How Dictators Think

The unfolding events of the Egyptian January 25th Revolution, part of the Great Arab Anti-Dictatorship Revolution of 2011, revealed important clues about the megalomania that dictators suffer from. Mubarak’s apparent obsession with the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood was his game plan to maintain the support of Western powers fearful of obscurantist, populist Islamists.
Mubarak’s failure to recognize the political shortcomings of his two predecessors is now chasing him out of office. The young Egyptians who lead the uprising today had each realized that the regime will never build the institutions of freedom, representation and opportunity they need to live in dignity. Yet Mubarak is completely delusional: a great number of his citizens have independently reached the conclusion that he is the source of their woes; his response is to insist that they should give him more time to prove that the collective judgment of his people was misguided.
Like other dictators, Mubarak worked for decades to build his power through campaigns of isolating and cracking down on opposition groups. Clearly his strategy cannot work anymore. But Mubarak does not seem to accept the fact that he has exhausted MB-phobia. Despite the apparent breadth of the revolt, Mubarak still resorted to the same old scare tactics of the past. Dictators usually believe that true people actually love them. The only way Mubarak will believe that his people want him to leave is if the whole 85 million people took to the streets. But this never happened in any revolution.
Mubarak’s true obsession lies in the security he derives from feeling in control of others. In the face of an undeniable massive revolt across Egypt against him, he still wants to believe that he is able to set the terms of the relationship with the people he controlled for three decades. It did not matter to him that his bid to stay in charge is not realistic. Nor did he give much thought to the fact that because of his old age and poor health, he might not even survive the next seven months anyway. But all these considerations are beside the point.
Dictators are fooled by their power, but like other human beings, they communicate fear while trying to project resolve. Mubarak stood before television cameras thinking that he would express self-confidence. But fearing the fate of Ben Ali, who was forced out by his own military, the Egyptian dictator concedes power to his circle of confidants, who are now more able to depose him. Perhaps he trusts that his control-controlled relationship with them is unshakable. Responding to fear is apparent in the behavior of Mubarak’s dictator brother Qaddafi. Attempting to head off an uprising in his country, he issued a subliminal warning to his people through the condemnation of their Tunisian brethren. But all he did was reveals to Libyans that he was shaken by what happened to Ben Ali. This demonstration of weakness has emboldened Libyans who had already been inspired by the Tunisians; hence the start of the unrest in Libya. In contrast, Mubarak, perhaps because he feels closer to a natural exit from life, stood in a televised address to act as a victim of instigators who are not compassionate enough to wait on an old man seven more months. He tried to sound indignant when he revealed for the first time that he never wanted another term in office nor is he seeking to appoint his son as successor.
But the pathetic nature of the Mubarak dictatorial state of mind was most evident in his reaction to the violence of the mobs that have been doing his dirty work for many years. As world television screens were showing the mayhem they created in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the response of the brave protesters to repel the attacks, Mubarak went on CNN to up the ante. He suggested that if he stepped down, chaos would descend on Egypt. If Mubarak’s obstinacy was meant to protect his legacy, it brought about the opposite outcome. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time for the interview: the midst of the pointless rioting of his supporters. Thanks to Christiane Amanpour, we know more about the cultish mentality of dictators and their isolationist worldviews. The world had a chance to learn how the baltagiah (literally, thugs) played an important role in maintaining the Mubarak dictatorship. They comprise a small class of violent functionaries who have operated in civilian clothes, allowing the regime to distance itself from them. But they have often been the same persons whose barbarism has terrorized ordinary people into submitting to the will of the regime during election seasons and times of political tension.
Ordinary Tunisians and Egyptians have understood that the reason dictators have been able to control them without having to always use a massive number of security forces armed with deadly weapons is the fear that have been instilled in people’s hearts. The Tunisians collectively broke the wall of fear, leading to the chain of reactions that are changing the course of Arab political culture.