The death of Yasser Arafat, which probably occurred days ago, the delayed announcement providing time for the Palestinian leadership to put post-Arafat plans into place and allow the masses time to settle down rather than going on a spontaneous rampage, adds another name to the list of former leaders and icons. World renowned and nefarious dictators are fewer, not more, in an age when “coalitions” are more common than single dictators who can be taken out suddenly, or whose popularity in one place is counterbalanced by grim unpopularity in another. Today’s political strategies and military strategies don’t produce Pershings, Pattons, or Saladins. Today’s leaders are neither Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, or on the other side, Churchills, Roosevelts or Reagans. The low-profile leadership role is better for the state, thus it is the increasingly dominant force in the growing global village we call the world.The less important God becomes to this world, the less important individuals who become human substitutes for God become to world politics. We’re secular now, the great Pharoahs’ tombs may exist but they are gone and their era, a long time dying, is now writhing in agony of its death throes. Churchill symbolized England in World War II. Roosevelt symbolized America during that same period of time, and Stalin was equated in the world’s mind with the USSR. Men became symbols to the world of the nations that they governed or controlled, hated by many and loved by many, controversial everywhere and powerful in a world of nationalist boundaries.
This is not a world for the Alexanders, the Genghis Khans, even a new Richard the Lion Hearted. This is a world of weakening nationalism and increasingly a global consortium of unions among what were once nations. Who is head of Argentina? Years ago school children could name Juan Peron in a heartbeat. Franco ruled Spain. Tito ruled Yugoslavia. The list of rulers who symbolized their nations have gone from a host to a handful. The only name that comes to mind right now is Fidel Castro, the ruler of a small island nation called Cuba. The world knows the name Castro and it knows Cuba, but Castro is aging, his time is coming, and there is little reason to doubt that a more faceless group of leaders will emerge to fill the gap in government. No one views Vladimir Putin as anything like a leader equivalent to Stalin or even Khruschev.
The Great Collective cannot tolerate solo operators, so the late and somewhat unlamented Yasser Arafat, whose power was waning anyway, is one of the last of the handful to depart. Only about a year prior to Arafat’s demise, Iraq’s national symbol — Saddam Hussein — was captured in a spider hole. There is nothing left of the heroism that requires falling on one’s sword to make a high profile departure for a person whose life was high profile, for good or for evil.
For all the denial of the one world order blathered by the major media, can they explain away the lack of personal power in the hands of unique leaders? The handful that are left are aging and no upstarts are allowed to take their places. Moqtada al-Sadr found that to be true in short order when he attempted to take Iraq. Remember the Ayatollah Khomeini? He was the bad man of Iran in the 1980’s, his face known everywhere. He died. A lower profile figure not known instantly to the world is part of the Iranian leadership today. Who? Off hand, I don’t know and to look it up would only prove my point.
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela began with fireworks, faced a recall, overcame it, and has somewhat settled down into his own niche, a few stories down from the olympian nest he envisioned as a new world leader of an oil producing nation. Names come and go now, where formerly those who grabbed power stayed for decades, which Arafat did, and which Castro is still doing on his little island.
Icons now are for the computer, not the rulership of the world. The Great Collective (no relation to the Great Pumpkin but just as susceptible to rotting) has the faceless and nearly nameless leaders of the world’s wealth behind the movements of nations, the shifting of borders, the installation and removal of rising government figures who would be icons to the people rather than the village. The Village Chief is now a tribal council with rotating chairmen.
This is not to say that men of power don’t exist, they very much do exist, but in a low profile or shadow world of unknown power brokers. Unknown, that is, to the masses. All the secrecy helps the true governors of world affairs to remain behind the scenes rather than in front of the cameras, where they become icons for the people and targets for the dissenters. Effective control these days is a form of regional management and shared resources, for which cause Saddam Hussein, in his hubris and identity as ruler of Iraq, fell into disgrace and jail.
The post-Flood era that began with Nimrod (known by various names in ancient texts) the rulers were demi-gods if not absolute divinity. Republics didn’t last long, they were simply transition phases between the forces of power in the warring city states to the uniting forces of centralized and eventually tyrannical government and for some, empire.
No one is producing great music, art, literature, sculpture or architecture to memorialize this age. Everything is as undefined as the age itself. High rise may be tall, but most of it is singularly unimpressive and even if it is impressive, it remains relatively unknown. Why? Because in the age of the Great Collective, nothing else “great” is of any importance. Survival in times like these is individually difficult, a member of one mass is the same as the members of another mass, and the great masses may be supported or eliminated at will, with no power to target a single icon as the source of all the world’s ills. How convenient.
Individualists, the highly respected of two generations ago and beyond, are now discouraged. A few names emerge, leftovers largely from the 1980’s, but in reviewing the world today, we see an all-pervading mediocrity. No wonder the USA cannot produce men of the caliber of the founders, they would be done in if they dared to emerge as potential leaders.
The era of icons has ended, the era of nationalism is departing, and we the people are just people now.
We can be thankful Thomas Edison lived when he did. Coal oil and gas lamps are very bad for the eyes.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”