By Placide Kayitare

Indeed, like most dictators that exist today or those who came before him, they have something in common, Power, Fear, and Anxiety. They see themselves as “very special” people, deserving of admiration and, consequently, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs of others … Not only do dictators commonly show a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity”, but they also tend to behave with vindictiveness often observed in narcissistic personality disorder. Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong (or Tse-tung), Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, ID AMIN, Bokassa, Pinochet – names such as these haunt our cultural imaginations.
These men were, by all available accounts, totalitarian dictators, who sought to maintain complete control over their respective governments and populations through radical methods, including the systematic murder and imprisonment of all who stood against them. In some cases, the terror they wielded helped them maintain power for years and emblazoned their names into our history books forever.
Each of the names listed above is responsible for more than a million deaths, and even those citizens who were fortunate to have survived their reign lived in persistent fear of death, forced labor, or torture. Dictatorial leaders such as these represent the extreme potential of the human capacity for evil, and yet, despite their apparent omnipotence within their individual spheres of power, these individuals also tended to suffer from excessive anxiety – mostly regarding paranoid fears of citizen uprising and/or assassination.
For example:
Saddam Hussein displayed a level of paranoia so great that he had multiple meals prepared for him across the Iraqi land each day to ensure that no one knew where he was eating. He even went as far as to employ surgically altered body doubles.
Kim Jong-il, the former leader of North Korea and the father of current leader Kim Jong-un, exhibited such an excessive fear of assassination while flying that he exclusively traveled via an armor-plated train, including when he traveled as far as Moscow.
Than Shwe, a Burmese dictator was so concerned about the tenuous nature of his rule that he once moved the capital of Burma to a remote location in the jungle without running water or electricity; an extreme tactic that was spurred on by the advice of his personal astrologer.
Power and Fear
In each of these dictatorial examples, men who sought to rule with an iron fist appeared to also behave in a manner driven by a hidden, extreme, and sometimes irrational fear of what fate might befall them. This behavior does not seem to align with what we know of dictators. Not only do such individuals wield far-reaching, real-world power, a large number of these individuals also maintained a cultural and political environment that fed grand delusions regarding their self-importance. For instance, Saddam Hussein thought of himself as the savior of the Iraqi people. Muammar Gaddafi once had himself crowned the “King of Kings” of Africa, and the North Korean Kim line of succession proclaimed themselves to be almost god-like. Why would individuals who are so confident in their power have such severe anxiety?
Likewise, Kagame calls himself “Intore isumba zose intambwe”, the leader with the best stride, he claims to be loved by his own people and he won elections by 99%. Why should he be scared of a musician who has never even attended any military drill? The answer is simple:
Narcissism Is A Consistent Trait;
With regard to dictators, one particular trait that consistently stands out as relevant is narcissism. Narcissistic individuals have a “greatly exaggerated sense of their own importance” and are “preoccupied with their own achievements and abilities.” They see themselves as “very special” people, deserving of admiration and, consequently, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs of others. When narcissism becomes extreme to the point that it interferes with daily life appears to be unusual as compared to others within a society, or
permeates multiple areas of an individual’s life … that individual may be diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder, which is defined by a: “pervasive pattern of grandiosity” “need for admiration” and “lack of empathy.”
These individuals are “preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success” and “power.” They believe they are unique and can only be associated with others of equally high status. Furthermore, they require excessive admiration to remain happy, possess an extreme sense of entitlement, exploit others, and are often envious of others.
Kagame is not immune from the above, he travels in most expensive Planes, he owns almost every property and business in Rwanda, he associates himself with Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, the most famous CEO’S, Like the owners of Alibaba, Star Bucks, he rarely stays in his own country.
Interestingly, all these years in power since 1994, no single Rwandan heads a government or RPF Company, all are in the hands of foreigners.
Jacqueline Umurungi
