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Living by Lies Digital Commons @ Assumption University Political Science Department Faculty Works Political Science Department 2015 Living by Lies Daniel J. Mahoney Assumption College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.assumption.edu/political-science-faculty Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Mahoney, Daniel J. "Living by Lies." Review of Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators, by Jay Nordlinger. National Review vol. 67 no. 18 (Oct. 5, 2015). Pages 38-39. This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Political Science Department at Digital Commons @ Assumption University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Department Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Assumption University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. books_QXP-1127940387.qxp 9/15/2015 11:32 PM Page 38 Books, Arts & Manners NR senior editor Jay Nordlinger has lated souls and specialized in brutal- Living by written a gem of a book that is at once izing, killing, and raping with impuni- an authoritative guide to 20th-century ty. Some—Jean-Claude Du valier, Kim despotism and, even more compelling- Jong-il, Bashar Assad, and Kim Lies ly, an astute moral and psychological Jong-un—became successor despots, study of the children of 20 of the worst with uneven applications of cruelty DANIEL J. MAHONEY dictators of the 20th century. (Not all and fanaticism. were outright monsters: Nordlinger Bashar Assad wanted to opt out of convincingly argues that the Spanish politics and practice the ophthalmology strongman Francisco Franco—a mod- for which he was trained in London. erate authoritarian for much of his But the early death of a brother—the rule—was a “relative lamb” com- chosen heir—brought him unexpect- pared with the others.) The book had edly to the forefront. With the coming its distant origin in a trip to Albania. of the Arab Spring and the resultant While there, Nordlinger inquired Syrian civil war, this reluctant tyrant whether the cruel and fanatical Al - has become a national butcher, killing banian tyrant Enver Hoxha had had far more people than his tyrannical children, and, if so, what they and their father Hafez Assad ever did. He has lives were like. As it turned out, all continued the family business with were unapologetic defenders of their impressive ruthlessness. Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and tyrant father. Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s son This motif would come to run Saif al-Islam Qaddafi knew that despo- Daughters of Dictators, by Jay Nordlinger deeply through Nordlinger’s book. tism was “dark and wrong” and tried (Encounter, 336 pp., $25.99) Almost all the sons and daughters, to take on the airs of a Western liberal and grandchildren, of the tyrants of the and modernizer. (The words quoted, ESPOTISM is as old as the 20th century remained unequivocally like all subsequent quotes unless political condition of man loyal to the tyrant-father or tyrant- other wise attributed, are from Nord - and is the antithesis of free grandfather. This is true even of the linger.) Saif al-Islam “tried to go and decent human life. In relatively normal ones who themselves straight,” but when his father’s dicta- Dthe 20th century it took an impressive did not become monsters. Family loy- torship came under assault in 2011, he, variety of forms. There were those alty, a natural and generally admirable too, murdered and persecuted oppo- who killed, immiserated, and impris- human phenomenon, in the case of nents of that dictatorship with aban- oned in the name of building truly these souls fatally undermined the don. He made the choice to defend the “revolutionary” societies. These were ability to see clearly and from a per- family business. He “grew a beard in the the ideological tyrants—Lenin, Hitler, spective that does justice to truth and style of fundamentalist Muslims . and Stalin, Mao—who killed in the name conscience. Even Edda Mussolini gave wild-eyed rants on television.” of perverted ideas—Communism, Ciano, whose famous diplomat hus- He now rots in a Libyan prison, his lib- Fascism, National Socialism, revolu- band, Count Ciano, was murdered by eralism (and Western connections) a tion, progress. There were the old- her father, eventually reconciled with thing of distant memory. fashioned despots—Bokassa, Amin, her father’s name and legacy. Saddam Some monster sons stand out in a very Duvalier, Mobutu—who read like a Hussein’s daughters saw their hus- competitive pack. Uday Hussein was a page ripped out of the historians of bands brutally murdered after return- psychopath of the first order and clearly antiquity: They needed no ideology to ing from exile in Jordan in 1995; they earned his self-designation as “Abu justify their depredations. Some, such remain to this day among his most Sarhan,” the Wolf. He had no empathy, as the Kims in North Korea, combine impassioned, militant partisans. The no concern for other human