Plato and Dictatorship

Mohamed Omara Taqi alden

There is no doubt that the confiscation of freedom under the rule of tyrants and oppressors is a story as old as history itself.

Here is the Greek philosopher Plato describing to us precisely what the tyrant does to his people in terms of atrocities, considering it the strategy of every tyrant to eliminate freedom and subjugate peoples, as if he were addressing today’s world and as if history is reproducing itself in a monotonous manner.

According to Professor Imam Abdel Fattah Imam in his wonderful book (The Tyrant), Plato says, accurately describing the strategy of the dictator, any dictator, in ruling the people: “The tyrant begins his rule by getting close to the people, making generous promises, and pretending to be kind and friendly with everyone. At the same time, he begins to form a strong guard around him under the pretext of preserving the people’s demands and taking into account the people’s interests. Then he begins to secure his presence at home and abroad.

At home, he gets rid of his opponents, and when he secures this aspect, he does not stop at first from igniting one war after another until the people feel their need for a leader, and also until the citizens who have been impoverished by taxes are forced to be busy earning their daily living instead of conspiring against him. When the leader of the people finds himself an obeyed master, he finds no shame in shedding the blood of his people.

He brings them to trial on false charges. He despises the laws, and since nothing stands in the way of the tyrannical tyrant, he becomes a slave to madness´-or-his rule turns into a disaster, as he kills the citizens unjustly.”

And aggression and tastes with a -dir-ty tongue and mouth the blood of his people and displaces them, then this man becomes a tyrant and turns into a wolf.”

In order to confirm his thesis, we find him invoking one of the Greek myths which speaks of the tyrant turning into a wolf and that if a person tastes a piece of human flesh mixed with the meat of sacred sacrifices, he will inevitably turn into a wolf, since the tyrant is not quenched´-or-his thirst quenched except by the blood of his people.

Plato continues his talk about the stages of transformation of the ruler into a tyrant, saying: “If he suspects that some people have the freedom of thought that makes them refuse to submit to his control, he finds in war a pretext to eliminate them. For this reason, the tyrant was always forced to ignite the fires of war, and the injustice of the tyrant does not know discrimination between citizens.

The tyrant has no friend, so he does not mind betraying friends´-or-assistants if he suspects them... If he finds among those who helped him to assume power a group of brave people who express their opinions frankly before him and among themselves and criticize his actions, then the tyrant must eliminate all of them.


Thus, his fate willed that he remain, willingly´-or-unwillingly, in a permanent war with everyone until he purifies the state of them. What a way of purification, it is the opposite of the way of doctors, as these rid the body of what is harmful in it and leave what is beneficial, while he does the opposite, as he only eradicates what is useful and beneficial, because he only eliminates the honorable, the intellectuals, the brave, and the loyal who They reject his hypocrisy, and he in turn will need a larger and more loyal guard, and then he will resort to paying them sufficient wages, for the people who gave birth to the tyrant will find themselves forced to feed him and his entourage, and when the people realize this, this tyrant will be too strong for the people to overthrow, and this is the disaster.


Plato confirms that: “The tyrant never retires, either he dies´-or-someone else overthrows him, and the longer he practices tyranny, the more this nature becomes ingrained in him.”

The tyrant, as Imam Abdel Fattah Imam says: "finds the right conditions for him in a backward world where the illiteracy rate is high and awareness is absent", asking: "Even if we assume that the tyrant has enormous positives, what is the value of these positives if their price is the destruction of man, the shattering of his values, and the transformation of the people into skulls and skeletons walking in the street, stripped of their marrow, trivial characters crushed by feelings of inferiority, helplessness, and futility? The tyrant s positives, no matter how many, their price is very high, which is the loss of man.


As Jesus Christ says, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" The truth is that the tyrant cannot practice his tyranny except in the presence of peoples who are prepared for it and accept it.


Before tyranny there is the ability to tyranny, if we may borrow from the argument of the Arab philosopher Malek Bennabi, and we do not want to leave that idea without referring to some reactionary theses that went to the point that there are peoples who by nature prefer to submit to the tyrant and the system does not work with them Democratic, they are racist claims that have been refuted by modern studies that delved into the deepest levels of analysis, which confirmed that freedom is an essential value that lies deep within all human beings. It is God s nature that created people, but peoples go through stages of development until they understand the value of freedom and its centrality in their lives.

From here, we can, without exaggeration, classify peoples according to their position on freedom.
The more civilized peoples are, the greater the value of freedom becomes for them. Based on that, we can set a (barometer of freedom) to measure the extent of peoples civilization and their advancement on the ladder of civilization.

We certainly do not call for absolute´-or-chaotic freedom, but rather for a disciplined freedom in which society itself sets the foundations of its discipline based on its intellectual and religious convictions.

A responsible freedom that the people themselves monitor with self-monitoring through their organizations, -union-s, and gatherings that express them, and for which they set the governing and framing charters.

Therefore, peoples must realize that freedom is a value that cannot be exchanged for anything else. As Benjamin Franklin says: “He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.”

We say that he will not achieve either. Dictatorship, tyranny, and the absence of freedom are a -dir-ect threat to the national security of peoples. it is anxiety, unrest, and famines. it is the fate and end of nations.

( Mohamed Omara Taqi alden : Egyptian academic in political sociology and Arab-Zionist conflict)

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