It was a really gruesome end, filmed on a cellphone. Deposed Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi was hauled from a drainage pipe. He was physically abused and shouted at as he begged for his life with blood streaming from his face.
It is not clear who shot the final bullet that killed him, but his humiliation was complete. His body was put on display in the fridge of a butchery, and buried later in an unmarked grave. This was a man who styled himself as "the Brother Leader" and "Guide of the Revolution".
He ruled as a dictator for 42 years, murdering opponents in as savage a manner as he met his own death. Yet he was lauded by many in his lifetime, and is still praised by some today. His supporters say he was "anti-imperialist", but his meddling in Liberia and Sierra Leone claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
He supported terrorist movements, and terrorist acts such as the Lockerbie airline bombing. What remains now of the vanity and arrogance when he was in power, with his face postered all round the country?
Other autocratic leaders have fallen recently, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine Ben Ali. Everyone who had dealings with them is now tarnished. In their day, they all felt invincible and treated the country's resources as their own.
I am reminded of a famous poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley about the crumbling statue of an Egyptian pharaoh in the desert. On the pedestal are the words "My name is Ozymandias king of kings, Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair".
Material power is ephemeral. And no matter what grand monuments are built they will amount to nothing. This is why Shakespeare is not quite right when he has Mark Anthony say at Caesar's funeral: "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." But bad people are not role models. Only truly good people are.
Their lives can inspire millions of people many centuries after their death. The Biblical leader Moses is known for his humility. After the sin of the Israelites with the Golden Calf, God says He will destroy them and make a great nation from Moses alone. It is a test for Moses. He pleads with God to forgive the Israelites. And if not, then "please remove me from Your book that You have written".
This is Moses the servant leader, the loving shepherd guarding his flock. And his name and example live on. It is a kind of immortality, a touch of the infinite to our finite existence on this earth. It is also the difference between good and great.
In his study of great companies, Jim Collins identifies humility as a key factor in great leaders. These leaders have "a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will". They even train their successors so that the organisation lives on after them.
Few political leaders exhibit humility today. The outstanding exception in South Africa has been Nelson Mandela, but otherwise ego mostly rules supreme. If only our so-called leaders would lift their eyes and see the bigger picture. Their arrogance holds us back from being the great country that we can become.
Jack Bloom MPL, is DA Leader in the Gauteng Legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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