It is inconceivable that we think of our leaders as indispensable when the way of the world is really a relay where when one leg is completed, the baton is passed on to the next person anxiously waiting in line for the handover. This has been the template from time immemorial and it has worked so why do we treat those here and now as the last of the Mohicans; why do we live in mortal dread that whomever is our current leader will take with him/her our last breath.
Most of our leaders have disappointed us to the point that when the time comes for them to go, we should be ready to say, good riddance. We have, however, cornered ourselves by creating constitutions that allow our leaders a degree of immortality when in fact we should be happy to see their backs disappear into oblivion.
In short, all these people, leaders, are mostly crooks and criminals who we should regard as expendables. Why soldiers have instilled in them the belief that they should protect with their own life a leader who thinks nothing of them; who is sending them off to a war that is unwarranted, uncalled for and where they might lose their own life? Wouldn’t it have made sense if Putin’s personal guard had made an about turn and opened fire on him thus saving Ukraine the misery he has inflicted on it? When Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguard did that same thing I suggest the world mourned her death because she was not in war with any country, but the Sikh people felt she was with them and so they celebrated her death. Sometimes we have to be harsh in order to be kind.
What the world needs to understand here is that Russia has not invaded Ukraine per se: It is Putin who has and he uses Russia’s military might to do it. While his poor soldiers and the innocent Ukrainians perish in this Putin shenanigan, he lives on in his many palaces, ride in his fleet of luxury cars and enjoy the good life. O, this is so ridiculous that we install butchers in power and thereafter we make them sacred and untouchable so that they could milk dry the wealth of the country while everybody else suffer in poverty.
So we must draw the line here, no longer must a leader be so empowered that to satisfy his ego, his madness or warlike nature, he just declares war on any nation he fancies; that anytime that happens we let loose the bounty hunters, the vigilantes, the assassins on him. It must become open season for hitmen to target him. Once we have a system like that, a new world order that makes leaders expendable, you’ll see what an improved world this will become.
Again, the words of RFK: “some see things as they are and ask why, but I dream things that never were and say why not.”
By L. Siddhartha Orie