As I wrote this column Monday night, Libyan rebels were battling troops loyal to the country’s eccentric strongman Col. Muammar Gaddafi for control of Tripoli. The rebels, had control of over 80 per cent of the Libyan capital after launching attacks on it from several directions on Sunday.
Like DR Congo’s dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s son Kongolo who took over the war effort from his ailing and embattled father in 1997, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who was expected to succeed his father, had increasingly taken the place of his father who hasn’t been seen in public since May.
Gaddafi’s only presence was bellicose recordings in which he vowed death against the “rats” (rebels) and their imperialist supporters. His rhetoric was colourful and bombastic, and he threatened that millions of Libyans will arm themselves with guns, kitchen knives, and even use bare fists, to defend him.
We were shown matronly women clad in bui-bui wielding Kalashnikovs. Then that sweet moment in African politics where fantasy runs against the hard metal of realty arrived. As rebels closed in on Tripoli, thousands of people turned out as Gaddafi had predicted – but it was to hug and kiss the rebels, not to fight them.
Gaddafi himself was missing in action (MIA), the great warrior too afraid to ride to the rescue of his own children. His own presidential guard, the equivalent of our Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB), just dropped their guns and melted away into the night. We have seen this over and over again, including most recently in Ivory Coast where rebels ignominiously smoked out vote-stealing “president” Laurent Gbagbo from the basement of State House in Abidjan where he was hiding with his wife and son.
Today, we examine this relationship between dictators and their sons. Let’s first tell an old story. When I was an editor at The Monitor years ago, one time a friend who was quite rich came to my office in the evening and asked me for a copy of the paper.
I told him he was surely rich enough to afford newspapers for the rest of his life. Yes, he agreed, but he had just spent his last pennies for the day sending money to his kids who had just finished school in the UK and started working there. He then explained to me how the children were his “pension and retirement policies”.
In other words, should he somehow lose his wealth, he hoped his children would send him money for food and fuel, so it was important that he helps them settle down quickly.
African presidents have a very different approach toward risk assessment and using their children as pension vehicles. Because most of them are corrupt, anyway, they don’t want their children for their money. They steal it from the taxpayer.
Therefore an African First Child can never really be his president father’s retirement package. That is for ordinary parents. However, while the corrupt president doesn’t want his son’s money, he can use him for something else which he needs and tends to be in short supply – undying loyalty.
True, history is full of sons killing their fathers and taking power for themselves, but that is extremely rare in Africa today. While other officials might abandon the Big Man as several of Gaddafi’s ministers have done, a son will hesitate to stick a knife in his father’s side – even if he hates him. The exigencies of despotic power in Africa, therefore, first and foremost distort the parenting market place – a subject no one has bothered to study yet.. But it also partly explains why many of our leaders tend to be oppressive. Take one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif.
Saif al-Islam studied at the prestigious London School of Economics, where he obtained both a Master of Science degree and a doctorate (not surprisingly, it has now emerged that he used a ghost writer, and copied sections of his PhD thesis).
Saif returned home, and got deeply involved in business and politics. Any other parent whose son gets a PhD from LSE, would encourage the chap to go work for the World Bank. Africa’s Big Men bring their sons home and insert them in the army, corrupt business, or politics.
In Africa, when a mother with grown up children gets fed up with the husband, she often takes off to be with her children because it has a destabilising effect on the man. For example, when Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe went to Hong Kong to visit daughter Bona after a domestic “misunderstanding” with Uncle Bob and stayed there for long, Mugabe packed his suitcase and went looking for her – just like a husband in the village.
Like DR Congo’s dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s son Kongolo who took over the war effort from his ailing and embattled father in 1997, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who was expected to succeed his father, had increasingly taken the place of his father who hasn’t been seen in public since May.
Gaddafi’s only presence was bellicose recordings in which he vowed death against the “rats” (rebels) and their imperialist supporters. His rhetoric was colourful and bombastic, and he threatened that millions of Libyans will arm themselves with guns, kitchen knives, and even use bare fists, to defend him.
We were shown matronly women clad in bui-bui wielding Kalashnikovs. Then that sweet moment in African politics where fantasy runs against the hard metal of realty arrived. As rebels closed in on Tripoli, thousands of people turned out as Gaddafi had predicted – but it was to hug and kiss the rebels, not to fight them.
Gaddafi himself was missing in action (MIA), the great warrior too afraid to ride to the rescue of his own children. His own presidential guard, the equivalent of our Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB), just dropped their guns and melted away into the night. We have seen this over and over again, including most recently in Ivory Coast where rebels ignominiously smoked out vote-stealing “president” Laurent Gbagbo from the basement of State House in Abidjan where he was hiding with his wife and son.
Today, we examine this relationship between dictators and their sons. Let’s first tell an old story. When I was an editor at The Monitor years ago, one time a friend who was quite rich came to my office in the evening and asked me for a copy of the paper.
I told him he was surely rich enough to afford newspapers for the rest of his life. Yes, he agreed, but he had just spent his last pennies for the day sending money to his kids who had just finished school in the UK and started working there. He then explained to me how the children were his “pension and retirement policies”.
In other words, should he somehow lose his wealth, he hoped his children would send him money for food and fuel, so it was important that he helps them settle down quickly.
African presidents have a very different approach toward risk assessment and using their children as pension vehicles. Because most of them are corrupt, anyway, they don’t want their children for their money. They steal it from the taxpayer.
Therefore an African First Child can never really be his president father’s retirement package. That is for ordinary parents. However, while the corrupt president doesn’t want his son’s money, he can use him for something else which he needs and tends to be in short supply – undying loyalty.
True, history is full of sons killing their fathers and taking power for themselves, but that is extremely rare in Africa today. While other officials might abandon the Big Man as several of Gaddafi’s ministers have done, a son will hesitate to stick a knife in his father’s side – even if he hates him. The exigencies of despotic power in Africa, therefore, first and foremost distort the parenting market place – a subject no one has bothered to study yet.. But it also partly explains why many of our leaders tend to be oppressive. Take one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif.
Saif al-Islam studied at the prestigious London School of Economics, where he obtained both a Master of Science degree and a doctorate (not surprisingly, it has now emerged that he used a ghost writer, and copied sections of his PhD thesis).
Saif returned home, and got deeply involved in business and politics. Any other parent whose son gets a PhD from LSE, would encourage the chap to go work for the World Bank. Africa’s Big Men bring their sons home and insert them in the army, corrupt business, or politics.
In Africa, when a mother with grown up children gets fed up with the husband, she often takes off to be with her children because it has a destabilising effect on the man. For example, when Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe went to Hong Kong to visit daughter Bona after a domestic “misunderstanding” with Uncle Bob and stayed there for long, Mugabe packed his suitcase and went looking for her – just like a husband in the village.
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