By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Since the contemporary
world is streaked with political leaders who ruthlessly betray their people’s
trust, humanity is not infrequently afflicted with amnesia that compels it to
hanker after its torturous past. That was a past when the rule of the strong
man was the norm.
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| *Castro |
Yes, such strong men recorded lofty
achievements. Some not only enlarged the territories of their countries through
the conquest of other lands, they exceptionally improved the standard of living
of their citizens. But in most cases when their caprices became the rules, the
regime of brutality that was often manifested in the torture, tears and death
of citizens besmeared their glorious interludes of achievements. Through
Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Alexander, Chairman Mao to Adolf Hitler, humanity
has witnessed strong men whose single-handed pursuit of their visions led to
the development of their nations. But such people saw themselves as the sole
repositories of the patriotism and wisdom that could place their nations on a
stellar pedestal of development.
But we often dismiss the
accompanying brutality as an inevitable upshot of their quest for development
of their nations. Thus, for instance, we often refer to how through rarefied
leadership, Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a third world
country to a first world nation. It was the same notion of strong men as better
leaders that herded the Nigerian citizens into electing Muhammadu Buhari who is
now floundering. As far as we are concerned, the suppression of dissent that
accompanies the regime of a strong man pales into insignificance in the face of
the miracles of development wrought by astute leadership. Yet, we must insist
that something is wrong with the progress that would abridge the rights and
claim the lives of a significant proportion of the members of the society.
What is clear as most people look
back at the life and times of Fidel Castro is that they swoon over the
development he brought to Cuba.
There is the linear narrative of his transformation of Cuba, a tiny North American country of about
11 million people, to a formidable force that could call the bluff of arrogant
powers like the United
States that embargoed it. After successfully
routing Fulgencio Batista who had trapped Cuba under his military jackboots,
Castro opened a new vista of development in his country. His era was that of
unprecedented improvement in literacy and medicine. But all this tends to blur
Castro’s ruthlessness that bordered on misanthropy that mocked the terror of
medieval potentates.
