Are you not entertained?

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19^th century German Philosopher and cultural critic. I am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche is the biography of Friedrich Nietzsche written by Sue Prideaux and published by Faber and Faber in 2018. I have taken just one idea from the book for the purpose of writing this piece; and that idea is Nietzsche explaining to us what a strong leader must avoid.

Nietzsche says, “Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not himself become a monster.” As a teacher or parent responsible for mentoring and grooming children or political leaders involved with the intricate art of governance, we all carry two minds. We want to provide a free hand to children at home and schools to allow them to make their own decisions and live to understand and exercise initiatives. Yet at the same time it remains our responsibility to instill discipline in them and despite allowing them the free will to inculcate curiosity and creativity they cannot be allowed to cross a few given red lines. Striking the right balance becomes very important not only for the students but also for the tutors and mentors as well. In the social contract between the ruler and the ruled, ‘striking the right balance’ comes with a great responsibility of not crossing the red lines.

Teachers tell students to push boundaries all the time but they also simultaneously keep reminding them that there are certain boundaries that need to be respected and recognised. These youngsters and teenagers are our future leaders. Universities can do well to employ the best available teachers, raise the standards of education, conduct research and development and produce readymade citizens so that the nation can then commission these university end-products to not only become responsible citizens but also strong leaders in the future.

Leaders that have not been decisive, those that procrastinated or were not sure of their judgements, have historically brought misfortune for the people and the nations they led. Deliberation is a virtue but when leaders spend too much time deliberating, their uncertainty comes at a cost.

It’s a funny combination but in the political third world, we consistently deal with two categories of leaders — ‘strong and wrong’ or ‘right and weak’. With the right investment made in the favoured candidates, these weak leaders year after year in a step-by-step process change themselves and eventually become very strong. They convert themselves into ideologues. Those that created them can no longer tell them about the boundaries that they were not once allowed to push and the red lines that they were not meant to cross. They become strong leaders in their own stead and, while enjoying the tremendous following of people, they get inclined to misuse and abuse power.

Academically, morally and ethically, Nietzsche is right in his guidance as a cultural critic when he says that one must avoid becoming a monster when dealing with monsters themselves. But can such monsters be stopped by a weak leadership or a weak political system? In 1980, Robert Mugabe was considered and hailed as a hero of Africa for the role he played in freeing Rhodesia from white colonial rule. Later on, Mugabe became an ideologue — a ‘strong and wrong’ one. He not only mismanaged the country’s economy but also violated human rights and suppressed all political dissent in order to continue to rule for 37 long years until he was finally forced to leave in November 2017 at the age of 93 years. One big problem with all ideologues is that once they secure a position in a public high office, they don’t see it as a temporary privilege but as a great means and a perfect platform to impose their desires for as long as they wish.

Mostly political leaders seek public offices when they are ‘weak and right’. People trust them for their promises and enable and empower them through the electoral process. These leaders enter public offices with the best of intentions, but later on become a victim of the very power they seek. It is interesting to see what a ‘very wrong and very strong’ leader, Adolf Hitler, had to say about his popularity in 1936: “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I, on the other hand…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realized this and followed me.”

The villains in every facet of the society must be annihilated and when such villains are politicians like Robert Mugabe, people don’t care about the due process. Instead, what they care about is how their miserable lives, made even more miserable by a set of corrupt politicians, can become better. People love to associate themselves with an agent of vengeance when they find out that law abiding citizens are being hurt, loved ones are murdered, people are abducted, and instances of rape continue unabated. At least in movies we enjoy associating with such agents of vengeance, like the Hollywood actor Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington who go after such targets. People cheer them on and love when the good-for-nothing due process is being damned by them. Is this just theatrical or something that the people want in real life as well?

I would want the readers to associate with the idea of why we cannot afford to have ‘strong and wrong’ leaders in power. Politics in its current shape in Pakistan is no more than a spectacle or exhibition of ‘good guy’ versus ‘bad guy’ — a form of entertainment. The people are being entertained by many court jesters that politics has employed on the taxpayers’ money and people are losing sight of the real problem of this country — getting rid of the ‘wrong and strong’ as soon as we can. Maybe Russel Crowe, in the movie Gladiator, was addressing the poor people of Pakistan when he shouted loud at the spectators in the coliseum saying, “Are you not entertained?”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2022.

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