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# Charlie Chaplin despots
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/18676/
- Published: 2006-03-03T16:03:21.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:34:49.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:15

“[Belarus](http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bo.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) candidate is arrested” said the little headline low down on the [front page](http://www.iht.com/pdfs/frontpagepdf/europefrontpage.pdf?ref=opendemocracy.net). There was a picture: a strange one showing a shiny marble floor, a modern staircase and big pot plants. In the foreground eight or ten men in thick jackets and warm hats were scuffling. The caption read: “Security agents beating the opposition presidential candidate Aleksandr Kazulin as they arrested him in Minsk on Thursday…” I’m afraid I laughed.

Just underneath was [another story](http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/02/news/kenya.php?ref=opendemocracy.net). “Dozens of masked Kenyan police officers knocked a television station off the air Thursday before moving to a newspaper plant where they disabled the printing press and torched thousands of papers.” Three journalists were charged with “publishing a false rumour” about President Mwai Kibaki. 

Sometimes the despots – and Kibaki seems intent on joining Lukashenko in that club -- are their own parody. They behave as though [Charlie Chaplin](http://www.charliechaplin.com/rubrique.php3?id%5Frubrique=6&rub=film&ref=opendemocracy.net), Bertolt Brecht and Gilbert and Sullivan had never mocked them, as though there was no such thing as a cliché of power. Sadly, though, I expect these two do it with their eyes open. [Beating up](http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-02T193720Z%5F01%5FL02110383%5FRTRUKOC%5F0%5FUK-BELARUS.xml&archived=False&ref=opendemocracy.net) election candidates and [smashing printing presses](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4770384.stm?ref=opendemocracy.net), brazen as it is, is a way of pointing a finger westwards and saying there is nobody left with the moral authority to stop them.