I am not a dictator, and I do not think I will become one. I will not maintain power with a machine gun.
Fidel Castro (January 1959).
The 20th century was guzzled by revolutions, uprisings, military coups, assassinations, government take and shakedowns, wars, death of millions of civilians and soldiers, technological evolution(relating to warfare) all around the world. The 20th century is mostly known for the actions of dictators from Kim Jun il to Idi Amin, Hitler to Samuel Kanyon Doe, it was also a century defined by men who fought with or against these dictators such as; Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Fidel Castro, and Joseph Stalin. Some might like to classify these dictators as either benevolent or brutal, benevolent names like Sankara of Burkina Faso, Samora of Mozambique, some of these dictators started out to be freedom fighters (revolutionist) to their people and rebels to their foreign or authoritarian governments but once they acquired freedom or absolute power they never let go names like Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Nyerere, Duvalier and so on. Dictators are not always soldiers in cases like Duvalier who was a Haitian Doctor, dictators can be single-party dictatorship like Kim Jun un (North-Korea), Military Dictatorship like Sanni Abacha (Nigeria), Monarchies King Hassan II (Morocco), Personality dictatorship Benito Mussolini( Italy), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt).
The dictator is a ruler with absolute power over a sovereign state, power mostly taken by force. I felt it is only proper that we define this piece so we can share a similar peripheral. Dictatorship, Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism was quotidian in the 20th centuries in numerous sovereign states around the world, appearing in different forms Nazism, Fascism, colonialism and so on.
"Those who have met Herr Hitler face to face have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a disarming smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism." Hitler and his Nazis had surely shown "their patriotic ardor and love of country.
Winston Churchill.
You have to acknowledge the mind of these men, most of the known revolutionaries and dictators have really beguiled minds, their social and political ideas are what elucidates the 20th century as a time of ideological wars. Each either preaching communism, fascism or dissimulates democracy some even go as far as proclaiming that their people elected them as presidents for life like Duvalier, Gadaffi and so on.
God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever.
Francois Duvalier.
Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Joseph Stalin.
I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy, and competition.
Fidel Castro.
A few quotes from some very famous Authoritarians, read between those lines you can see how true , how real, how intelligent the words of a sociopath can be. In a world of true equality where ideological equality exists these words would hold fast, I am not so sure we should be glad that our world is not truly equal ideologically, in my opinion democracy secrets intentional loop holes to favor a few, I do not share any form of sentiment for Authoritarianism either.
I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.
Fidel Castro.
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
Joseph Stalin.
In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.
Idi Amin.
Within these intelligent minds darkness lurks, it obvious that their minds eventually bends towards genocide, in their mind the only solution to every social , environmental and political problems is massive and violent population reduction rapidly.
We have to understand that to think like a revolutionist is to be an extremist of some sort. If you are against a certain form of religion you'd rather have them annihilated if you are white supremacist you'd rather be the only race, it is like a call to chaos, it is human.
These dictators appear to only take power to fix a problem either economical or political or social, they all appear to start chasing change but switch south right when they get smacked by power. Power is intoxicating, think about all the actions they took to keep it, think about all they did to show their dominance. No doubt dictators appear to be very paranoid and intend to take care of any threat against their authority, in 1996 late General Sanni Abacha arrested the late Afrobeats legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti for his activism, even Fidel Castro was arrested by the dictator Fulgencio Batista whom he later assassinated members of his government, just like every Democratic government will go to mammoth lengths to ensure power stays Democratic no matter who pays the price.
Intelligence can be a problem, the human mind is a very complex entity that caves and quakes as the universe roars.
Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday.
Benito Mussolini.
It is not cowardly, quite the contrary, to seek to meet the adversary and know his intentions. However, it is cowardly, shameful and treasonable to lay down arms.
I should irradiate the role religion played in shaping the ideas of dictators, after all, it was the existence faith that aided Pope Urban II to convince Kings and Queens to start a crusade, it also helped Usman Dan Fodio unleash Jihad. These men like every other person is a product of their border-line religion, they were made and structured by the complexity of their society. Working on this piece, reading through my notes i realized that most dictators tried or try to leave a form of prophecy behind, and it all points towards the crash of democracy but again they were/are drowning in the darkness of power , it also does not elude their ideas of values, if there is an answer to humanity's detriments besides genocide, besides chaos we have not discovered it yet. Imagine Plato or Socrates with power, Soyinka or Jabavu as dictators how to you think they will push their ideas , how will they ensure that it sticks.
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