypt with not only the Jews but a “mixed multitude” — i.e., all who wished to abandon the world constructed around and for Pharaoh, as malignant a narcissist as any who has ever existed.  That story, intact, transmitted faithfully across generations for now thousands of years, remains eternal, true, and adaptable.