Sunday - January 01, 2012

 Umbrellas and Tyrants in the Arab World

 I came across an interesting manifesto against Arab tyrants. It was mentioned by The Guardian journalist of the Middle East Robert Fisk who, in an end of year article, asks why middle eastern tyrants lasted so long. He mentions a very clever "Arab Tyrants Manual" which was compiled on Twitter over a period of time as events were unfolding after March 2011. People would send in their observations in Tweet form on how tyrants tried to stay in power. It is funny, clever, and rather sad. The original is here and I have I put a version of it on my own website here. along with an extract of an introductory chapter to the work which is not yet complete. It should be of considerable interest to libertarians - note that the author quotes Lord Acton's famous remark about how power corrupts.

Also note that the item 5th from the end says "Demonstrate your confidence with a casual prop of some kind. Umbrellas are good." which reminded me of this anti-Gaddafi wall graffiti which appeared during the uprising. There was also a strange photograph of him sitting in his car giving a talk on Libyan TV while holding an umbrella.