Absolute power. Adolf Hitler. Saddam Hussein. Idi Amin. Joseph Stalin. Col Muammar Gaddafi. Kim family of North Korea. These top six 20th century dictators mastered absolutism–the holding of absolute principles in political, philosophical, or theological matters–and power corrupted them absolutely.
In the past, absolute monarchies, like that of Louis XIV who brought France to its peak of absolute power and his words ‘L’etat c’est moi’ (‘I am the state’), held supreme autocratic authority, principally not being restricted by written laws, legislature, or unwritten customs.
Yet, many centuries after the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity had been sown worldwide, modern dictators still resorted to a monarchical system with the president holding supreme authority, surrounded by relatives, tribemates or loyalists—call it a “court society”.
Ruling with an iron fist requires an aspiring dictator to know the playbook for absolute power, as history’s despots prove in Netflix’s sardonic docuseries “How To Become A Tyrant” which premiered on July 9, 2021.
I have always been fascinated by Judy Kuhn’s song “The Colours of the Wind” in the Disney animation “Pocahontas” (1995), where a Native American (Indian) woman Pocahontas educates a close-minded Englishman John Smith about the importance of nature. She (a savage) asks him (all-knowing Jamestown settler): “How can there be so much that you don’t know?” “You can own the Earth (our planet) and still all you’ll own is Earth (dirt) until you can paint with all the colours of the wind.” She says after learning to paint with all colours of the wind, “you’ll learn things you never knew, you never knew”.
Indeed, I have lived the realities of modern absolute monarchies but what I didn’t know was the fact that there is even a playbook that these despots follow. Emmy-winning actor Peter Dinklage—Game of Thrones Dwarf—employs dark humour to narrate how 20thcentury dictators used the playbook “How to Become a Tyrant” to seize absolute power.
As a young boy, I learned about the tragic story of Julius Caesar, Roman Emperor, and Dictator for Life. Our mother, who was a former school teacher, raised us on folklore, histories, and tell-tales of all sorts until I was old enough to digest the gist of the stories. In Senior Three, I fully grasped the Julius Caesar story and how the Roman dictator fell in love with his own legend, transforming a republic into a dictatorship. The price was sharp daggers in his mortal body. These were either literature stories for entertainment or histories of the past until Dinklage elbowed me to a realisation that the power game remains the same, only players change.
NewsWeek, an American weekly news magazine, in its first review “Netflix’s “How to Become a Tyrant” Fails to Connect the Dots in Modern Times” was concerned with the documentary’s failure to mention the likes of the immediate past American President Donald Trump, along with a few like-minded leaders, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan who have and still read from the playbook. We can correlate with 21st-century leaders because this has happened, can and will still happen again.
Historians say, rightly, the past shapes the present which informs the future.
Seize The Power: Adolf Hitler
Like Adolf Hitler, all despots start off with good intentions until their inner cruelty and oppressive “animalism” emerges. Most of them are men who come from nothing but reinvent themselves into gods. A broke, friendless and failed artiste, Hitler just read from the playbook and mastered its tactics to become one of the most well-known—and later reviled—figures in history.
Believe you are born special
The documentary says North Korea’s Kim Il-sung claims his birth was preceded by a falling star (divinity), Saddam said he was anointed by Allah to rule Iraq, Zaire’s (now DR Congo) Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga became God himself while Napoleon Bonaparte believed destiny had called upon him like Moses to lead France to glory: “I’m no ordinary man, I am Charlemagne, Julius Caesar and Alexander The Great all rolled into one.”
Hitler, as expected, claimed he found his divine destiny in 1918 during World War 1 when a strange voice told him “move”. After he takes a step, a bomb smashes his comrades to oblivion. He found his grand vision of a Nazi Germany while recovering at a nearby hospital following a gas attack.
Catchy message: the big lie
Believing they are the centre of the universe; they always have a special message that intoxicates the masses. Hitler’s was “blame it all on Jews” who had stabbed Germany in the back costing it WW1, to stir public sentiments.
Hitler coined the “big lie”, a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used especially as a propaganda technique, in his 1925 book Mein Kampf, to describe the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Outrage sells
Understanding the people’s anger and resentment and how to use them to your own ends, is key. Hitler identified with the starving, disillusioned and unemployed Germans who he said were suffering at the hands of rich, corrupt Jews and he fanned the flames towards the extermination of an entire race.
