Does dictatorship attract the mad or madden those attracted to it?

Nov 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

This question was put to readers by a columnist from the Guardian (London) but he chose not to answer it? There is no complication in understanding the answer. Lord Action puts it succinctly; “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Once power takes over the wielder’s mind, psychological devastation follows.
I remember my friends at the University of Toronto shouted, “Fred, Fred, come see your president.” It was 1983. The place was Cancun, Mexico. A group of world leaders met there to discuss north-south trade. This was at the height of the influence of the Non-Aligned Movement. Burnham represented the Caribbean. He donned a long-sleeve purple shirt-jack with matching trousers.
But the erratic aspect of his sartorial ensemble that caught the eyes of the world was his high-top purple boots that stretched from toes to knees.
When I came home the next year, I witnessed a strange thing about Burnham. Irrespective of the audience’s religion, he would end all his public speeches with the words, “Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.” I was told that he would be missing for days, sobering up from heavy bouts of drinking. Was Burnham losing it?
Back home, I ran into one of my classmates when we were history students at UG in the seventies. Rachel Exeter was a devoted PNC cadre (she still is from her base in Canada) and though I was WPA, we got along perfectly well as students. She liked me and I liked her; there was no PNC or WPA barrier.
I asked Rachel about Burnham’s behaviour and if you know how loyal a PNCite Rachel is then you have to take her seriously. She would never ever criticize Burnham but she trusted me and just briefly said; “I don’t know Freddie, maybe he’s losing it.
The answer to the question that formed the title of this column is that dictatorship destroys the psyche of those that embrace it. Basically, two reasons explain a dictator’s descent into psychological maelstrom. The first is related to delusions of grandeur. As a dictator takes more and more of his country’s soul without national resistance, he/she inevitably drifts into the water of messianic calling.
There is no question in my mind that Bharrat Jagdeo became a victim of this kind of illusions. It is an inevitable pathway.
As the strongman becomes more and more powerful, as the resistance to his naked power wanes and the chorus of engineered support rings in his ear, he comes to see himself as synonymous with the nation. He comes to see himself in messianic terms. He comes to see himself as the giver of the nation, the saviour of the nation.
This type of thinking virtually destroyed the psychic integrity of Fidel Castro.
I believe it has done that to Mr. Jagdeo too. The Day of Appreciation is the strongest indication to date that dictatorship has made Mr. Jagdeo a victim. There is no parallel in contemporary world politics where a leader engineers a day of appreciation by filling a stadium with thousands and thousands of citizens whose only reason for going was that an attractive reward was extended and the reason was because his term of office has come to an end. This is madness.
The Kwame McCoy role in the exercise of power is another variable that must be taken into consideration when one undertakes a study of the psychological state of Mr. Jagdeo.
Dictatorship, of course, claims other victims who have been intimately intertwined with the strongman. Mr. Rohee blurting out that goat ain’t bite him, and that his political DNA makes him ready for the presidency, reveals signs of psychological tattering. The same for Ms. Gail Teixeira who waltzed into a high-profile meeting at UG and vociferously demanded from its administration the firing of a number of lecturers from a list she produced.
One suspected that a long time ago, dictatorship consumed “Killaman.” His antics surely point in the direction of psychological laceration. Not to mention the sexual adventures of the little oligarchs.
Finally, the second reason why dictatorship leads to mental collapse. The autocrat sincerely conceives of himself as the great one. When that greatness is rejected, even by one intellectual or one priest or one editor, it brings reprisals. The maximum leader sees this outspokenness as heresy or treason.
For Josip Stalin, the Bolshevik Revolution had replaced God, was perfect as God. As the revolution founders broke with Stalin’s excesses, the Russian mad man saw them as abnormal and killed them one by one. In the end, dictatorship consumes all of its makers. History teaches us that.

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