Portrait Of The Tyrant

By Baba Galleh Jallow

Democracy, it is often said, is the tyranny of the majority. It is a political arrangement in which the majority elect representatives who then make and impose laws on the minority, whether the minority likes such laws or not. But it is universally acknowledged that a well-ordered democracy with the necessary checks and balances to prevent abuse of power is the best-known form of government. The situation becomes tricky when there is but a semblance of democracy, when there are no checks and balances, and where the elected representatives lack the personal wisdom and integrity to do the right thing and abstain from abusing their powers.

Empirical evidence shows that men are never to be trusted to act honorably, particularly when they are in a position to indulge their appetites and promote their prejudices without fear of consequences. It is generally agreed that however well-meaning human beings are, they are only just to the extent that they fear some sort of punishment or retribution if they act unjustly. If people acquire power, particularly power over a whole nation, and there is nothing to stop them from getting corrupt and unjust, either in their own personalities or by way of legal checks and balances, they are very likely to grow gross in their deeds and actions. It is through such a corruption of the human soul that the tyranny of the minority is born and gradually transformed into the tyranny of the tyrant.

The elected minority, knowing that those who elected them are really not in any position to control or punish them, begin abusing their power. Under the leadership of the would-be tyrant, they throw all care to the winds and employ every sort of conceivable device to deceive the people. They steal and get rich, lie and lavish goodies to blind the minds of the people, and become veritable sycophants to their leader, the would-be tyrant. When they are adequately corrupted and stripped of all honor and integrity, the would-be tyrant would start eliminating them one by one. So that in a short while, he would be the only surviving member of his former companions, thus beginning the rapid transition into a fully fledged tyrant. He would have been transformed, by his greed and insatiable lust for power, into a monster in human skin. For he would have lost all sense of proportion and would see himself as the very paragon of virtue and righteousness, thanks to the creeping and cringing sycophants groveling at his feet at every moment of his waking life.

The tyrant, like all human beings, has an almost inexhaustible list of profligate desires. But unlike most people, he is in a position to satisfy them. These desires take hold of the tyrant’s soul and make a slave of him. His reason is corrupted and becomes an instrument for the satisfaction of his illusive desires. It encourages excess and extravagance in the tyrant and gives him a false sense of freedom and security. But he never actually feels free or secure. He is perpetually dejected and dissatisfied because he finds that nothing he does satisfies his cravings or fills the emptiness in his soul.

Thus mentally shackled and insecure, the tyrant sets about making sure he stays in power forever. He grows increasingly paranoid and sees danger in the very shadow of the trees. A fly buzzing near him is harshly whacked and trampled upon for fear that it is sent by one of his many enemies. A lizard that dashes before him in the morning sends him scurrying back indoors to pour libations to ward the evil off. If he dreams of a dog, he immediately sacks the first security chief to hit his mind in the morning and gets him arrested and locked up. For the tyrant, a dog in his dreams is a sure sign of an evil plot against him. The pleasures of safety evade him and he becomes a shaking bundle of crippling fear. While he struts proudly around in pansive garbs, wielding strange objects to appear mysterious and powerful, and espousing strange philosophies to appear wise, the tyrant is in reality a bundle of fright and ignorance, his mind as empty as cyber space. He feels weak and hollow, like the scooped-out trunk of a long dead tree.

Because he is so stupid and incapable of constructive thought, the tyrant hates all clever persons. He is jealous of bright intellect and seeks to snuff out the light of truth and wisdom, wherever it shines. An intellectual dwarf of embarrassing proportions, the tyrant makes a tabula rasa of the society he lords it over. He tries to create a society of dwarfs shorter than himself. He draws a line at the level of his shoulders above which no man must rise. If one happened to be taller than the tyrant’s shoulders, one either learns to walk in a stoop or is cut down to size. Hypocrites and parasites, always eager to please the tyrant, take to crawling on their bellies like poisonous reptiles, cringing and fawning and asking him questions he likes to hear and giving him the impression that he is indeed the greatest man alive. They will ask him questions like: ‘My Lord, what do you say to all those stupid folks who pretend to be wise and make funny noises?’ And the tyrant would reply: ‘If I get hold of them I will turn them all into monkeys. I will make them know who I am.’ He talks this way because force is the only concept the tyrant is capable of understanding. Then, when the tyrant falls, as he must one day, those cringing reptiles with the long mouths will call him fool and rush to occupy new space at the feet of the new powerful, unless they are kicked away.

The tyrant, hiding behind the fake cloak of righteousness and justice, makes unjust laws to silence all critical voices. He resorts to telling stinking lies, recalling non-existent memories, citing phantom examples, finding fault with all who disagree with him, and uttering uncouth threats to justify the unjustifiable. Being in a position to castigate, and edged along by shameless flunkies with long poisonous tongues and repressed consciences, the tyrant expresses his rage at all so-called enemies of the nation, preaching the gospel according to St. Power. His nostrils flaring and his forked tongue constantly flicking out, he spits endless potions of venom at all who dare to challenge his words.

But in spite of all his so-called power and all the privileges he enjoys, the tyrant is ultimately a very miserable creature. A man obsessed with making other men’s lives miserable cannot but be miserable himself, because he is the very fountain from which misery flows out to the people he oppresses. He is the very source of the nation’s misery, the cancer that is eating up the body politic. And he knows it. But he cannot accept it. Eventually, though, he will be forced to. Let him ask the many tyrants of history.