The Modern Application of Machiavelli’s The Prince

      What is needed for rulers to maintain power, and does the end justify the means? In this era of the world, maintaining power is usually costly. But for hundreds of years, these questions have been answered time and time again, and the answers are often harmful to humanity. Often regarded as one of the most innovative works of literature since the beginning of the Renaissance, The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli, is notorious for saying that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved by his citizens, and that every ruler should do whatever is necessary to stay in power. Often "whatever it takes" invokes the previously mentioned fear, because the end surely does justify the means, right? Elected presidents, generals, monarchs and warlords all over the world have taken Machiavelli’s advice to heart, and to the hearts of others. The Machiavellian outlook that many modern rulers have adopted has led to tragic, inhumane, and unimaginable civil war, while all those who protest against “The Princes” of today and their will to keep power at any price are killed in countries such as Syria and Uzbekistan.

      Since the publishing of The Prince, no time has challenged the men who took Machiavelli’s philosophy of ruling to heart such as the Arab Spring. The events started late in 2010 and caught the eye of the international community early in 2011, when the people of Egypt nonviolently revolted against Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak kept power for 31 years at all costs, as Machiavelli suggests, until the fear he struck into his people was overcome by sheer courage. Mubarak was not loved by the vast majority of his people, and it eventually showed as the absence of love by his people led to his downfall. He was prosecuted for his efforts to maintain power at the beginning of the Arab Spring, which involved ordering the murder of nonviolent protesters protesting against Mubarak (biography.com). 

     More feared leaders were finally brought down from power after decades of human rights abuse during the Arab Spring, including Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi, who was killed by his own people. Gadaffi’s death was celebrated by the people he once ruled, while his dead body was published on the cover of newspapers everywhere such as the New York Post and littered on the internet. Gaddafi also did whatever he could to maintain power. After a coup d’etat against Gaddafi in 1969 failed, he, with all his power asserted laws opposing political dissent in Libya; whoever openly disagreed with Gadaffi was criminalized (biography.com). Gadaffi’s violent and oppressive reign ended with a short, but terribly bloody civil war that was Gadaffi’s last attempt to keep power. Before he died, however, Gadaffi published a book explaining his political philosophy called the Green Book. The book resembled Machiavelli’s in many ways. Both claimed that the best way to rule was absolute power and that power was the number one priority for a ruler at all times (biography.com). Gadaffi had applied that theory in the last days of his life, as he used as much aggressive force as he could to stop the uprising against him, which only escalated the violence, showing that Machiavelli’s way to keep power backfired on Gadaffi and took the lives of many all over Africa and the Middle East in the Arab Spring.

     Applying Machiavelli’s theories in The Prince to the modern world has proved to be a large global issue, not only in Egypt and Libya but also in the war-torn nation of Syria today. A revolution began in the Arab Spring and broke out into the bloodshed of civil war that is still going on today. The current regime in Syria has done whatever it can to maintain power, just as Machiavelli advises, and has been difficult for revolutionaries to defeat. The Presidency of Bashar al-Assad has been unopposed in two elections, one in 2000 and the other in 2007. The regime has actually been a dictatorship in Syria for more than 40 years, since al-Assad took over the country after his father’s death. The only way for a modern leader such as al-Assad to do as Machiavelli suggests and keep power at all costs is through corruption and disregard of basic human rights. An on-going biography of al-Assad mentions these abuses frequently. “Human rights groups have reported that political opponents of Bashar al-Assad are routinely tortured, imprisoned and killed.”(biography.com). The fact that all of his opponents are abused stirs the fear that Machiavelli said all rulers should inspire; al-Assad’s abuse follows Machiavelli’s rule to keep power by all and any means. Bashar still goes by any means to stay in power. His forces in the military continue to fight against their people and slaughter more and more by the day: man, woman, or child. The people have escalated their revolution to civil war after empty promises of reform as an attempt to keep control by Bashar al-Assad and his government. Conditions in Syria have become so bad that a senior member of the International Red Cross Committee said, “People fear for their lives every minute of the day”(reuters.com). The fighting has created fear in Syria, which is used by leaders like al-Assad to remain in power, following Machiavellian law.

     West of Syria, in the thick of Central Asia, the Arab Spring left Uzbekistan alone. However, protests against the government of Islam Karimov began long before the Arab Spring. On the thirteenth of May, 2005, 500 unarmed protesters gathered in Babor square of Andijan, a large Uzbekistani city. The unarmed and defenseless men and women in the square were surrounded by government troops, as they blocked off every exit from the square. At five in the afternoon, the Uzbekistanis protesting against government repression all attempted to leave the square, fleeing north on Choplon Prospect, where they were ambushed by the authorities; snipers and police surrounded them and shot to kill. 400 of the 500 people tragically died. On that day, Islam Karimov, leader of the modern Uzbekistan, did whatever he could to solidify his power by any means. Karimov has also taken other measures to stay in power, mainly limiting freedom and violating human rights. In fact, CBS News has named Karimov one of the world’s “enduring dictators” because of his methods. The United Nations has proved the use of torture by Karimov’s government calling it “systematic” and organized. Karimov has kicked many human rights groups out of the country on which he has such a stern grasp. All of this points to Karimov successfully following Machiavelli’s guidelines, since his reign over Uzbekistan has lasted for twenty years and all signs indicate that he will be in power for many years to come (cbsnews.com). 

