A Family in the Fiction Arab Country Abuddin - Assignment Example

Scapegoat itarian Personality The series tyrant is about a family in the fiction Arab country Abuddin where leadership is passed on from father to the first born son. The rule is very dictatorial even though the country is rising up to reject he rule that they have been subjected to over the years. The story starts with a scene where the president if the country is addressing a crowd with his two sons and they are suddenly attacked by rebels. The president and the chief of security make efforts to rescue his first born son who is likely to inherit the leadership when the president dies while the second born son is left to his own devices. The scene then fast forwards to the present day where the first born son named Jamal is older and his son is about to get married and the second born son had fled to America to escape the injustices that were happening in his country. The second born son, Bassam goes back to Abuddin with his American family for the wedding. The president dies during the wedding ceremony and Jamal inherits the presidency. The country is ruled through a lot of fear as the ruling family is known to persecute anyone who threatens to oppose their rule. The royal family lives a lavish lifestyle and has servants at their beck and call. However, the time is when most parts of the world were calling out for the end of dictatorial rule and thus the royal family was under a lot of pressure from a rebel group to hold an election. Bassam, being more accepting of the democratic ways, convinces his brother to go through an election. Jamal is definately authoritative and does whatever he wants to satisfy himself. He does not care much about anyone else or what anyone would say. He does things that only benefit him; satisfy his needs, and his hold onto power. His first action shown in the series is him forcing himself on one of his subject’s wife as the husband waits outside and he does not care about the husband’s feelings and neither those of the children of the woman who are waiting outside. His major aim is to satisfy himself regardless of who gets hurt. Jamal justifies his actions by claiming that his wife had left him and that his subjects are there to please him and do as he wishes whenever he wants. He extends his cruelty to innocent people simply because he has the authority and capacity to do as he wishes and no one is bold enough to face him. Jamal had been brought by his father and taught to be ruthless to people who did not agree with him. From his childhood, he had been forced to go everywhere with his father and even kill some of the subjects who had not been loyal. A scene is shown where the father is killing people from a village and he is handed a gun to shoot a man who was part of the group of people accused of being traitors. Paralyzed with fear, he runs back to the car and hides but with time, he came to learn and could easily do it by himself. He killed people so that he could maintain his power and so he could remain at the top of the hierarchy. In another episode, he killed his opponent so that he would be alone in running for the presidency hence maintains power. He was threatened by the opponent and felt that people preferred the opponent to him and thus he would lose his seat if he went forward with the elections. He followed his victim to the washrooms and since the opponent was sick, he got a coughing fit. Jamal hit his head on the toilet bowl but luckily the opponent does not die and is taken to the hospital. Jamal convinces his brother to kill him once and for all. Jamal justifies this action by saying that the opponent was mocking him and that he disrespected him and that is why he felt the need to eliminate him and to finish him off. Jamal has a faithful group of followers who are do his every bidding. The army follows his instructions whether they are good or bad. He does everything he can to ensure that the country is at peace even if it is through fear. His tyrannical rule is further shown when the wife if his son is kidnapped. Despite the fact that Bassam had negotiated with the kidnappers and assured them that their lives would be spared, the head of the army still kills them in the most horrific way. The justification given for this action is that the government does not negotiate with terrorists. However, looking at the background, he brother of one of the kidnappers had been imprisoned for no reason and he was protesting the arrest. Everyone in the country knew that once a person was imprisoned, they rarely get out alive. As much as he was trying to save his own brother, he ended up losing his life in a military style kind of way. Jamal also killed several people for no reason whatsoever. For instance, he killed a girl that he had an affair with for no reason and he did not feel any remorse about it. Perhaps it was a way of making him feel equal to Bassam for killing is opponent. One minute he was chatting and talking to the girl and the next minute, he suffocated her using a pillow. In his mind, he must have felt that she is not family and thus there was no real loss. Despite his cruelty to other people, he is quite passionate about his family and values relationships with them as he believes in family and it is evident that he loves his brother. There is simply no tolerance whatsoever for those who go against the rule. Towards the end of the series, a group of people who were planning to carry out a coup de tat were killed for attempting to overthrow the president. One of the men was the father to the daughter in law and he did not care. Clearly he did all that he could to ensure that he stayed in power. They are all shot dead in the basement of the prison cells probably without the knowledge of the family. The killings are meant to instill fear in the people. With the opponent dead and his brother in prison awaiting death, he could rule till his death and for him the end justifies the means. Even though he is yet to kill his brother, he seems to be in distress about this particular decision and it is unclear whether he will end up killing him. He is taught by the military to ensure that people will always follow him even if it is not out of respect but fear. Jamal had been brought up by his father in the military kind of way since he was a child and he was taught that people are ruled by fear. His father was very hard on him as he was meant to inherit the throne when he died and as a child, Jamal clearly did not enjoy being taken out to the missions and definately did not enjoy killing people. He seemed to have been a timid child. However, as time passed, he must have toughened up to be a tough ruler like his father. When a child is exposed to such situations when they are very young, they tend to toughen p and get used to not only seeing but also doing the things that they see people they look up to do. Jamal’s sensitivity is clearly eroded. He loses feeling for humanity and sees them as subjects to fulfill his desires and meet his needs. Anyone who is not family is at risk of getting killed if they do not what is required of them by the president. He manipulates his way into getting favors and remaining in power. He has a group of advisors who further reinforce the idea that he needs to be seen as a strong and one who does not shy away from eliminating his opponents. His uncle, who is the chief of the military, is the one who guides him through this kind of rule and his solution to almost every problem is usually to kill the person who is responsible. Jamal at one point says that no one loves him for his character or for who he is. He says that his mother loves him simply because he is her son, his brother Bassam pities him, his wife does not care about him and takes every opportunity to embarrass him and women come to him simply because he is the president. It is clear he does not think much of himself and that the people who are around him only stay around because they are family or they need something from him. His mental and emotional problems seem to have arisen from the way he was brought up. He was not taught how to be gentle with people and how to sympathize with the poor or those who are suffering. He instead uses them for his own personal gain with the scapegoat that he is their leader and thus he can do anything to them. Works Cited Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. New York: Basic Books, 2012. Gaylin, Willard. Hatred: The Psychological Descent Into Violence . Washington: Public Affairs, 2004. Tyrant. Dir. Matt Chesse. Perf. Ashraf Barhom. 2014. Read More