By Tecola Hagos
(Former legal adviser to Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi)
The right to defend ones own rights individually or as part of an organized group is a legitimate cause irrespective of the identity of the adversary. However, such militancy may not be wise in every situation. One has to weigh-in other factors in order to decide the most efficient and productive means and the most opportune time for a fight before jumping into the fry of things.
Sometimes it might be far more useful not to allow self-interest override other communal interests in order to preserve social cohesion, and advance the economic and political development of the group. Sometimes self-defense and the defense of a group may overwhelm all other values. However, the respect of the legitimate rights of individuals who may not be a member of the group in power ought to be seen as a duty. Apartheid, Nazism, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, and Zionism are examples of ideologies of narrowly constituted exclusive groups. Even though dissimilar in their origins and goals, they all have as the basis of their philosophy elements of negative perception of other peoples or races. In a matter of speaking, almost all nationalist movements share an ideological perception of exclusivity based on birth and national origin.
Tyrannicide: The Ethical and Political Imperative
This is a very sensitive and extremely important issue. Tyrannicide is not a simple question of murder but of civil disobedience in the face of oppressive and violent government leaders. It involves informed judgment and activities of deliberate violence against political leaders who are causing social and political destruction of peoples’ lives through systematic abusive and violent methods. In a situation where total state power is in the hands of a single leader or a group, where the political process is subverted and the rights of people undermined, it leads into violence and civil unrest. Tyrannicide is aimed at the power structure of a brutal and tyrannical government, and those who uphold it as leaders, such as the king and his functionaries—civilian, military and security operatives—at the command level, etc. The targets for tyrannicide should be individuals who are directly involved in the command or the execution of brutal, tyrannical and indiscriminate violence against defenseless citizens who have no political or judicial outlets or remedies. At no cost it should involve children and any innocent person whether in government employment or not. Otherwise, it runs the risk of becoming a case of simple murder or terrorism. The formulation of the philosophical underpinnings or the rational for ‘tyrannicide’ is as difficult as the practical operation of it. Thus one must be careful going that route.
Maybe a brief description of what is meant by the term ‘tyrant’ might help in differentiating what is an illegal and conspiratorial murders of leaders from the concept of ‘tyrannicide’ I am addressing herein. Some scholars (Ford, Laqueur) think that the term ‘tyrant’ or ‘tyranny’ has an Asiatic origin. The meaning I have attached to the term ‘tyrant or tyranny’ is more or less the description provided by Plato in The Republic, with a more pointed image of the tyrant to include even those leaders who were originally elected into power and later manipulated the political situation to monopolize excessive power. It does not matter also whether the tyrant is locally breed or is coming from outside the community.
The Bible gives numerous examples of the destruction of tyrants. It is full of stories of both Hebrew and non-Hebrew kings who were destroyed because they became tyrannical and did not rule justly. In theory, the divine nature (or source of power) of kings carries with it the idea that the monarch rules as representative of God and not arbitrarily and on his own. The legitimate king or monarch per se is not considered to be a tyrant. Such monarch is expected to dispense justice with mercy, and rule wisely. And it was believed in as far as the monarch tempered his obvious military power with justice and mercy, as well as concern for the welfare of his people, his reign was unchallenged and long lasting. However, if a leader stepped beyond such common sense decent relationships with his subjects. God was expected to throw him down using other human agents including attack and destruction by foreign powers. This, of course, is the religious source or authority to justify the destruction of tyrants.
For example, an incident that was told in graphic detail in the Bible is the political murder of King Eglon. who had subjugated the Hebrews for Eighteen years, by Ehud (a Hebrew) to free his people from bondage. (See judges 3:15-23) Another dramatic tyrannicide recorded in Judges is the story of Abimelech. a Hebrew tyrant, no less than the son of Gideon. [Gideon was one of the greatest Hebrew Generals not much different in stature than Joshua or even David], who murdered his own siblings and was unjust (violent) to his people. (See judges 9:1-57)
There is also a confusion between terrorism and tyrannicide. Terrorism essentially is violence against innocent people—the more innocent the victims, the more ter-roristic the violence. In contrast, tyrannicide is the elimination of a violent and vicious oppressor of people. Tyrants will use terroristic violence against innocent individuals or against a people. The violence I am advocating here is to be used against such tyrants in the hope of neutralizing their abuse of power and the violence they commit against people. Of course, tyrants in their turn will unleash their state sponsored terroristic violence to counter any effort to bring about democratic government structures. Contrary to the propaganda of governments and the media, state sponsored terrorism is the most devastating and wide spread tyranny in the world.
One must determine first the existence of a political situation which is so intolerable that the killing of the leaders is warranted. No political institution, such as a government, would openly endorse such a measure even against an adversary government leader. The very idea of regicide is repugnant even to the most revolutionary bureaucrat. However, no one should outright reject the possibility and the righteousness of a deliberated execution of a tyrant or despot. Thus, tyrannicide is a very unique and unusual occurrence. It need be carried out in exceptional circumstances for the good of society.
