Why sycophants prosper and sycophancy thrives on?
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Shirin Akhtar
The other day, a writer in an article in an English daily said the great enemies of our political leaders are the sycophants "who are in most cases corrupt, dishonest and inefficient." This is not entirely true because those sycophants are not inefficient where their most important task is concerned: corruption, to which end they function most efficiently. Also, the writer is extremely naive if he thinks that a leader ought to take these sycophants as what he is suggesting: enemies. The leaders never take those people as enemies unless of course something goes wrong to which the leader has been made party to and they need some people to blame and then they blame those sycophants but this is also not a common thing because much of the times the leaders end up blaming the opposing party and their leaders for most real or imagined ills.
The fact of the matter is our leaders cannot survive without hangers-on and sycophants. They need them just as much as the sycophants need them. They need them to stay in power; they need them to earn an extra buck. Yes, corruption among leaders cannot be possible without the active help of those sycophants.
A sycophant is a fawning flatterer, a servile or obsequious person who flatters somebody powerful for personal gain. Can we call term some of our ministers as sycophants?
All one needs to do is look at the way they behave in front of the prime minister because it is there for us to see on television, in each and every function and every time she goes out of the country. Some have suggested to call them just "shameless" but not sycophants.
Why? They did not explain except to say that it sounds bad. I am inclined to agree that there are scores of sycophants that we do not see on television as they exercise their "right to sycophancy".
In fact, most of those ministers and other sycophants maintain stables of their own sycophants, and the phenomena continues down the tiers.
Many must absolutely have some people around them who will at least say once a day: "Huzur, apni borho my dear!" Let us admit it, many of our leaders love sycophants and sycophancy.
The other day, a writer in an article in an English daily said the great enemies of our political leaders are the sycophants "who are in most cases corrupt, dishonest and inefficient." This is not entirely true because those sycophants are not inefficient where their most important task is concerned: corruption, to which end they function most efficiently. Also, the writer is extremely naive if he thinks that a leader ought to take these sycophants as what he is suggesting: enemies. The leaders never take those people as enemies unless of course something goes wrong to which the leader has been made party to and they need some people to blame and then they blame those sycophants but this is also not a common thing because much of the times the leaders end up blaming the opposing party and their leaders for most real or imagined ills.
The fact of the matter is our leaders cannot survive without hangers-on and sycophants. They need them just as much as the sycophants need them. They need them to stay in power; they need them to earn an extra buck. Yes, corruption among leaders cannot be possible without the active help of those sycophants.
A sycophant is a fawning flatterer, a servile or obsequious person who flatters somebody powerful for personal gain. Can we call term some of our ministers as sycophants?
All one needs to do is look at the way they behave in front of the prime minister because it is there for us to see on television, in each and every function and every time she goes out of the country. Some have suggested to call them just "shameless" but not sycophants.
Why? They did not explain except to say that it sounds bad. I am inclined to agree that there are scores of sycophants that we do not see on television as they exercise their "right to sycophancy".
In fact, most of those ministers and other sycophants maintain stables of their own sycophants, and the phenomena continues down the tiers.
Many must absolutely have some people around them who will at least say once a day: "Huzur, apni borho my dear!" Let us admit it, many of our leaders love sycophants and sycophancy.