10 lessons despots can take from Gaddafi’s brutal death

It has been a terrible year for African despots and it seems to be getting worse. Ben Ali fled; Laurent Gbagbo and Hosni Mubarak went from palace to jail and, now, Muammar Gaddafi – or what’s left of him – lies rotting in the Sahara Desert. Where will the winds blow next? What do we make of it all? Here are some quick lessons the Despots Club can chew over at their next extraordinary Annual General Meeting:

One: If you are going to be a despot, you had better be an effective one. You must be able to deliver on your threats of violence and hell to your opponents. What use is it for you to make snarling remarks on television if you can’t destroy, swiftly and decisively, uprisings against your regime?

Two: Invest less in vanity projects and more in coercive instruments. What use is it to have fancy statues of your fist plucking enemy planes out of the sky if you don’t have missiles to shoot down a single jet when it really matters and can’t even hit the target in a pillow fight? So triumphant columns in city squares are out; fighter jets are in.

Three: Don’t start wars if you intend to quit early. If you spend years sponsoring terrorists across the world and trying to build a nuclear bomb, either do it, or do it. The same folks who bombed Gaddafi will, I suspect, think twice before raiding Pakistan or North Korea. Just saying.

Four: Money can buy you the widest bed, the softest mattress and the finest linen, but it cannot buy you a good night’s sleep. Libyans had some of the best standards of living in Africa, impressive health and education statistics, and generous handouts from the State but they risked all that for basic freedoms that they felt they had been denied. It is just a human thing, that hunger for freedom, and people will wait a long time, 42 years or more, to get even.

Five: It helps to have friends in high places, especially friends with a UN Security Council veto. Both China and Russia have vetoed UN resolutions against Syria, despite the government there killing thousands of protestors. Libya, which floats on a sea of oil, could not even get South Africa and Nigeria to oppose the resolution that brought down Gaddafi.

Six: The world is not a fair place. Deal with it! The UN resolution did not allow Nato to shoot at cars on the ground, even cars carrying despots. But they did. It was probably wrong, even illegal, but it is hard to make that argument out of a sandbox in the middle of the Sahara.

Seven: Know when to call it quits. Many despised and ridiculed Tunisia’s Ben Ali when he cut his losses and made for the hills. Mubarak tried to fight back and Gaddafi was even able to hold on for a few months. Ali is alive today. Gaddafi is not. Cowards do live longer!

Eight: If you are to do a runner, avoid holes. First we saw Saddam Hussein, once the most feared man in the Middle East being fished – dazed, unkempt and bedraggled – out of a hole in the ground. To his credit, Gaddafi was at least trying to flee like a proper coward should before he was nailed down in a barrage of Nato missiles. When he was finally caught in a storm drain, his golden pistol was as useful against his heavily armed captors as a plastic knife to a Mvule tree.

Nine: If you have to die, do so with dignity. Adolf Hitler had the guts to take his own life. There was something primal yet pathetic about Gaddafi offering his captors money and gold and begging them to save his life. If you are going to live 42 years as a purveyor of pain and panic in your enemies’ hearts, have the decency to insult them at the end, not beg for leniency and ‘Ubuntu’.

Ten: You can always do the right thing. You might be the wisest leader since Solomon and you might be as strong as Samson but at a certain point in time, your subjects want to be ruled by a weak and stupid leader, who has less vision than a cracked windscreen. Yes, it is hard to understand, but such is life – especially if you want to keep yours.

dkalinaki@ug.nationmedia.com