VIEW: Et tu, Brute? —Sikander Amani

Democracies, apart from their other benefits, would hence tend to lower (though not eliminate) the probability of assassinations, by drastically lowering the expectations of political change in case of an accident

As Benazir Bhutto’s assassination once again makes the headlines with the publication of the UN report and its myriad of afterthoughts (“I never ordered hosing down the road”, “It was not me”, “I really did not think hosing would be such a big deal”, “All those responsible will be brought to justice”, etc, etc, etc), the same old questions and polemics resurface.

There are probably few events as incredibly fascinating and newsworthy as a leader’s assassination, especially when televised; neither natural disasters, nor war, nor even large scale terrorist attacks, come close to the lightning bolt created by a leader’s assassination, where disbelief, shock, and a surreal sense of reality turning into fiction and vice versa collude to disrupt even the most hardened individuals. An assassination is more fascinating precisely because it is personal: unlike in airplane crashes or terror attacks, one person, and one person only, deliberately chosen for his or her political importance, is targeted. And the lack of randomness, the deliberate targeting of one decisive individual, takes on the trappings of a cosmic disruption. Political assassinations are dramatic like Greek tragedies, where one individual’s actions have an impact on the cosmos itself, and thus become the stuff of destiny. The slain politician becomes a martyr, thus elevating and glorifying a life that otherwise might have ended in banality, mediocrity, or just insignificance. The political scientist Alexander Demandt cynically notes that for some politicians, assassination means exaltation above what would probably have been attained in life. He takes the example of J F Kennedy, “We most definitely would have a very different image of him had he remained alive and drunk the cup of the Vietnam War to the dregs.” While the slain politician suddenly endorses a martyr-like, quasi-divine figure, what was until then a probably important, but certainly not unique, political existence, is turned into an absolutely singular destiny, as the abrupt end retrospectively suffuses the leader’s life with a fateful, higher-than-life meaning.

This is why high-level assassinations often appear fictional, or have often been made the subject of fiction, as in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or, of course, his rendering of Julius Caesar’s slaying. But it is also why we often remain utterly fascinated by the images or videos of such instants: the intensity of the Zapruder movie, or the shaky video showing Benazir’s dopatta flying away as the head is hit by the gunman’s bullet, can probably not be matched by any thriller or any action movie; however often one has watched the images, they remain as powerful, when this single instant transforms contingency into destiny. Obviously, an assassination is fascinating also because contrary to all other types of sudden death, there is an “intelligent design” behind it: who did it? Incidentally, it is mystifying to think how many such assassinations remain unsolved (Kennedy, Ziaul Haq, Olof Palme of Sweden, Habyarimana of Rwanda, Benazir, to name just a few), thus keeping the mystery lingering for decades.

Who did it? And why? An interesting study of political assassinations by political Scientist Bruno Frey sees four different possible motives: achieve political change (by far the most common motivation — although the change brought about by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, namely World War I, was probably not the one intended by the killer Gavrilo Princip), produce chaos, seek media attention, and “irrational” killings committed by deranged people. One of the interesting results of the study is to show that democracy plays a paradoxical role in that it simultaneously increases and diminishes the probability of political assassinations. On the one hand, democracy can play a detrimental role in that its free press vastly enhances the media attention the slaying and its authors will have, which means that in case the culprit’s motive is to attract attention to himself or to a cause, it will be much easier to attain in a democracy as opposed to an autocracy. But on the other hand, democracy is perhaps the best shield against assassinations, as its decision-making procedures systematically lower the expected “benefit” for the killer(s): indeed, in democratic systems, though the power is embodied in one individual who has some discretionary margin, the general orientation of policies and deep-rooted trends of the polity transcend this one individual, as it might be delegated either to decentralised institutions, or independent organisms, or, more generally, might be distributed to other, wider institutions. In other words, the more functional the democracy is, the more insignificant the changes the would-be killer(s) may expect from their dreadful deed will be — all the more so when succession procedures are well-oiled and well-determined, creating a minimal power vacuum or uncertainty in the political scenery. Democracies, apart from their other benefits, would hence tend to lower (though not eliminate) the probability of assassinations, by drastically lowering the expectations of political change in case of an accident. Frey notes that several elements, in addition to security measures, can significantly reduce the odds of politicians being attacked or killed: extended institutional and governance quality, democracy, voice and accountability, a well functioning system of law and order, decentralisation via the division of power and federalism, larger cabinet size and strengthened civil society. Tyrannies, on the contrary, because of the highly centralised and the solitary nature of power (notwithstanding their illegitimacy and cruelty) dramatically increase the odds of a politically-motivated killing. Frey drily notes: “Being a dictator is — ceteris paribus — necessarily connected to a higher danger of being murdered.”

However effective the democracy, it will not be sufficient to ward off fanaticised, extremist attackers, as in the case of Nathuram Godse, the Hindu fanatic who killed Gandhi, the Sikh bodyguards who killed Indira, or Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, where the motivation seems to be of a retributive kind, based on a poisonous version of nationalism and religion: the leader is perceived as harming “our” people, as having played in the hands of the “enemy”, and must die. Nationalism is always toxic, but this brand is, literally, lethal. And as often, religions too play a venomous role, as the killer perceives himself as the Hand of God, accomplishing His will on Earth. It is noteworthy that Yigal Amir, a student of a yeshiva (the Jewish version of madrassas), justified his act on religious grounds, namely the twin Jewish precepts of din rodef (the duty to kill a Jew who imperils the life or property of another Jew) and din moser (the duty to eliminate a Jew who intends to turn another Jew in to non-Jewish authorities). Amir argued (and was supported by a vast swath of the extreme right in Israel) that by signing the Oslo Agreement, Rabin had handed land to non-Jews, was thus rodef, and hence had to be killed. The problem is not the logical reasoning, but the very premise that the person who “imperils” a co-religionary deserves to die. As a matter of fact, among the parameters that enhance the probability for a politician to be attacked or killed, one should mention the deadliest cocktail of all: nationalism and religion. No praetorian guard, no janissaries, no democratic organisational procedure, may be able to protect you from the irrational fallacy that is murdering to defend one’s people in the name of God; it actually kills three birds with one stone: murdering the politician, defiling one’s people, and insulting the name of God.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at sikander.amani@gmail.com