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Cult of Personality: On Dictators and Reformers
He is, in the words of Barbara Walters, a “mild-mannered ophthalmologist.” Indeed, the rather squeamish leader-to-be chose eye surgery because it didn’t involve much blood. He speaks fluent English and can get by in French as well as his native Arabic. His wife is a knock-out, a “rose in the desert” according to a Vogue profile. Reluctant to take over the family business from his father, he interrupted his medical training in London to return home only after his older brother died in a car accident. Then, once at the helm, he released a number of political prisoners and instituted economic reforms that got a thumbs-up from the international business community. He cooperated with the United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Even today, he uses all the right words: transparency, dignity, reform.
Bashar al-Assad has also proven to be a ruthless dictator whose crackdown on internal dissent has left more than 5,000 Syrians dead. What happened to the reluctant eye surgeon committed to modernizing his country along Western lines?
Assad is the not the first young reformer to turn out to be a fanatical defender of the ancien regime. In Libya, the London School of Economics-educated Saif al-Islam Gaddafi put himself forward as a voice for reform only to become, when push came to shove, a diehard defender of his father’s tyrannical rule. To bolster claims that he was a closet reformer, “Baby Doc” Duvalier released some political prisoners when he took over in Haiti after his dictator father died in 1971, but he eventually fled the country 15 years later with the blood of thousands on his hands. Gamal Mubarak “has been the leading voice in favour of change within the government and the ruling party,” argued Lord Peter Mandelson shortly before Egyptians successfully ousted the elder Mubarak and exposed the son’s corrupt, U.S.-assisted dealings.
It’s not just the sons of dictators that fool outsider observers into equating youth with change. Meles Zenawi was only 36 when he became the president of Ethiopia in 1991. Widely viewed as a “reformer” by the West, Zenawi has been at the helm for the last 20 years, his rule marked by electoral fraud, considerable repression in parts of the country, and military intervention in Somalia. Yoweri Musaveni took over Uganda at the age of 47 and was widely heralded as part of a new generation of African democrats, but war and domestic oppression have characterized his long reign as well.
Nor are democracies immune from this particular political fallacy. Young voices for change (Tony Blair, Barack Obama) often align themselves with powerful economic and political interests (the military, the financial sector), and end up strengthening the very status quo they promised to change.
Newcomers, however committed to change they might be at a personal level, rarely have the institutional clout to make their mark. As they consolidate power, power in turn transforms them. Paradoxically, it’s often the old-timers who end up transforming the systems that produced them. The party hacks are the ones who hack apart the party. Taking down a system is easier if you know the system’s weak points from the inside. And if you rise to the top of the system, you by definition have a base of support from which to operate.
Mikhail Gorbachev was an apparatchik of long standing, a true believer who ultimately restructured the Soviet Union out of existence. F.W. de Klerk was not only an architect of apartheid but widely considered one of the more conservative National Party members, until he changed his mind, his party, and along with Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, all of South Africa. The jury is still out on Burmese President Thein Sein, but as a military man and junta leader who has so far initiated some important reforms, he may well have set out on the same trajectory as Gorbachev and de Klerk. None of these figures, of course, did it by themselves. Behind them, both inside and outside the system, stood powerful movements for change.
We ridicule countries that operate cults of personality – North Korea, Uzbekistan – and pat ourselves on the back that we reserve such embarrassing displays of adulation for guys who throw balls, gals who star in reality shows, and teenagers who sing pop music. At least our American idols don’t kill people. But alongside our celebration of celebrities, we also have a stealth personality cult: We insist, overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that only individuals, not institutions, make history. We are constantly on the lookout for the heroic leader who can single-handedly transform the warp and weave of their society. When a movement is leaderless like Occupy Wall Street or the leadership is dispersed as with so much of the Arab Spring, we’re not quite sure what to make of it. We are trapped in the personality cult that our culture of individualism has created.
So, when a transition takes place, as in North Korea, we ask all the wrong questions: who is Kim Jong Un, what are his politics, has his Swiss education influenced him, who are the individuals behind Kim Jong Un, will the young Kim transform his country? But to understand the future of North Korea, you must understand the key institutions in the society – the party, the military, and now the rising economic elite. Kim Jong Un’s possible love of fondue or American basketball is largely irrelevant. Just as the North Korean authorities are preparing the groundwork for the new leader’s personality cult, we unconsciously perform the rites of our own analytical personality cult by focusing on Kim Jong Un’s personal predilections.
We made the same mistake with Bashar al-Assad when we assumed that his personality would shape the Syrian system rather than the other way around. Now that he has proven to be a tyrant in disguise, he must go. “One-man rule and the perpetuation of family dynasties, monopolies of wealth and power, the silencing of the media, the deprivation of fundamental freedoms that are the birthright of every man, woman and child on this planet. To all of this, the people say: enough!” UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said in his recent message to Assad and Syria. It was rather naïve to expect Assad, the product not only of his father but of his father’s system, to do the Oedipal thing and kill his father’s legacy.
