How to Become a Tyrant: The Playbook of the Tyrant in the Book of Wisdom

 

 Absolute power. Come on, you know you want it. You just don’t know how to get it.

That’s the opening line of How to Become a Tyrant, a documentary series currently streaming on Netflix.

It seeks to provide a sort of syllabus (“playbook” as it is called in the docuseries) or a handbook on how to become a dictator, with Hitler’s handbook as the primary source of the rest:

• Episode 1:  “Seize Power” by Adolf Hitler
• Episode 2: “Crush Your Rivals" by Saddam Hussein
• Episode 3: "Reign Through Terror" by Idi Amin
• Episode 4: "Control the Truth" by Joseph Stalin
• Episode 5: Create a New Society" by Muammar Gaddafi
• Episode 6: "Rule Forever" by Kim dynasty (North Korea)

All of the above are found in the playbook of Marcos, the dictator; and of another Philippine tyrant in the offing.

The First Reading for this Sunday (9/19/2021) features a kind of "playbook" of a tyrant in the Book of Wisdom (2:2:12, 17-20).

He is called there "wicked" in most English translations, at times "godless, ungodly or impious." The Greek word is ASEBEIS which is the counterpart of HANEP in Hebrew carrying the nuance of "tyrant" (as in the Book of Job 34:30).

Unlike the tyrants above, the wicked in the Book of Wisdom begins first with a covenant with death (2:16), something akin to "Kill. Kill. Kill."

Then the tyrant follows the playbook:

• seizes power and crushes his rivals: "Let us ambush the upright man..." (2:12)
• reigns through terror: "Let us afflict him with violence and torture..." (2:19)
• controls the truth: "Let our might be our law of right" (2:11)
• creates a new society where the weak are considered useless (2:11)
• rules forever, "enjoying the good things that are here and making use of creation with youthful zest." (2:6)

Will the tyrant rule forever? 

By no means, the Sage says, it is the righteous who will live forever and receive a glorious crown from the Lord himself (2:15-16).

How about the tyrant?

He would become a butt of jokes, by young people (as Netlfix is doing with those tyrants now). Even the Lord laughs him to scorn (4:18).