The Childhood of Tyranny
Document Title: The Childhood of Tyranny
Document Ref No: R9010211
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer
Publication Date: October 21st 1990
Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC
We are all victims of dictators one way or the other. There is the domineering
father, mother, or religious figure in whose shadows many of us grew up
in awe and fear.
Some of us were taught that even God was a strict disciplinarian - a God
of anger and punishment, and we lived in the fear of His wrath for even
the smallest infraction of the religious rule.
Perhaps we recall the swaggering and boastful ways of the neighborhood bully,
or the terror of the work-place ruled by a demanding and unforgiving boss
who shouts at us before others to humiliate, shame and control us by fear.
But worst of all is the tyrannical politician for whom power and domination
is a compulsive urge to take revenge on others weaker than himself to expiate
his own childhood suffering, taking out on others the reality he cannot
face up to himself.
The suffering of others it seems is necessary to relieve his own.
Political oppression is frequently a dictator's need to find a whipping
boy to vent his spleen full of childhood hatred and anger.
I know one case where a father hung his ten year old child from the ceiling
by the leg and beat him. Saddam Hussein is accused of doing the same.
There is an explanation for such cruel acts. The oppressor needs to find
a victim, a scapegoat upon whom to dump all the evils that have been done
to ourselves by others.
A torturer applying sadistic agony on his victim enjoys it. Why? Is it because
he is relieving some of the pain inflicted on him as a child?
Perhaps. But even if that is so that is no excuse for crimes and atrocities.
Saddam Hussein ought to be tried like Hitler for war crimes against the
people of Kuwait according to George Bush and indeed he should. But then
George Bush's hands are not clean of innocent blood either.
Besides his part in the bloody Contra war in Nicaragua it has been revealed
that American Troops in Panama killed as many as four thousand innocent
civilians and buried them secretly in mass graves after the invasion that
began December 20 last year. George Bush reported only a few hundreds died.
Was Hussein abused when he was a child? Was Hitler?
Joseph Stalin, perhaps one of the most cruel and oppressive dictators of
modern times, certainly was. 'Stalin' was a name he adopted meaning "man
of Steel" no less.
His father was an impoverished and unemployed shoemaker and an alcoholic.
He beat, insulted and humiliated the young Joseph as a child. They lived
in a shack, his mother washed clothes and Joseph grew up an only child after
his sisters died at birth. He was scarred by small pox for life. He later
studied for the priesthood but he was repeatedly punished for reading forbidden
philosophical books and novels about social conditions and was judged unsuitable
for the priesthood.
But poverty and abusive parents gives rise to dictators and tyrants. They
strive to succeed and overcome feelings of defeat and failure by having
power over others and creating a false image of their own goodness and self-righteousness.
Statues to themselves compensate for the nothingness and worthlessness they
were made to feel as a child by a strict and disciplinarian father or a
nagging and possessive mother, who told them they would understand anger
when they grew up.
They did and rather than ever admit or suffer the pain within them they
later vent it outwardly on others. If you have been victimized you will
understand more easily.
The dominating parent is whitewashed and his cruelty or neglect denied and
covered up by the repressed child. That history of family martial law is
painful to recall, more easy to banish it from memory behind a facade of
make believe and fantasy.
Stalin was a prolific builder of statues of himself,he had a lot of low
self-esteem to compensate for .
The despotic ways of a dominating and a cruel politician are an outward
expression of deep internal needs. You will notice that like dominating
parents, the despot claims that he has to be harsh for the good of the child
or the citizens. He always knows what is best for others.
"I have to be cruel to be kind" is the frequent false justification
for evil deeds. This is a way to pass on to others the oppression that the
despot has himself endured, it is an attempt to dump on others the abuse
of his own childhood.
It is commonly know that the abused child himself becomes, in most cases,
an abuser himself. This I believe is also true of entire communities or
even nations.
Take the recent massacre of the Palestinians by the Israelis.
Israel is a nation born from the holocaust and the rejection of Nazi Germany
and much of the world. The suffering and humiliation was hard to endure.
Now we see that they have become the dominant force they they oppress and
cast their anger and suffering on the Palesinians and make them suffer as
they once did.
Their memory is short some say but I say their suffering is long and painful.
They have to cast it off on others for they cannot have the courage to endure
it and feel it themselves.
The Israelis refuse to cooperate with the fact finding UN Team. It is understandable.
Looking at one's own wounds is a very excruciating experience but having
others rip off the encrusted bandage is even more so.
We all tend to deny our own acts of abuse against others as it is a traumatic
reminder of what happened to us as children. But the abused becomes the
abuser. The oppressed can all too easily become the oppressor.
The abused child secretly despises the abusive parent but to wipe out the
childhood of unendurable pain the child will idolize the parent. We all
know the tyrant of our lives but are frequently frightened to even name
him.
Most dominating and tyrannical people who lord it over others, torturers,
sadists and killers have been abused as children and in their turn abuse
others.
The next time we are tempted to take out our childhood anger and frustration
on others, especially our own children, remember we are possibly sowing
the seed of hatred that will turn them into abusers, even a bully and a
dictator.