Some in the West have been tempted to call for a Libya-style intervention to support the opposition and remove Assad. As Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Paul Mutter points out in Salon, a range of voices from neoconservatives to liberals are beginning to raise the intervention possibility more vigorously. “It is hard for most people to watch the slaughter of innocent civilians in Syria without advocating military intervention from Western countries,” writes FPIF senior analyst Adil Shamoo in Syria’s Revolution Will Succeed. “However, even with the most morally upright intentions, such interventions are ripe with potential for abuse. An open-ended policy of military intervention is too easily exploited by those who would pursue it for political or economic ends, including not least for control of natural resources.”
It’s not just a matter of removing the “mild-mannered ophthalmologist” from his perch. Assad represents a large ruling elite aligned with the Alawite religious group, which makes up a not inconsiderable 12 percent of the Syrian population. Civil war indeed beckons, not because Assad is a charismatic leader who commands allegiance, but because his downfall could spell the loss of influence for a large class of people who can’t see how they would fit into a post-Assad order. Getting rid of the problematic personality at the top is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for change. It’s the entire Syrian political structure that must change. As an operation to save Syria, outside military intervention at this point would likely create more bloodshed than it would prevent. Assad, the squeamish eye doctor, has betrayed his erstwhile profession by spilling so much blood. The international community should not make the same mistake.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllI can think of two political cults of personality operating in the US right now. One is the unwavering in the face of all evidence to the contrary Obamabots, and the other is the 'He's the Man To Save Our Country' supporters of the extreme hard right-wing closet racist Ron Paul.
I have no doubt I will be flamed by supporters of both camps here on CD for just pointing this out.
Great comment. Thanks!
In America there are cults of personality for homegrown idols like Obama and Rond Paul. But Americans are not content with that. They also create negative personality cults for people like the "mad" Ahmedinejad, the "mad" Qaddafi, the "mad" Chavez, the "mad" Kim Jong-Il, and other people whose "madness" amounts to their scaring the Americans. Kim Jong-Un, despite his dull demeanor, will no doubt receive his diagnosis as soon as there is an "incident" he can be blamed for in the West Sea, as the Koreans call it.
One problem with getting Americans outraged enough to intervene in Syria (apart from having delegated US foreign policy in that neighborhood to Israel) is Assad's American middle class personality. He's that nice Arab guy we all feel so decent about befriending when he moves into the Smith's old house down the road. But no doubt there is a "mad' brother or uncle who is really behind all the atrocities.
Who's doing it here at home? Reagan? Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, or Obama? Will the next dear leader be Willard Romney? The bodies in the US don't stack up as fast as in Syria, Burma, Egypt, or elsewhere, but they do stack up. Kids eating paint chips, ingesting bug spray, weed killer, coal soot; mentally ill adults left to the streets; elderly cashiered out to care facilities; middle aged adults un- or underemployed. Change didn't happen - for many reasons - and hope is exhausted. The 1% has its' own forms of Iran's Republican Guard (no pun intended), SAVAK, and morality police. Or East Germany's Stasi. It's the Corporate Elite and their minions, not the teachers, not the bureaucrats, not the unions, who are strangling us. Even the so-called Presidential Debates are run by a private corporation. Getting on a ballot has different rules in every state, and the rules are stacked in favor of incumbents. Who will intervene in the US?
SMIT: Please add "NDAA" to your list as it stands in such glaring contrast to the military mantra of: "They're fighting over there for your freedoms!"
GALEN: There is a 3rd way... and growing ranks of its supporters.
People who despise the current Stooge-In-Chief B.O. might well root for him being reelected. Whoever assumes the presidency next year -- if things hold together long enough for that to happen -- will be blamed for the economic collapse and resultant social chaos that seem to be in the cards for soon. Like Herbert Hoover only worse.
I don't believe the reports of the economy getting better. Those stats are easily juked. Recessions do tend to go into remission in the run-up to presidential elections. The big dawgs instruct that this be done and the heads of the departments in charge salute and say "Ay ay, chiefs."
This election is looking like one of the establishment's "you pick 'em" contests where either guy would be acceptable to those in charge so both get massive campaign contributions. Kennedy-Nixon was like that; both establishmentarian insiders at the time (many believe Kennedy changed into a good guy while in office). Ford-Carter was a you pick 'em. Carter was an establishmentarian Georgia governor whose professed born-againness would provide the illusion of redemption for the country after Nixon got caught clumsily exposing the inner workings of the system. Reagan had the conservatives and establishment backing because the powers that be had decided Carter was ineffectual wimp and that the conservative candidate was too likeable, popular, and charismatic to not get in. John Anderson was allowed to have a modestly successful third party run to prove to us that third parties don't have the wherewithal to participate. Reagan, despite his rhetoric, would work with the empire managers, and he did.