Almost all existing governments abide by the unwritten international norm of self preservation and frown against civil unrest. For example, the United States, by an Executive Order, forbids explicitly any assassination attempt against a foreign leader, enemy or not. But that is a typical American government hypocrisy. The fact is that there are records of numerous instances where the United States has promoted such violence against leaders who are not “yes-boys.’ After all, during the Reagan era, the CIA had authored a handbook, titled Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare, for distribution, on how to conduct terroristic activities including political assassinations of popular leaders. On the other hand, several other countries have either constitutional provisions, or through their criminal codes punish by sever sentences and even death any form of violence against officials of foreign governments.
Historical Perspective
As stated above, there are numerous instances of tyrannicide throughout human history. I might only be able to touch the tip of the iceberg in my discussion of examples of tyrannicide. The more practical and secular approach was that of the Greeks and the Romans. Over two thousand five hundred years ago, from Homeric times, the Greeks struggled with the idea of tyranny and tyrannicide. (See James F. McGlew, Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1996.) Plato devoted a section of his Dialogue discussing the negative characteristics of a tyrant and the de-structiveness of tyrannical governments. (Plato, The Republic, trans. and introduction Desmond Lee, New York: Penguin Books (Classic), 1955,392-415.) So did Aristotle in his Politics. Not much has changed to this date in the description of a tyrant since then. Thucydides argued about the issue of tyrannicide even more pointedly than previous historians. The great Greek play writers also dealt with the issues of the destructions of tyrants by courageous heroes in a number of plays.
The Romans started with the benefit of having learned from the Greeks ideas of democratic direct representations and political structures. The Roman leadership before Augustus Caesar were republican and as such far more closer and representative of the nature of their political organization. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the symbol of republicanism, wrote in 55-51 B.C., two thousand and forty six years ago. about the right and duty of citizens or people to get ride of a tyrant. “If. as is usually the case. the tyrant is crushed by the leading citizens, the commonwealth enjoys the second of the three form of government I mentioned. For there is a certain regal or paternal element in the council of chief men who study to serve well the people’s needs. If. on the other hand, the people themselves have slain or driven out the tyrant, they govern with considerable restraint so long as they are prudent and wise.” (Marcus Tullius Cicero. On the Coiiimoinvcalili. emphasis added) Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BC near Rome. He distinguished himself as a great orator and statesman with distinctly modern republican ideas. He died by the hands of Mark Anthony’s soldiers on December 7, 43 BC. As a matter of fact, even a would be tyrant, Julius Caesar paid with his life because of his ambition to monopolize power and become a dictator. Romans had carried more tyrannicide than the Greeks. More Roman Emperors (than republican leaders) such as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Galba, Domitian, Commodus. Pertinax, etc. were either murdered or forced to commit suicide because of their tyrannical governments compared to Greek tyrants. (Franklin L.Ford, Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism, Harvard University Press, 1985)
The Hebrew Sicarii and Zealots were politically motivated killers despite their heavily religious rhetoric. They were immortalized, even if misidentified and negatively portrayed, by the narratives of FlavJus Josephus, a Romanized and a one time Hebrew rebellion leader. The targets of the Sicarii or Zealots were Roman leaders, whom they were trying to expel, and Hebrew collaborators, whom they wanted to punish. For the 5’icarii, Masada was their last stronghold where they perished to the last man by their own hands in 73 A.D. rather than be captured alive by the Romans. There are some who believe that the historical Jesus was one of the founders of the precursor structure that gave birth to those rebellion groups.
The Assassins who started out as a militant faction of the Ismaili movement about the end of the Eleventh Century were an extreme aspect of Islamic political processes who fulfilled the moral imperative of murdering leaders who seemed not to follow strict scriptural tenets or usurpers of the political leadership of Islam. [The Ismaili basically are Shi ‘a who oppose any Moslem secular leader (Caliph) who is not descended from the Prophet (Imam)] In some form the Assassins, the Sicarii and the Zealots share similar characteristics of self righteousness. Sadly, all the Sicarii, and
most of the Zealots and Assassins were exterminated before developing into a political system (not necessarily a violent one), in the case of the Sicarii at Masada by the Romans. and in the case of Assassins by Hulagu. the Mongol leader, who veered into their Elburz mountains holdout on his way to Baghdad which he destroyed in 1258 A.D. However, considering the current politically motivated murders going on in the Middle East, I am not sure that fanaticism has died out.