beings. sincerely held ideological fanaticism grandson of Mao basks in the reflected Vasily Stalin was a drunkard and a with the pure capriciousness of the non- glory of one of the great mass mur- satyr and revealed the “moral sterility ideological tyrant. All despots show derers—and ideological tyrants—of of Stalinism” (as the Russian historian contempt for the moral law and elemen- the 20th century. The vast majority of Dmitri Volkogonov once phrased it). tary human decency. the “children of monsters” have cho- Nicu Ceausescu was appalling in every sen to “live by lies,” to diminish their way, drunk and crazy. Mr. Mahoney, the author of The Other humanity by defending and perpetu- As we have mentioned, there are Solzhenitsyn: Telling the Truth about a ating evil and mendacity. Some chil- those who defend the indefensible with - Misunderstood Writer and Thinker, holds the dren—Vasily Stalin, Nicu Ceausescu, out being monsters themselves. This is Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship at Uday Hussein—became despicable true of several of the Musso linis, the Assumption College. brutes. These monster sons had muti- Tojo children as a group (who appear 3 8 | www.nationalreview.com OCTOBER 5 , 2 0 1 5 books_QXP-1127940387.qxp 9/15/2015 11:32 PM Page 39 eminently decent), Valentin Ceausescu, Svetlana “did her best” given “the cir- with courage and humanity, and has Nzanga Mobutu, and Pol Pot’s daugh- cumstances of her almost unimagin- done genuinely good work for peace ter from late in life, Sar Patchata (who able life.” She had a conscience and and reconciliation in Uganda. One of seems to have no awareness that her refused to follow that path of the lie. the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grand children, father was one of the great killers of As confused and troubled as she a liberal religious cleric named Hussein, modern times). The rest either defend sometimes was, for the most part “she publicly compared his grandfather’s “necessary murder,” in Auden’s mem- followed the Solzhenitsyn maxim of rule unfavorably with the shah’s and orable words, or claim that their fathers ‘live not by lies.’” In her “lay a great- the depredations of the Mongols, were merely defending the laws that ness,” a greatness obscured by those boldly rejecting what he did not hesi- were in place at the time (the risible who adopt a reductively “therapeutic” tate to call a new “religious totalitari- claim of the wholly unapologetic approach to her life. anism.” He even called on the United Hoxha family). Fidel Castro’s daughter Alina Fer - States to help liberate Iran as it liber- Two children of tyrants stand out nández defected to the United States ated Iraq in 2003–04. for a moral seriousness that led them in 1993, joining his sister, who had Children of Monsters is fascinating to “live not by lies,” in the celebrated fled the island prison in 1964. Alina on many levels. One learns a great phrase of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. could not close her eyes to the reality deal about the human costs of despo- This phrase, this imperative, serves as of life in a Communist despotism. tism, the lives lost and souls damaged the moral center and thematic core of She did not like the “surveillance that beyond repair. The book is filled with Nordlinger’s book. He could not have was sometimes inflicted on her” and marvelous tidbits: We learn that the chosen a better one. The lie is at heart did not want her daughter to grow up maternal uncle of Saddam Hussein Some of the children and grandchildren came short of living in the truth but at the same time refused to simply succumb to the lie. a denial of an order of truth that makes in a police state. In 1997, she pub- who raised him and later became humanizing demands on our hearts lished a “fascinating and highly valu- mayor of Baghdad was an admirer of and souls. The lie covers over the able book” that exposed Castroite Hitler and penned a little book in clear evidence of conscience and despotism for what it was. She, too, 1940 called “Three Whom God makes us complicit with evil. Vio - chose to live not by lies, and raised her Should Not Have Created: Persians, lence and lies are the twin pillars of voice fearlessly. Jews, and Flies.” The apple did not ideological despotism, and mendacity The children Nordlinger admires fall far from the tree. For his part, is inherent in despotism of any sort. In most are the defectors, who had “up - Saddam profoundly admired Stalin, one of her autobiographical works risings of conscience and saw reality while Ceausescu admired Mao and from the 1960s, Stalin’s daughter, for what it was.” This was far more Kim Il-sung (even having the latter’s Svetlana Alliluyeva, explained that difficult for Svetlana than for Alina, book on juche, the ideology of North her turn to Christianity represented who never lived with her father and Korean Communism, translated into the rejection of “evil, the lie.” She was less close to the source of the evil.
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