Mondale, and Dukakis, were put there to take a loss for the team, but were acceptable to the establishment so they'd feel fine even if the election were somehow not to go their way. George the First was graciously allowed one term despite his confused prattle speaking style because he had served the establishment so loyally in so many key positions.
Dole was put there to loose because the establishment thought they had, in Bill Clinton, a guy who could sound sort of liberal when campaigning but would play ball with the powers that be. Ross Perot proved that if you have billions of dollars to fritter away on a vanity campaign, you too can fail to become president of the United States.
I knew Bush Junior would be president when his Alfred E. Newmanish face appeared on the cover of Time with the big type headline "President Bush?" I remember thinking that they had preselected who they want. But it was to be a "you pick 'em." Gore, former senator and vice president, would have been trusted by the establishment to be an acceptable front man. Remember all the outrage and questions why Gore didn't challenge the Florida results or the overall election results? Just following orders. Kerry and McCain were put there to lose but were people the establishment could count on should some gaffe or scandal cause the election to not go their way. With B.O. they had again what they had in Bill Clinton: a guy who could speak to the liberals, sound like one of them (like he's been instructed to do now), but would toe the line once in.
Candidate Full of It Mitt, despite his flip floppiness and robotic chuckling excuse for a personality, is seemingly who the establishment would prefer, someone who would cheerfully say whatever he was told, but Obama's re-election is also fine with them, so we the people get to "choose" if we choose to participate. Join in or sit it out, they will get one of their trusted guys in there.
The cults of personality for both will be done via a dizzying spate of very expensive, very frequently aired TV commercials.
SCHTICK: Good insights. I hope the small band of posters who reliably show up to blame voters for making their "stupid choices" read your post, and take in what it says. Thank you. And I couldn't agree more about the Depression. The dam broke (as a direct result of the Derivatives & Swaps scams, with their pre-paid Credit agencies giving them the thumb's up, added to their insurers--sure of the public's ultimate support--onboard) and rather than repair it (re-instituting Glass-Steagall, added to a small tax on trades) they just siphoned more and more money in... like schizophrenic maintenance crews removing the sand bags at the news of an approaching hurricane. Although THE FIX was in, nothing ever GOT fixed. The $ game is as much a cover-up as any of the following:
1. We are a nation of laws
2. We don't DO torture
3. Al Queada was behind a certain event whose name must never be uttered
4. BP cleaned up the U.S. Gulf
5. We're fighting to bring democracy to ______________________ (fill in the name of any number of nations)
6. Tax cuts (for the rich) grow the economy
Etc.
Heckuva job, Wall St Brownie, and presidential company.
I agree that no candidate for the presidency or for many other offices can be taken seriously, let alone get elected, unless she or he passes through the filter of corporate approval, shown most clearly by the amount of money they "raise".
But if that's the whole picture,who were those tens of millions who voted for each and every one of these people, including sacrifice candidates like Dukakis and Dole? The American people come out in their millions, complaining, holding their noses, or bedazzled by charisma, to put the stamp of legitimacy on the choices so generously filtered for them by the corporate elite.
Can it be possible that all these millions of Americans have decided that they are cool with corporate dominance and the 'democracy" it offers? That they would be afraid to antagonize their bosses by voting for someone the bosses didn't like?
In Britain, this used to be called the "deference vote" -- people who voted for an aristocrat because they believed that such people were born to rule them. America too seems to have a large and loyal deference vote, and that constituency is preparing now to elect yet another leader approved by their betters.
As if the problems Nader had getting on the ballot never existed.
As if studies haven't been published that show a 90% link between the amount spent, and who gets elected.
As if most citizens believe that any other (take your pick) viable, possible, practical, pragmatic, or alternative choice to the "Pepsi" and "Coke"challenge (as served on the election menu) even exists.
So... with that evidence, you want to show up here with a more polite rendition of blaming the voters? Phrasing the same indictment as a question is just a Rovian way of using the canard preferred by the forum's guardians, those placeholders who resolutely guard the status quo... by turning deadly, treasonous policy determinations (in high places) into a flaw on the part of voters.
Then, too, there's that item about a Captured media and who gets heard, versus quickly herded towards the exit doors. As if the right wing (and its centrist double) media can't create an echo chamber guaranteed to assassinate the character of anyone who doesn't measure up to what the elites have in mind.
Choice.... the great existential lie that lets the media circus spin the truth round and round.
"Young voices for change (Tony Blair, Barack Obama) often align themselves with powerful economic and political interests (the military, the financial sector), and end up strengthening the very status quo they promised to change."
