Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991 TAG: 9103110284
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY WALKER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LOTS OF people called Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a tinhorn dictator.
"Are we going to let some tinhorn dictator push us around?" they asked.
Just what is a tinhorn dictator? According to the above definition from Webster's, it's a dictator with delusions of grandeur.
But the adjective "tinhorn" doesn't apply to every dictator. Nobody would have called Stalin a tinhorn dictator. He was the real thing.
Tinhorn or not, dictators have to decide what to call themselves.
Some dictators create their own titles. "Fuehrer," or leader, was Hitler's actual title as head of the German state.
In Haiti, Francois Duvalier named himself President for Life. In a monarchial twist, his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude, was designated to succeed him. However, "Baby Doc's" lifetime term was cut short by unrest.
Some dictators crave honorifics. Fidel Castro is Commander of Armed Forces, President of the State Council and First Secretary of the Party.
The record for number of titles may be held by Mussolini. In addition to being premier, Head of Government, and "IL DUCE" (Leader of Fascism), Mussolini at one point or another was Minister of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, the Colonies, Corporations, the Army and other armed services, and Public Works. He once held seven ministries simultaneously in addition to the premiership.
Newspapers had to write "IL DUCE" in all capital letters. The great one was exalted as a genius on a par with Socrates, Napoleon and Michelangelo, and was once said to have saved a village from destruction by halting the flow of lava from Mount Etna through sheer force of will.
Others leaders, frowning on this sort of adulation, are content to manipulate from behind the scenes. Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama held no official post in government. While this may have been satisfactory to Gen. Noriega, it created a terminology problem.
Lacking an official title, Noriega was widely referred to as a "strongman." You would think that "strongman" is a constitutional post in Panama. "Hey, who's running for strongman this year?" The head of state's ceremonial attire was presumably a leopard-pattern body suit along with a black barbell stenciled "500 LBS."
Another strongman is Libyan Col. Muammar al-Gadhafy. Gadhafy holds no official post in government. He runs the country as "revolutionary leader."
While Col. Gadhafy has been accused of megalomania, it should be noted that he has declined to promote himself to general.
Stalin, while he was General Secretary of the Communist Party, held no official government post from 1923 until 1941. That year, in the face of the German threat, he appointed himself Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars as well as Supreme Commander in Chief. Unofficially, he was hailed as "The Staff of Life" and "The Shining Sun," and even "Our Father" by a metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Dictators are notoriously touchy about their image. Idi Amin, former president and commander-in-chief of Uganda, threatened to execute British author Denis Hills for referring to him as a "village tyrant."
What's the best thing to call a dictator? Anything he wants to be called.
by CNB