In the rest of Asia. until the beginning of the Twentieth Century. the destruction of despotic leaders seems to be a result of power struggles between ambitious individuals with very little civic motivation, and is not similar to the Roman or Greek tyrannicide which was carried out to promote rights of citizens in general or of a collective body. This may be one reason why scholars insist on making a distinction between Asiatic form of despotism from that of European feudalism or despotism. In both China and India. the most dominant cultures and civilizations in Asia proper, religion might have shaped the political militancy or the absence of it in the general population.
The experience in Western Europe and the New World seems to have followed no particular pattern from the Middle Ages down to the last part of the Seventeenth Century when politically motivated assassinations seem to have taken over all other forms of struggle for power within the aristocratic families of Europe. There are few examples of tyrannicide such as the beheading of Charles I of England (1649 A.D) which were in the nature of political struggles between common citizens against their despotic monarchs. A couple of hundred years later, starting with the execution of Louis the XVI of France and his Queen (1793 A.D) we entered a new era. Both Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries were marked by individual violence against political figures, not necessarily tyrants. In Europe, those two centuries were periods of tremendous economic and social transformations—the transition from agrarian economic structures into industrial ones.
The Twentieth Century is exceptional for its two opposing developments: it brought about both an extremely high degree of violence as well as the era of the emancipation of the common man from historic subjugation and oppression. After all. it is in the Twentieth Century where we had the first trench war costing over twenty million lives. and the first truly catastrophic modern warfare of the Second World War where over fifty million people perished including the first systematic genocide that wiped out six million European Jews. and the deliberate annihilation of civilians by nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki The communist transformation of traditional societies in Russia and China resulted in the destruction of no less than fifty million lives. Man has been bloody through out history, but nothing comparable to the atrocities, in terms of sheer numbers of casualties and victims. of the Twentieth Century.
In Black Africa, disappointingly, there are much too few instances of real courageous^ actions against tyrants by civilian individuals or groups, except for the nationalist and patriotic struggles against imperialist and colonial aggressors. Even in Ethiopia (the oldest Black nation) there is not a single instance of tyrannicide that stands out in all of the thousands of years of tlie history of the Ethiopian people. The exceptions seem to be: a) the single instance of something close to a political murder of an abusive regional governor by rebellious group of Wollo Azebos during Haile Selassie’s Government in the 1950s; and b) a series of politically motivated killings in the 1970s, a period commonly known as the ‘red’, and ‘white’ terrors, which was designated as such by the brutal despot Mengistu who was responsible for the murder of hundreds of political leaders. The young men and women who came into their majority in the 1960s and 70s were unique in Ethiopian history. Their opposition to power and authority, with tremendous courage and great sacrifice, was unprecedented in Ethiopian history. Their effort to change the nature of Ethiopia’s feudal power structure was uniquely remarkable when seen against the background of the stagnant and oppressive Ethiopian culture that discouraged any form of challenge to those in power. By contrast the generations, since then, of the 1980s and 90s are ashes when compared to the firebrand previous generations mentioned above.
The series of military coup d’states against several African leaders in the last thirty years were not the type of tyrannicides 1 am discussing here. They were mostly ‘palace’ murders by military strongmen than tyrannicides. In Ethiopia. the age of the Mesafmts (1769-1855) is similar to that type of political control, minus the murders, bv war lords and military leaders witnessed in Africa of the last thirty years. It seems Black civilian Africans are much less violent and much less fanatical than other races, and far more tolerant of the violation of their rights. In the alternative, the situation might be a case of Black Africans having a far more profound understanding of human nature and the process of history, which might be the reason for such laxity rather than ‘a nature’ of non-violence. At any rate, this act of tolerance for despots might explain why Africans are suffering violations of their human and political rights at the present time under persistently abusive governments. I am risking here the fact of being labeled as a racist; however, such is not the case.
Philosophical Justification
John Stuart Mill who wrote extensively on liberty was very much concerned about tyrannicide. His analysis of the concept of liberty is never far from his consideration of the shadow of tyranny looming in his time. He complained in a footnote in one of his essays (later compiled along with other essays and published in a book) that he was unduly criticized for writing about the lawfulness of tyrannicide. Our modem philosophers and political scientists seem to shy away from the idea of violently eliminating tyrants. For example. Professor Ford who had done monumental studies of the phenomenon of ‘political murder’ ultimately comes out against tyrannicide. Thus, I am very much aware of the fact that my advocacy of tyrannicide is neither a popular nor an enlightened one—but an effective and a moral one.
It seems to me the fact that every individual has a set of human rights, at times expanded or more often restricted, implies the duty and the right to defend those rights individually or collectively where/when ever challenged or threatened by a leader or a system. The more difficult problem is how and when to use violent means to preserve and exercise those rights. The safeguard of those rights maybe in any form, i.e.. from ‘peaceful’ protest to tyrannicide. At times such decisions can only be personal. However such decisions are made. the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual who carries out the violent act.