What a crock! The only "change" Tony Bliar wrought was turning the Labour Party from a social-democratic party to a Tory Party. In fact the Conservative Party leaders of the 1950s and '60s (before Maggie Thatcher) were well to the left of Bliar, as Republicans like Ike and Nixon were to the left of Obama.
>Saif al-Islam Gaddafi put himself forward as a voice for reform only to become, when push came to shove, a diehard defender of his father’s tyrannical rule. <
This "tyrannical rule" had nevertheless placed Libya's Human Development Index higher than any other Arab nation's, besides being on top of all African nations as well. That means Libya was foremost among all African/Muslim countries in terms education, healthcare, average life expectancy, etc. Quite unlike the many US supported Latin-American dictators such as Guatemala's Hernandez Martinez and Rios Mont, Nicaragua's Somoza, Honduras's Cordova, Chile's Pinochet or Asia's Marcos, Ngo Dinh Diem, Suharto, etc. One might also ask whether any other nation had the right to overthrow the United States during the early 19th century for practising mass slavery of African-Americans. God has not appointed the US as the world's policeman, not when so much injustice lies within its own boundaries.
9 comments and Syria (you know the whole point of the article) is barely mentioned twice.
Everything else posted by everyone else are the usual rants......
Back on topic, so what's up with Assad & Syria?
"a ruthless dictator whose crackdown on internal dissent has left more than 5,000 Syrians dead. What happened to the reluctant eye surgeon committed to modernizing his country along Western lines?"
Nothing happened. The two statements in the quote resonate perfectly with each other. Today, modernizing a country along western lines does not mean democratic reforms at all. It means escalating the oppression of people in the interest of das kapital. I guess the author sort of forgot that over the past ten years the west has "fallen down". "big time, if you will". I don't think Foreign Policy in Focus is a media outlet that has found enlightenment yet. But a lot of people are now starting to see the world through a lens that shows more forest, less trees, so we can see how things connect, how good things connect with good things, and how bad things connect with bad things. For example, how the health of people connects with the health of the biosphere, and how bad middle east dictators connect with bad western imperialists.
From Global Research / The Guardian Jan 18: 'Most Syrians back President Assad, But You'd Never Know from Western Media - Assad's Popularity, Arab League Observers, US Military Involvement: ALL Distorted in the West's Propaganda War' - by Jonathan Steele [ http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28722 ]:
Some Key Excerpts [} ' When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. Such as with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by Qatar's royal family which has taken a most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it's note-worthy that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website {www.thedohadebates.com/news/item/index.asp?n=14312}. But it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go... - This poll found that- While most Arabs OutSide of Syria feel Assad should go,.. At-Least 55% of Syrians Want Assad TO STAY, motivated by fear for Syria's future in the face of civil war [The unrest in Syria is essentially a civil war- ala Libya]...
- Biased media coverage also continues to distort the Arab League's {AL} observer mission in Syria. When the AL endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya last spring, there was high praise from the west. But Its decision to mediate in Syria was less welcome to western governments, and to Syrian opposition groups, who support a military rather than a political solution. So the AL's move was promptly called into doubt by western leaders, and most western media echoed the line. Attacks were launched on the credentials of the mission's Sudanese chairman. Demands were made that the mission pull out in favor of UN {IE: FUK-US NATO} intervention {ala; the Libyan phony R2P model}.
- Critics presumably feared that the Arab observers would report that armed violence is no longer confined to the regime's forces, and images of peaceful protests brutally suppressed by army and police ARE Often FALSE, & that Homs and other Syrian cities are like Beirut in the 1980s or Sarajevo in the 1990s, with battles between militias raging across sectarian and ethnic fault lines. The AL mission in Syria has seen peaceful demonstrations both for and against the regime. It has witnessed, and in some cases suffered from, violence by opposition forces...
- Foreign military intervention has already started. It is not quite following the Libyan pattern since Russia and China are furious at the west's deception in the security council last year. They will not accept a new United Nations resolution that allows any use of force. Rather the model being used goes back to the era of the cold war, before "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" were developed and misused - Ala Ronald Reagan's support for the Contras, whom he armed and trained to try to topple Nicaragua's Sandinistas from bases in Honduras. But now Turkey is the safe haven where the so-called Free Syrian Army has set up.
Here too western media silence is dramatic. No reporters have followed up on a significant recent article by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who now writes for the American Conservative – a magazine that criticizes the American military-industrial complex from a non-neocon position on the lines of Ron Paul,.. Giraldi states that Turkey, a Nato member, has become Washington's proxy and that unmarked Nato warplanes have been arriving at Iskenderum, near the Syrian border, delivering Libyan {NTC} volunteers and weapons seized from the late Col Gaddafi's arsenal {Thus the connection between what happened in Libya last yr & what's now happening in Syria IS REAL!}. "French and British special forces trainers are on the ground," he writes, "assisting the Syrian rebels, while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause...' {]