The Fiddler
If you are bold enough, you could tell a dictator “what goes around comes around”. Or you might inform him that “the writing is on the wall.”
The implication of “what does around comes around” is that as the dictator has treated people very badly, his victims are likely in the future to return the favour and mete out the same treatment to him.
The expression “the writing is on the wall” tells the dictator that his time is up; that his or her days are numbered; that he or she will soon be deposed or die or both, whichever the sooner. (Note here the strict adherence to gender neutrality despite the fact that females rarely become dictators. On the other hand, quite a few have egged on their husbands or relatives to engage in bigger and better excesses.)
The Fiddler, however, would never offend the dictator by speaking truth to power. Not only does scrupulously stick to political correctness, but he is also a gutless coward. He knows full well that if you don’t curry favour with the dictator you will lose out on a stack of goodies and if you receive them, you are contractually bound to return them if you do not go an extra mile for the dictator.
The expression “the writing is on the wall” has interesting origins. It comes from the Biblical story in Daniel 5:5-31. King Belshazzar was holding the Jews captive in Babylon and oppressing them. At his last great feast, he saw a disembodied hand appearing and writing on his palace wall. The King was frightened and called in astrologists and soothsayers and offered rewards to whoever could interpret the strange words in Aramaic: “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.” The prophet Daniel interpreted the words as God’s judgment on the King: the King and his kingdom would fall.
There has been a considerable amount of scholarly speculation about how King Belshazzar should have responded to this subversive and unauthorised graffiti. Some suggest that to prevent the situation from getting out of hand, the King should have directed his not so secret police to track down and arrest the hand for the crime. The hand should be charged with inscribing on the King’s wall without a permit and with despicable intent to create alarm and despondency and to bring the King into disrepute. The arrest of the disembodied hand would then have led the police to the other coup co-conspirators, especially missing hands. Jonathan Moyo, on the other hand, thought that the King was better advised to seek sanctuary in Paraguay, the country in which his riches were stashed. Others felt the King should have ignored this incident and simply said, “tomorrow belongs to me.” One expert felt the best solution was to erase the writing and replace it with a notice reading, “It is an offence to write on this wall any message other than one praising the King.” Yet others felt that he should have ordered Daniel, on pain of death, to interpret the words as: “the King is great, the King is immortal and will never die.”
“Currying favour” does not mean bringing the King an Indian meal. It connotes using insincere flattery to ingratiate oneself with the King and thereby gain personal advantage. The expression has its origins in a French poem Roman de Fauvel, written in the early 1300s. This poem features an ambitious, vain and devious horse named “Fauvel”. Fauvel moved into his owner’s home and became the master. It deceived and corrupted greedy leaders of church and state who sought his good graces. The expression came to mean flattering a false leader for personal gain. The name Fauvel which is formed from ‘fau-vel’ (in English ‘veiled lie’), is made from the initial letters of a version of the seven deadly sins: flaterie (flattery/pride), avarice (greed/gluttony), vilanie (wrath), variété (inconstancy), envie (envy), and lacheté (cowardice). The word Favel was misheard and became “favour”. The horse, of course, would need to be groomed with a curry comb to curry favour.
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Obviously no dictator in his right senses will prosecute himself for crimes against humanity. Instead, the cheeky person suggesting that he is on the way out will be invited to spend a very long time in a dungeon or to be entertained with a firing squad. In any event, a dictator can do no wrong as he alone decides what is good or bad. This also puts paid to the silly notion, “the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” The King decides which men are good and which are bad, and what actions men are good. “Good men” (and incidentally “good women”) are those who are appropriately rewarded for being exceptional sycophants.
What is now generally accepted is that dictatorship is a far superior system of governance to a primitive system based on the quaint notion that leaders should be elected by the people and they should govern in accordance with the will of the people. There is no way that the people could possibly know what is best for them. Only a wise, all-seeing, self-imposed dictator can determine what the people need and deserve, and will ensure that there will be peace, progress and stability throughout the land.
There is so much rubbish talked about so-called human rights. The only human right of practical significance is the right to a person to pay homage to a Wise Leader who loves his people. In a feudal system paying homage referred to a ceremony by which a man acknowledged himself to be the vassal of a lord; a vassal was a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance. The Wise Leader ensures that the people have enough bond notes to purchase a loaf of bread every three weeks. In a modern system homage is only payable in USD.
With everything in life, we seem to end up where we started. There are these lines in a TS Eliots’s poem:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
But it is far more complex than this. The place we travelled to seems remarkably similar to the place from which we departed and we start to wonder why we even bothered. We create rules to make us less savage but we know full well that the rules won’t stop us from engaging in despicable deeds in places like Mariupol and Bucha. All we do is make the grim reaper grimmer. And, all too soon we move our attention away from all the horror and destruction of mankind (not very kind man) and turn our attention to the increase in the price of sugar – five minute outrage. Bob Dylan purports to provide some of the answers to these questions:
“Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
And how many deaths will it take ‘til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
The Mariupol theatre was built during the Cold War era, so there was already a large bomb shelter. Besieged Mariupol used it to hide children. On the pavement in front and behind the building people wrote “Children” in Russian to attempt to warn Russian military pilots. The tactic didn’t work and 300 were reported dead, Mariupol city council said in a statement.
Or should we join Monty Python in singing?
“Some things in life are bad
They really make you mad
Other things make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life.”