     Although these men--Gadaffi, al-Assad, Karimov, and Mubarak--created their fear through violence, this type of fear is not what Machiavelli meant. These dictators used fear to keep themselves in power, as opposed to using the fear to achieve the goals of their leadership. The embodiment of Machiavelli’s political theory is Cesare Borgia (freepublic.com), who struck fear into his people so that there was only violence that Machiavelli would have deemed necessary. The fear from that united his people, as opposed to the wars and massacres that are the modern applications of the philosophy of The Prince, like the Syrian civil war. In today's governments, the leaders who are feared are brutal, unlike Borgia, who was stable and not paranoid (biography.com). The men who were the basis of Machiavelli’s theory when he wrote The Prince, like Cesare Borgia, have evolved along with the governments and war machines over the past 500 years, since Machiavelli first drafted his political theory. Governments have gone from monarchy and heirship to democracy and elections. Weapons have gone from inaccurate guns and swords to drones and automatic weapons. Leaders like the Borgias used to keep power by any means through word of mouth and inheriting the throne, but now, leaders like the four dictators previously mentioned must scheme to keep power after their second, or even first terms. Now, fear is spread through explosions and massacres in the town square of innocents when fear used to be that of a guillotine and execution or being jailed. The two methods of the Machiavelli political thought plant two different types of fear. Nowadays, the fear of massacre or brutality and slaying in Syria has inspired an uprising for the better, when in the land Borgia presided over, there was no thought of resistance.

      Fear is now unstable in societies, and governing through fear is just as unstable and bloody. For the past 60 years, since the first atom bomb was dropped on Japan, the international community has feared nuclear war. Three major conflicts have been the center of all our fears since then. The American-Soviet and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, and most recently, nuclear disagreements with Iran by the United States and US supporters. The Cold War never escalated to the point of war between the two most powerful countries of their time, and war was certainly feared. The entire world feared escalation of the conflict between communists and capitalists, and that made the era unstable. Events such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars were started out of the fear American politicians felt about the spread of communism. The two wars caused a total of 2,402,342 deaths in combat (archives.org, koreanwar-educator.org). These deaths were caused by the fear created by leaders, all of them heavily armed with the fear imposing nuclear weapons. Now, the fear of Iranian and North Korean nuclear projects has rushed into the minds of every American. When Machiavelli originally drafted his philosophy, this fear would have rushed the world into civil obedience, supporting his theory. But in the society of today, the American fear of these non-verbal threats has only inspired action, as it did in Syria and Libya, to name a few countries. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, protesters gathered, coming from all over the country, showing that the fear on our minds is not the way to keep us down, and that fear is no feeling to control over anymore. Ahmadinejad attempts to use the threat of nukes not only as defense, but as a method of control for Iran on the world stage. Despite these attempts, Ahmadinejad cannot even stop unarmed protesters from waving picket signs outside his hotel door. But even more unstable is the fear of a full on war in Palestine, between Palestinians and Israelis. There have been multiple bloody wars since Israel’s initial occupation of territory in Palestine, but as each year goes by with shots fired or no shots fired, the tensions escalate, and so does the fear. Everyday, both major ethnic groups in Palestine and Israel live in fear, as suicide bombing attempts in crowded areas have occurred again and again over the years, keeping families indoors, and fighting can break out any moment. Sami al-Jundi, now a well known seeker of peace in Palestine, once attempted to set a bomb off to fight Israeli occupation of his town in the West Bank. Al-Jundi was only sixteen when he made his attempt. But from then on, Sami had begun working for peace in the Middle East, recently co-writing a book about his life experiences, co-author Jen Marlowe wrote “Sami’s life work has been to build the people who are ready to take this step(towards peace). He knows from years of experience that it is hard, painful work. But the alternative is far more agonizing.”(Marlowe & al-Jundi, xvi). Al-Jundi knows the “agonizing” life it is under fear, and the outlook he has taken on on oppression, conflict, and fear has spread in this advanced era, so that people are no longer put down by the rulers of fear, as The Prince states they would.

      It has been tumultuous 500 years since the best thought on politics was that of Niccolò Machiavelli, filled with a lot of change in the way society is governed. No longer is fear the best way to rule and sole possession of power the best thing for society. Now, humanity accomplishes its goals under the leadership of the best men and women for the job, those who are rightfully chosen for positions of power and are loved and appreciated by the people that they were elected by. The clear issue with governments around the world today is that some men govern the way Machiavelli advised, even though the era no longer matches the advice. Now, invoking fear by brutality and cruelty inspires change and reform, leading to revolution and protests, which results in lives lost without death being necessary at all. Governing through fear has caused countless deaths in the Syrian Civil War, among many other conflicts, and the list of casualties increases by the day (reuters.com), and also the 400 lives lost in the middle of Andijan, as well as the violence to overthrow Muammar Gadaffi and his tyrannical reign that escalated to a wave of death in the region. The fact that many people, often those in positions of enormous power and those that tend to try to expand their power, still apply Machiavelli’s advice to their decisions and actions, and that has plagued the world in recent years, something Machiavelli could not have predicted. If the philosophy stops being applied, there would be less bloody wars and massacres against protesters, often unarmed ones. The decline in Machiavelli’s theory would not continue to deteriorate living conditions across the globe as it does now, the decline and disbelief would certainly improve them, because the ends no longer justifies the means