Siad Barre in Shakespeare

[Fall]

So today we reading 'The Tempest' by William Shakespeare and I couldn't help but notice the resemblance of the themes in the play to the political situations of Somalia's past. The play is about a rightful duke who plots to make his daughter a queen by manipulating and tricking others through illusion, Shakespeare in this play highlights different sources of power that put people in political positions. There's a divine power where a person derives his power from the will of God and this, can be either a religious position such as Pope or, Kingship whereby the King sees himself not as someone in power for the sake of himself but for the people and therefore in duty to God and his people. Our teacher started to explain how, when a person attains power through manipulation he will eventually become tyrannical as his power is not divine and therefore lacks duty to God which then leads to the people rebelling against him and him consequently taking measures to constrain them. We went on to speak about how European royals in comparison to dictators didn't see themselves as people who were in positions of power but people who were in duty to their citizens and in duty to God, they did everything to make sure that their Kingdoms were just as they were obedient to God which is evidenced by the fact that royals in Europe used to marry other royals for the sake of creating bonds, cohesion and cooperation for their people and the foreign courts. When we look at people like Marie Antoinette who lived a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the french treasury, the revolution happened in France but when people are selfless even sometimes burdened by their duty to the people, they last for a long time as can be seen by the United Kingdom.

People who are in positions of political power that do not see themselves as obedient to their people but rather the other way round will lose support and eventually become tyrannical and decline. The fact that they become tyrannical alone is a symbol of their lack of right to be ruling in the first place. Siad Barre became President through staging a coup with the SRC but eventually manipulated the council members and stole their unanimous power, Shakespeare portrays stolen power, which is another source in his play, usually achieved through murder as unholy and destined for corruption and erosion.