On Despots And Dictators

I have been watching with unbridled interest the upheavals, unrest, and change sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East in recent times. With Nature unleashing its fury on man on one side, it is the despots and dictators on the other side who are brutalizing their own people, the ones who have dared to protest against their tyrannical rulers after decades of oppression and appalling brutality meted out to them. With uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Libya, and so on, to name a few, it is obvious that the power-hungry tyrants will do anything it takes to stay on at the helm, even if it means the mass murder of their own people. A case in point is Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, a wily fox of a ruler, who is clearly delusional about his people loving him despite their taking to the streets against him.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak tried brutalizing his people as well, but was smart enough to step down when the tide turned against him, with the people power swelling up against him in Tahrir Square, and the world body urging him to go. Gadhafi is different altogether - here is a man who shows obvious signs of being mentally deranged, who refuses to understand that his people want him gone, and who has no qualms about slaughtering his countrymen who dare oppose him. "I am Libya," he says, his massive ego blinding him to the discontent raging amongst his people, and he has vowed to fight till the end, unmindful of the brutal massacre turning the rebel-held city streets into rivers of blood.

With the UN backing a NO-FLY ZONE and the coalition forces pulverizing Gadhafi's air force, tanks, and munition depots, the despot is deep in hiding in one of his fortified underground bunkers, and is sending out his messages of defiance via telephone to the outside world, messages rife with bluster and bluff. With his billions stashed away in foreign nations now frozen, there are rumours that he still has billions in hard cash in Libya, so the fight is expected to go on for a long time, as long as he can arm his so-called "loyalists" who have been coerced into taking up arms for him against the rebels. Reports indicate that young, inexperienced men have had one hand handcuffed to the tanks and forced to go into the rebel-held cities, resulting in their bombing deaths caused by the coalition, and those who tried to desert his fighting ranks have been executed at point blank range. Women and children being used as human shields are collateral damage, innocent lives being lost all for the sake of this despot wanting to stay on in power.

One of Gadhafi's sons was on TV a few weeks ago, before the Allied action, and was complaining of not being able to indulge in his hobby of going on African safaris. As if that were the only thing that mattered! His other London-School-Of-Economics-educated son was echoing his insane father of how the Libyan people loved his Dad and would give up their lives for him, and how the rest of the world had misunderstood this whole thing. This extended drama being played out at the cost of innocent lives shows the urgency of the situation in Libya, and like all dictators in history, this one too shall pass into disgrace and infamy. Having plundered and looted their nations for decades at a stretch and having stayed on at the helm for too long, it is time for all despots and dictators to go, so their people can enjoy their freedoms they truly deserve.