Letting Go!

The political upheavals from Tunisia to Yemen, from Oman to Morocco and Bahrain to Libya have proved only one thing. As tenacious as their hold may be, one day, a dictator has to call it quits. One way to leave is to be tossed into the trash bin of history and to be stomped and spat upon by one's own kith and kin. The other, more difficult but infinitely more righteous way is to realize when the game is up and call it quits. Do you think anyone would now care how great Hosni Mubarak was, or how prosperous President Ben Ali made Tunisia? All that history books would call them is by the word 'Dictator' which is as good as the worst abuse that can be heaped on a person in a democratic set up.

25 years ago, one man realized that his time was up. He realized that the system he was standing up for, the values that it represented were not what the masses wanted. He felt their needs as his own and became a crusader against the ills in the system which had propped him up as the leader. Mikhail Gorbachev infused what he though was the breath of life in a system which was old, rotten and decaying. His policy of glasnost had even the most die-hard reformers wondering at what game was Kremlin playing. But Gorbachev chose to be sincere. He chose to support the right. He foresaw the inevitability of change and most importantly he realized that if people wanted change the system could not stifle it! The implosion of the Soviet Union could have been bloody, it could have been messy, it could have caused wars, hardship and misery for millions, yet, at the end, it was a mere administrative change. On the night of 25th December 1991, the Soviet flag came down and the Russian one was hoisted in its place atop the Kremlin.

Col. Gaddafi can choose to take a leaf out of China's book. He can choose to do a Tiananman on the Libyans. He can choose to unleash the power of his state on the millions of protesters in Tripoli, Benghazi and hundreds of towns and cities in Libya. He might even succeed in silencing some protesters. But a dictator should realize that once a steady boat is rocked, chances are that it would be rocked again and again! Libya may continue to be Gaddafi's Libya for another 15 days, even 15 months, but eventually, he will have to pave the way for change. It would be Gaddafi's choice whether to be the architect of that change or to be one dead body trampled beneath the change that would sweep old Libya away!

To all dictators, wherever they be, forget not what Comrade Trotsky, who helped set up the World's largest dictatorship…

'You are pitiful, isolated individuals! You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!'