The pharaohs and us (I)

In fact, some post-independence African leaders right up to these so-called modern times bear striking resemblance in their character, carriage and belief to the lives of some of the pharaohs. After looking at the past days of the pharaohs and now of the times of our so-called democratically elected leaders, I just came to the […]

In fact, some post-independence African leaders right up to these so-called modern times bear striking resemblance in their character, carriage and belief to the lives of some of the pharaohs. After looking at the past days of the pharaohs and now of the times of our so-called democratically elected leaders, I just came to the conclusion that the more things appear to change, the more they remain the same. I have also come to an understanding that ‘’some countries do have them’’.
The pharaohs appeared all knowing, all powerful, aloof, uncaring and unmoved. The only thing that appeared to move them was a noticeable threat to their power. And they became maniacal or infernal in preserving or consolidating their hold on power. So jealous were some of them of their powers and privileges that they will not hesitate to order the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of male children of a certain age bracket in order to eliminate a potential source of threat to their throne. Highly superstitious, most of them relied on a cabal of marabouts, seers, diviners, occult priests, astrologers and all manner of persons who laid claim to having more than two eyes. Does this not remind us of our most recent past and even of the present times where some of our leaders rely on the counsel of medicine men and women before they can make any move?
Many of the ancient pharaohs and their modern day imitators ran genocidal regimes. While the word of the ancient pharaohs was law and could send thousands to ‘lawful’ deaths, their modern counterparts have laws which seek to restrain the monarch from acting unilaterally and dictatorially but they have their ways around such laws. They keep cells of persons paid to kill in the name of protecting the state or they clandestinely ask their law enforcement agents to engage in extra-judicial killings calculated to serve the interests of the ‘king’.
While the pharaohs of ancient times left a vast legacy of pyramids and other public works projects which have survived for over three thousand years, some of our own modern day pharaohs do not leave any legacy in terms of monuments. They often leave poverty, pains, tears and torments for their people. They are such poor imitators of the original pharaohs.
The ancient pharaohs were generally something else. They were more than the type of people I call Deputy Gods (DGs) for a majority of them were arrogant, extremely self-willed, boastful, domineering, cruel, wicked and most times spoke and acted as if they were God himself. Take Pharaoh Sesostris 111 who, according to a Wikipedia entry, is recorded as having once boasted thus:
“I made my boundary; I went further south than my forefathers. I increased what was bequeathed to me. . . . I am a king who speaks and acts. My heart’s intentions are carried out by my arm. I am one who is aggressive in order to seize, impatient to succeed, and who does not allow a matter to lie in his heart. . . . Aggression is valour while retreat is cowardice.”
Political victimization which we decry today in our politics did not start today. This same Pharaoh Sesostris III’s well known method of dealing with his political enemies was destroying their crops through burning!
It appears to me that Sesostris III is the patron saint of the civilian and military tyrants and oppressors that Africa later got as its leaders. He was known as the Pharaoh of Oppression. He, it was, who increased the suffering of enslaved Jews and decreed the death of Jewish male children and the assimilation of female ones into the corrupt ways of the Egyptians.
When the Israelite supervisors complained to Pharaoh about the severity of their tasks, Pharaoh replied, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves’’ (Exodus 5:7).
I think it was this pharaoh who was also known as the Pharaoh who never knew Joseph. He is also known as the Pharaoh of Affliction. “The children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty and the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and he said to his people, ‘Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come and let us deal shrewdly with them. . . .Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. . .  And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage’’ (Exodus1:7-14).
This pharaoh must also be the patron saint of modern day family planning experts and he was a great family planner of the most vicious kind!