The Shame Factor: When will dictators learn not to treat their people like fools? By Christopher Hitchens
The Shame Factor: When will dictators learn not to treat their people like fools?
By Christopher Hitchens
We argued that the supposed attractions of authoritarian “stability” are in fact illusory, since nothing is more volatile and unsafe than dictatorship, which lacks any self-critical method for learning from its mistakes.
Not long ago, a close comrade of mine was dining with a person who I can’t identify beyond telling you that his father is a long-term absolutist ruler of an Arab Muslim state. “Tell me,” said this scion to my friend, “is it true that there are now free elections in Albania?” My friend was able to confirm the (relative) truth of this, adding that he had once even acted as an international observer at the Albanian polls and could attest to a certain level of transparency and fairness. The effect of his remarks was galvanic. “In that case,” exclaimed the heir-presumptive, thumping the table, “what does that make us? Are we peasants? Children?” The gloom only deepened, apparently, as the image of the Arab as a laughing stock—lagging behind Albania!—took hold of the conversation.
Hosni Mubarak
Who could have predicted that such a comparison would have turned out to be such a catalytic one in the mind of this nervous dauphin? So multifarious are the sources of grievance in the Arab world that it could have been any one of a host of pretexts that ignited a revolt, or revolts. This ought to make one beware of too glibly selecting the ostensibly crucial one. Poverty and unemployment? These are so pervasive that they could explain any rebellion at any time—and in any case Tunisians are among the richest per capita in North Africa. Dictatorship and repression? Again, these are commonplaces, and so far the most conspicuously authoritarian despotisms—Syria and Saudi Arabia, for instance—have been spared the challenge of insurrection. (May these words of mine go out of date with all speed.)
I think that the factor of indignity and shame, of the sort manifested in the anecdote above, makes a more satisfactory initial explanation. And one of the cheering and reassuring things about dictatorship is the way that it consistently fails to understand this element of the equation. How gratifying it is that all such regimes go on making the same obvious mistakes. None of them ever seems to master a few simple survival techniques: Don’t let the supreme leader’s extended family go on shopping sprees; don’t publicly spoil some firstborn as if the people can’t wait for him, too, to be proclaimed from the balcony; don’t display your personal photograph all over the landscape; don’t claim more than, say, 75 percent of the vote in any “election” you put on. And don’t try to shut down social media: It will instantly alert even the most somnolent citizen to the fact that you are losing, or have lost, your grip.