August 03, 2006

You could also let out some hot air!

Sir Jacob Weisberg in “Sanctions help to sustain rogue states”, August 3, has us picking between economic sanctions and constructive engagement to topple Dictators but forgets to mention the possibility of other sensible tools such as ignoring them or plainly laughing your hearts out at them. The Dictators do normally have weak and problematic egos and so if there are ways to ridicules those in front of their followers, much of their strength and support would dwindle. Problem is that frequently the oppositions to these Dictators have weak egos too, which tempt them to make huge monsters out of their enemy, so they can be perceived as maid rescuing champions, and so we just end up with a lot of hot air balloons flying around, some quite colorful, but others just plain awful. Among the United Nation’s peacemaking arsenal we need some good ego shattering directors and producers from Hollywood and Bollywood. Where is Chaplin when we need him the most?