TimothyTiah.com

Power

In the past week I watched two movies. Both which I would highly recommend.

The first movie is one of those movies that I think gets a lot less attention than it truly deserves. It’s called Devil’s Double.

It’s about Uday Hussein. Saddam Hussein’s eldest and notoriously cruel son. Here are some excerpts from Wikipedia that describes the kind of things Uday used to do.

  • As head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, Uday oversaw the imprisonment and torture of Iraqi athletes who were deemed not to have performed to expectations. According to widespread reports, torturers beat and caned the soles of the football players’ feet—inflicting intense pain without leaving visible marks on the rest of their bodies. Uday reportedly kept scorecards with written instructions on how many times each player should be beaten after a poor showing. He would insult athletes who performed below his expectations by calling them dogs and monkeys—considered insults in the Arab world—to their faces.[8] One defector reported that jailed football players were forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals.[9] The Iraqi national football team were seen with their heads shaved after failing to achieve a good result in a tournament in the 1980s.
  • Allegedly kidnapping young Iraqi women from the streets in order to rape them.[2] Uday was known to intrude on parties and otherwise “discover” women whom he would later rape. Time published an article in 2003 detailing his sexual brutality.[2][11]
  • Usage of an iron maiden on persons running foul of him.[12]
  • Allegedly Uday beat an army officer unconscious when the man refused to allow Uday to dance with his wife; the man later died of his injuries. Uday also shot and killed an army officer who did not salute him.[10]
The movie Devil’s Double gives you an insight of how it was like living as a Hussein during Saddam’s reign of power. How they had so much power they could do anything they want to anybody. Buy anything they want, have any woman they want or kill anyone they wanted to. I highly recommend watching this movie… if not for the story alone then for the performance of the main actor Dominic Cooper that did a fantastic job playing both Uday and his body double.

The second movie I watched was just tonight. From a Nuffnang Screening of Chronicle. The movie is about a group of high school kids that attain superhero powers and what they do with it.
I’ll avoid saying much more about this movie because it’s still new so I don’t want to spoil it for you. Though I think the trailer kinda gives you an idea of what it’s already about.

To me, both movies made me think about how no few humans should have so much power over all other people. Yes, there can be people who have had power but not abuse it and use it for good, but there will always be people who can’t handle power and use it to harm others. The latter group of people always doing more harm than the “good people” do good. Sure comic books and movies portray idealistic heroes like Spiderman or Superman that have power and instead of using it for bad, they use it for good. But hey in real life, how often have there been dictators that have done more good for their people than bad?
Think about dictators in history and you’ll remember Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot… all of which were responsible for the lives of many. Lives that I believe could’ve been saved… if there was people around to curb that power.
I talked to Shorty about this and she brought up an additional point. She said even if someone with so much power started as a good person. Too many evils, stressful things, problems that we face in life can corrupt that person. Like if a person decides to use this power negatively out of anger or jealousy.
For that I will always believe in democracy that power should lie with the people. For that I’m thankful, I live in a democratic nation.
As I’m ending this entry I came across a top comment posted on the YouTube video for Chronicle’s trailer. It said
“Power corrupts nothing, it just gives the corrupt options”.
Another quote also crossed my mind, this time when I thought about Uday Hussein,
“Evil will flourish… when good men do nothing”.

Subscribe to the mailing list to get updates on new articles and giveaways that I may get from brands. I promise no spam!