Dear Editor,

As an Easter gift to myself, I decided to stay at home, shut away from the world for the holiday weekend, and watch some classic films with a bearing on the season. So I ended up watching Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and Quo Vadis (by my wife’s estimation, for the 100th time!).

Not only are these types of fictional films inspiring, but they also offer viewers lessons in faith, courage, human fear, prejudice, and above all, the extent to which humans will go to brutalise fellow humans because of differences in religious beliefs, ethnicity, revenge, and hate.

This time, I gained new insights from my latest viewing marathon into the thorny subject of leadership, and how power and clouded judgement in the hands of the wrong leader can have disastrous consequences for the people under such leadership. Perhaps leaders who are prone to the megalomaniacal exercise of corrupt or misguided leadership should watch some of these classics, look at the characters portrayed in them, and see whether they are wearing similar robes and the armour of hate and revenge.

By extension, they might also be able to infer that their particular brand of leadership is also causing the suffering and death depicted in these films. Although these films are set in a different era and are fictional, astonishingly, they accurately depict the behaviour of many leaders today – whether it is in the realm of politics, the home, or the workplace.

The sad truth is that jealousy, greed, and ego still torment modern man. We foster division and hatred and rejoice in the downfall of others. And guess what? Like the Romans of old, we love it when our modern-day gladiators invade a community to arrest one person and brutally murder others, because they brand them all as criminals and “dem fi dead!”

Colonel Allan Douglas

alldouglas@aol.com