Everyone loves a tyrant, provided he is far
enough away or long enough ago. Tyrants are much more interesting than
so-called democratic politicians, especially nowadays, when so many of
the latter have done nothing with their lives except sit electoral
office. What, for example, would Latin American literature be without
tyrants?
The writer of that part of the world has so
many to choose from: General Melgarejo of Bolivia, for example, who
marched his troops over the balcony of his palace to demonstrate their
loyalty to a visitor; or Maximiliano Hernández Martínez of El Salvador,
who trained himself to stare at the sun for spiritual purposes. My
favorite is Justo Rufino Barrios of Guatemala, who was once seen to take
a copy of the Guatemalan constitution, fold it in four, and sit on it.
“I’m going to rule in Guatemala as long as I like,” he said, “and I’ll
hang anyone from the nearest tree who doesn’t like it.” Full marks for
sincerity and truthfulness, if not for political philosophy.
This is not, however, a propitious age for
the tyrant: we prefer our tyranny to be of the creeping, surreptitious,
bureaucratic, and undermining kind, rather than galloping, open,
obvious, and overbearing. Tyrants are the dinosaurs of small-brained and
rigid ways destined for extinction, while democratic politicians are
the swift little mammals with adaptable ways who take over from the
dinosaurs as the climate changes. But who is so dull that he is not
fascinated by dinosaurs, even if he wouldn’t want a Tyrannosaurus rex in his garden?
I was walking down London’s Cecil Court—the
haunt of people of slightly Aspergerish disposition who collect rare,
though not the very rarest, books— yesterday, when I stopped at the
window of a seller of banknotes from around the world. I have always
liked banknotes as physical artefacts, and have kept one or two from the
foreign countries that I have visited (I am not so much a collector as
an accumulator). There was displayed in the window what was called “The
Tyrant Collection”: six colorful banknotes marked with the portraits of
various tyrants. It was cheap and I decided to buy it, which is really
against my principles. Normally, I keep only banknotes of the countries I
have visited, from the time I have visited them. Among them, of course,
are banknotes with portraits of tyrants: Baby Doc, Julius Nyerere,
Mobutu Sese Seko.
I went in. A very pleasant lady asked me
whether she could help me. I asked whether the Tyrant Collection were
still available. She said that it was, and then turned to the other
assistant in the shop.
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