Every liberator will eventually become a tyrant. He has to, because otherwise – or so he tells himself – the forces of the counter-revolution will reassert themselves. It happened with Robespierre, with Stalin, with Mussolini. It happened with Mao and Castro and Ortega and Maduro. It happened with Saddam Hussain and Muammar Gaddafi. And, of course, with Hafez and Bashar al Assad.
Some of these liberators-of-necessity-turned-tyrant died, or will die, peacefully in their beds. Others get hung from either gallows or lampposts. But a few more fortunate tyrants, when their time is up, are offered asylum by an erstwhile ally. Well, I suppose, if injustice begets liberation, and liberation begets tyranny, then justice must countenance both the tyranny-born-of-liberation, and the liberation-born-of-that-tyranny. In short, if what goes around comes around, and what comes around goes around, then God is in His heaven and all’s well with the world.
But that conceded, or at least said, I’m still curious about something. How does the liberator-turned-tyrant himself regard his comeuppance? In some cases – Robespierre, Mussolini, Gaddafi – there wasn’t time between his overthrow and execution to consider any existential questions. And in other cases – that of Saddam Hussain, for example – we have reason to believe he believed his fate was egregiously unjust. Why necessarily? Because he was tried, convicted, and executed not by the resistance to him but by the quisling regime of an occupier.
By contrast, though Bashar al Assad can tell himself the Alawite, Christian, Ismaili and Druze minorities will be grieving his departure, he cannot be oblivious to the unstinting celebrations taking place elsewhere in the country, including in Damascus. Well, one might ask, how does any vilified person feel when confronted with his vilification? To which the answer must be one of the following.
He might feel, as I suppose did Saddam Hussain, that his country has been dealt a grave injustice. Or he might feel, as Hussain clearly did, that he’s been dealt a grave personal injustice. Or he might feel, as I indicated one should, that he and his family have had a good innings, and, with a shrug, it’s time to move on with their lives. One can’t move on if one’s met on every street corner with visceral hostility. But this is unlikely on the streets of Moscow. So, say I to al Assad, buy a rooftop garden and, as Voltaire has counselled, tend it. And try, as best one can, not to angst over the fate of those comrades who didn’t make it out in time.
Speaking of which, it’s this getting out in time that’s the essence of prudence. I did. And now I’m following Voltaire’s advice. And trying not to think about those of my erstwhile mid-career colleagues who didn’t or can’t …
Wait a minute! I thought this entry was going to be about Syria.
Categories: Angst, Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy
Paulosophical Vimplications 
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