Saddam Hussein’s Way of Earning Loyalty
So, I thought it would be interesting to discuss one main problem of being a “one man show” ruler. Saddam Hussein was President of Iraq for 24 long and gruesome years. Being a “nice guy” is certainly not a reason to explain Saddam’s longevity in power.
As an authoritarian leader of a country, everything must be planned. Everything must be done with a purpose. You don’t simply go to bed at night and hope that you will wake up in the morning and expect your people to chant your name. So lets talk about what Saddam had to do to be in a position to rule Iraq for as long as he did.
You can probably suspect that earning LOYALTY is the issue at hand for many leaders. Sidetracking from Saddam, if you have been skimming Thai news for the past couple of weeks, you probably have come across incidents where individuals act in opposition to PM Prayuth. I won’t discuss this any further, for obvious reasons, but these incidents are good to keep in mind when we think about how ruling a country works.
What I would like to bring your attention to is Saddam’s way of demanding loyalty once he has taken power. The youtube video I have included below highlights an important event which changed the role of Saddam Hussein’s as the President of Iraq.
The Purge
Prior to the event that happened in the video below, Saddam’s Ba’ath party was the focal point of Iraq’s government. Focus on the party and not on Saddam can sometimes be an obstacle to ruling the country. You get people disagreeing with you here and not working with you there. So, what exactly do you need to do when you want to rule the country under your thumb? Please watch…
WHAT THE FUCK, right?! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call a purge. Saddam was as cool as a f*cking cucumber calling out people’s names to be killed. It really is quite messed up, but at the same time extremely interesting.
Why did he do this???
So what did this “purge” do for Saddam? It gave him the loyalty he needed from high ranking officials through government and people around the country. With this purge, Saddam transferred all the ruling power he needed into his right pocket and was able to wield it like his burning cigar. Party members now had the only option to fear Saddam. Whether you loved him or hated him prior to the purge, you ended up shouting “long live Saddam!”
“Long live Saddam” immediately became the new black. When that first person in the room makes an outright statement of allegiance, it really forces everyone else to do the same. This becomes a new norm. A deviation away from this would be a very very bad choice.
Saddam seriously just scored a 10/10 in Politics, Psychology, and How to be an Dictator 101. The purge got Saddam the unconditional loyalty and submission he demanded from his party.
After all, I like to think write about Thailand, so exercise your brain a bit and draw some connections. Think of Saddam’s methods as a very extreme example of earning loyalty through forceful ways. If anything, I hope, at the very least, the post has encouraged you think about how leaders or politicians use certain actions of events to achieve their desired ends.
So, to end, There’s one thought I would like to leave you with: Everything happens for a reason, and there is always a fundamental explanation why someone does something. It’s cliche, I know, but really, look around and think about it.