I believe there is a moral and social duty to destroy tyrants. The non-violent method of fighting social injustices as preached and lived by Mahatma Gandhi and by later followers such as Martin Luther King depended for its success on a parallel third party confrontations. If there were no social consciousness in the general public against oppression. and an absence of pressure or threat of violence from militant individuals and groups, such non-violent method would have remained a curiosity or an academic issue. In reahtv. the non-violence of Gandhi is also a violent method, although the violence may not have been directed against another person. It was directed against oneself, and depends far too much for its success on the humanity of the oppressor. It is not much different than the behavior of some wild carnivores animals exposing their most vulnerable parts of their bodies, when defeated or overpowered by an opponent, in the hope of getting some relief from continued attack—which does seem to work a lot of times. It holds ‘the self hostage by exposing it to an immediate danger.
There is both a moral and a social duty to preserve and safeguard fundamental individual rights. Whether we consider the individual as a creation of God or a marvel of evolution, the fact remains that there is no other known being in this part of the solar system [with exaggeration, Galaxy] who is as complex and as talented as the human individual. As indicated above, there are both religious and historical precedents for tyrannicide. Tyrannicide is also effective in giving notice to would-be tyrants that despotic rule has a very high price. Thus, any impediment that undermined or destroyed the integrity of the individual must be challenged. It must be seen almost as a sacred duty to do so. Nietzsche, even if erratic at times in his thinking, summed his profound philosophy on the ‘will to power’ and about ‘slave morality and master morality’ (if I may summerize him) stating that individuals who are not willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve their autonomy and freedom have a slave morality of subservience and humiliation. Thus, fighting a tyrant or a tyrannical system is a liberating experience and an assertion of ones own freedom.
‘Belling’ the Cat
Had Hitler been eliminated before he launched his genocidal war machinery on an unwary world, it would have saved the lives of tens of millions of peoples. Is there anyone who might think otherwise by hindsight? Probably no one. The same can be said of many tyrants around the world including Mengistu HaileMariam. Tyrannicide is extremely cost effective. The effectiveness of tyrannicide in removing an individual who has become a terror and a hinderance to social justice is a time tested solution. What is required for tyrannicide to be effective is courage, dedication and a sense of public duty. There is no security bubble that could surround and protect a tyrant from the rage of patriotic executioners. Rather than spending millions of dollars and years of hard work creating, training and leading freedom fighters, it will take only a fraction of that to train highly committed, fast moving and highly motivated vanguard fighters to send on such type of mission of mercy.
All that is well, maybe better said than done. The real problem is a practical one: who is going to ‘bell’ the cat? The difficulty of translating theory into practice is best illustrated in the story I learned in grade school about a group of rats conspiring against a cat that was terrorizing their little world. The story tells us that after a lengthy discussion one smart rat proposed the installation of an early warning system that will give the rats ample time to escape when ever the cat approached to catch them. The plan was elegant and effective, if carried out. The idea was to tie a bell around the neck of the cat which will ring every time the cat is moving, thus warning every rat of the cat’s whereabouts and approach. The rats agreed on the plan after applauding the brilliant young strategist. At that moment a wafer rat asked about the future heroes who were going to tie the bell round the neck of the cat. Well, that was the end of that brilliant idea! I can imagine that wafer rat being thrown out from the group in anger for bursting their bubble.
Fear has a paralyzing effect on individuals who are lead to believe that there is not much they can do to avert a disastrous situation. Through out human history, it is a recorded fact that hundred of thousands of people were lead into their execution or murder without protest or attempt to fight back their tormentors and murderers, in a surrealisti-cally peaceful procession, almost herded like domestic animals into a slaughter house. In our own time, we have seen records of brutality and murders of millions of people by imperialist and colonial forces, Nazi and Fascist forces. Communists and small time dictators. The fear of individualized death has tremendous psychological pressure on the individual. Unless one is equipped with a self righteous moral strength and/ or fanatical religious belief, the act of individualized defiance and rebellion is far too unnerving and/or remote to carry out. I do not need to go far and wide searching for proof on this. The evidence is all around us.
In conclusion, I must emphasis the fact that tyrannicide is not terrorism. Tyrannicide is the destruction of a leadership that is terroristic, abusive, brutal and anti-democratic. This active defense of rights against national tyrannical leaders is an honorable and a sacred duty incumbent on every citizen, and as such is not limited to local tyrants but also against their foreign imperialist masters. The fact is no human life should be degraded, brutalized or exploited by someone or a group from within or from the outside. We have one short life—unique and sublimely complex. One should defend, honor and love that life no less than the next person. Those who carry out tyrannicide are great heroes. However, it is extremely difficult and unjustified to require anyone to be heroic. Heroes create moments and not the other way—and heroes are elements of surprise like a flash of lightning.
(Tecola Hagos is a former legal adviser to Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi. He currently resides in Boston, USA. The article was originally published by Ethiopian Review in September 1997.)