Gaddafi became a hero through fiery speeches against Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris rulers who he later overthrew in a coup in 1969.
Kim used the horror of Japanese occupation to build his stardom while Amin blamed the British imperialism for all Uganda’s problems. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame uses the possibility of resurgence of genocide to keep everyone quiet and in check. Uganda’s ruling class NRA/NRM revolutionaries made a song out of “did you fight in the bush? Do you want to take us back to Luwero Triangle (where the current government started its revolution)?”
Former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earned his popularity with his undying pledge: to defend Israel and the Jewish people. “No one yet knows what awaits the Jews in the 21st century, but we must make every effort to ensure that it is better than what befell them in the 20th, the century of the Holocaust,” Netanyahu once famously said.
Start a movement
Hitler started his Nazi party and gained followers by opening their eyes to Jewish atrocity and propaganda. President Musevenistarted the National Resistance Army (NRA) after Obote rigged the 1980 elections and swore to bring a new breed of non-sectarian, democratic and clean politics.
Be a man of the people
Your face becomes the face of the nation and you become one of them. The best play here is to disassociate from big titles and identify with the ruled.
Italian fascist Benito Mussolini identified himself as a son of a humble blacksmith, Amin aka “Big Daddy” and “Gentle Giant” drove in an open jeep on Kampala streets and played an instrument at public events while Gaddafi, the Father of Libya, wore traditional robes and stayed in tents.
The son of Kaguta who led a struggle for freedom, calls himself a farmer and herdsman and of recent, has taken up the title “Jajja” to identify with the young generation. A liberator and bushwar hero, NRM cadres in 2015 crowned him “Baba Ya Taifa” or “Father of the Nation”.
Hitler, the Führer (guide), always wore uniform to remind the people that he emerged from the trenches of World War 1. With a high sense of fashion, he came up with a toothbrush moustache (later, the moustache of the ordinary men throughout Europe) making him a contemporary German hero.
Mao Zedong became the “founding father” of the People’s Republic of China; North Korea’s “founding father” Kim Il-Sung was the “Eternal Leader”, his son Kim Jun Il became the “Dear Leader” while his grandson Kim Jong Un is referred to as the “Great Successor”. Burundi’s fallen president Pierre Nkurunziza was bestowed the title ‘Supreme Leader’.
Brand your movement: political pageantry
Hitler’s Nazi symbol, svastika (a cross with each leg bent at a 90-degree angle, an important symbol in both ancient and modern religions) gave his red uniformed militia-Storm Troopers or Special Squad (SS)-a special appeal that attracted even female agents. It became a symbol of duty, courage, unity, conformity and being part of something greater than yourself.
President Museveni employed one important colour on the Ugandan flag “yellow” to brand his political movement. The so-called NRM cadres, NRM youth and NRM Historicals preach his “NRM ideology” across the political divide, praise his achievements and defend his stay in power.
Build your squad
Build a team that will watch your back and sell your agenda.
Gaddafi used former army officers, Saddam relied on family members, Stalin relied on the central committee members, Mobutu relied on close relatives and fellow members of the Ngbandi tribe while al-Bashir awarded contracts to his brothers’ company to keep wealth in the family.
Hitler used Joseph Goebbels as his propaganda chief and Reich Minister of Propaganda, a symbol of unfailing loyalty just like Squealer in George Orwell’s novel, “Animal Farm”, who could turn water into wine with words.
Rwanda’s Paul Kagame employs a “Brigade of Twitter praise-singers” who magnify every little development in Kigali as transformative, branding his country as a “Singapore of Africa” and in equal measure fend off all criticism.
To brand their image with an unforgettable identity, power masters build a loyal force to help them on the rise to power.
Saddam, as Vice President of Iraq, built a loyal secret service to seize power, Stalin cozied up to Vladimir Lenin until he became the party’s secretary-general. Amin built his loyal force with members of his own Kakwa tribe.
Hitler used his Special Squad (SS) to turn Germany into a police state with decrees. Burundi’s former president Nkurunziza used his Hutu tribe militia-Imbonerakure to eliminate political rivals.
The son of Kaguta employed young NRA combatants famously known as “kadogos” who became a formidable force during the bush war and later grew into Generals in the reformed UPDF, a continental army securing the Great Lakes Region with a glowing legacy of peace missions across Africa.
Editorial by
#Martha_Leah_Nangalama
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