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Understanding the psychological madness of successive mandates

January 10, 2021

By Kadar Abdi Ibrahim*

It is necessary to identify, along the way, the reasons inherent in the self, which, if not combated, largely explain the psychological madness of successive terms of office, attachment and longevity to power. All boiling down to one and the same question: what will be done tomorrow?

  1. Anxiety derived from inaction: the anxiety of boredom These dictators all have a leitmotif in common. That of only existing for one activity: to exercise only power. Leaving the "armchair" creates a relaxation in them which is a prelude to inaction, leading to an anxiety that makes them feel like they are of absolutely no use. Scientifically called "the anxiety of boredom" by psychiatrists, it is generally manifested by feelings of helplessness, inanity, maladjustment, despair, which, taken to the extreme, turns into an anxiety of dead. They are bored and therefore vegetate far from power, from the decision-making sphere and above all from the tumultuous life they led among the big boys.
  • Fear of the end : fear of death The idea of postponing each time their departure to the next term, is reminiscent of these dictators, this fear that every human being has of the End, the supreme being death, physical law, inflexible, imposed on the man and which happens most often when we do not expect it. Few are the people who, aware of this appalling programmed fatality of the human being, agree to resign themselves. On the contrary. "The fear of death is not natural" said Jean Jacques Rousseau. In fact, one could not find a better parallel between the fear of death, the ultimate, and this frenzy of the fear of leaving the armchair which absorbs them and loses them to infatuation. And besides, do we not always learn of their death, a few months after the end of their reign? If we are to believe that they themselves have a presentiment that the end of their reign inevitably corresponds to that of their life. It is therefore, in their depressing logic, a vicious cycle: they leave power, become inactive, stop living, and finally die slowly.
  • Fear of disgrace: the scissor effect This fear stems particularly from the "chisel effect" theory: on the one hand, the blade of the opposition and on the other, the edge of the Western powers. Indeed, the faults committed during their reign generate a strong feeling of hostility between those in power at the height of their reign, stinking of glory, abusing the spittoon, which no rule stops and criminalized opponents, ensnared for crimes of opinions, tortured in jails and any political manifestation of which is bloodily suppressed. Not surprisingly, then, a bitter, mistrustful relationship has developed between dictators and opponents. It is certain that no longer enjoying immunity without their positions as president "for life", dictators believe that opponents, clogged with the emery, once they come to power, will in turn inflict snub to them. The fear of these tyrants, which has become a chronic wound that gnaws at them, is not to fall under the ax of the rule of "each in turn" led by an immature opposition, with the blade in hand, freshly installed in power. activating in a very beautiful way to bring them down in flames. Without forgetting, of course, the cutting edge of the Western countries, their allies of yesterday, who saw them as indispensable ramparts against communism or against Islamism, for whom, today, they are becoming embarrassing and are forced to hang out in multiple political and financial trials. So let us no longer be surprised, among these dictators, that this obsession with constantly having the knife under the throat, this fixed idea of being stuck in machinations and cabals, this nightmarish fear of falling into disgrace without few people are moved by it, pushing them to stay indefinitely at the post.
  • Nostalgia for the past: the end of the "traveling bank account" The vacancy causes the loss of privileges of former Heads of State. It is known, money is the fuel of dictatorships which buy in the strongest sense of the word the political elite! A gap then widens between their past as President-predators, confusing the State coffers with his own, justifying the expression of Bernard Kouchner's “traveling bank account”, bathed in a flood of full power, which makes them dizzy, in which they seem more haughty, leading a senator's train without concealing the pleasure they take, and their future, which, for its part, is anchored more in the experience of ordinary people and whose success lies behind .

 A radical change of status whose awareness refers to nostalgia for the past, a sensation taking place in three (3) stages. First of all, by a refusal. Refusal to accept that what was will be no more. In other words, nothing will be the same for them. The refusal, giving way, then, to a dissatisfaction with their situation far from suiting them. And finally, when it is impossible to make the slightest change, discontent ends in resignation which plunges them into deep dismay.

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