Global political leadership in the 21st century

A political leader may be in power or in the opposition, has a wide range of scope for performing welfare activities for the mass people in terms of authority, influence and power. The ruling political leaders could guide both executive and judiciary to the justified path minimizing conflicts between these two crucial elements of a modern sovereign nation state.

 By utilizing maximum authority and power a good political leader or head of government could act as a beacon of hope, source of empowerment and symbol of economic development for a nation. On the contrary- cruelty, arrogance of an unpopular leader could create a big threat even to the whole world.

World politics has become highly vulnerable in this 21st century in terms of peace and stability. Some unscrupulous leaders and statesman happened to become head of the government or state in some most powerful countries who are gradually becoming a big threat to global peace and stability. Their arrogance and immoral threat creating panic among ordinary people.
Many statesmen, military leaders, politicians and political scientists have defined leadership from various angles. Napoleon Bonaparte says "A leader is a dealer in hope". According to John F Kennedy "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other". Buchannan and Huczynski says "Leadership is a social process in which one individual influences the behaviour of others without the use of threat or violence."

But in reality leadership comes in many styles and characteristics. Some leaders oppress, others empower. Some are driven by greed, others by a passion for social justice.

 If we observe the characteristics of the leaders, especially the more charismatic variety, we will always find that they are fascinating on the one hand and very much suspicious on the other hand. In most of the cases their fine words are just a disguise for corruption, arrogance, or deceit.

Once people would came to politics with an intention to serve the people and the nation and they had inbuilt extraordinary leadership qualities. But now in most of the countries, especially in the third world or developing countries politics is mostly dependent on muscle power, black money, terrorism which are severely damaging the rule of law and good governance. Politics has become the most profitable business that does not require any owner's equity or capital base. Political influence in combination with muscle power has created a vicious cycle with a long chain of beneficiaries of power, money that is breeding corruption in all parts of the society.

All the partners of this cycle are interdependent and they are bound to keep their kingdom intact at any cost. In today's world, especially in the developing countries, mobilization of government funds has increased exponentially for various infrastructural and other development works. And this has been the most attractive source to divert fund all over the world and money laundering for various crimes and offences. Moreover wilful defaulters of the financial institutions are being encouraged indirectly with the subsidy from taxpayer's money injected to the weaker financial institutions for healing their wounded capital base. As a result huge funds are being diverted to foreign offshore banks, many unproductive sectors, luxury and building second home on abroad.

If we look into the constitution of the political parties of different countries, we would find in most of the cases that there have been extreme nationalism, communalism, racism, fascism, corporate colonialism, authoritarianism, populism and many more. Populism is a political approach that seeks to disrupt the existing social order by solidifying and mobilizing the animosity of the common people against the privileged elites and the establishment.

 Through some attractive populist activities they first of all try to come into power but eventually they become oppressor, puppet of the powerful nations, violate basic human rights and suppress all sorts of opposition political rights and demand.

Moreover political morality has been disappeared. Big companies, corporate giants are dominating over all politicians and political parties. Big companies always try to implement their agenda and to uphold the interest of their business at any cost. Sometimes many billionaires themselves become politician. Not only that sometimes they act as religious fanatics, racists and spread communal hatred. Even the corporate giants manipulate the election results to bring their favourite person in power or keeping them in powering order to get undue favour, privilege and advantages.

If any group or a person tries to stand favouring his or her country's interest and if that interest goes against any important interest of the superpowers then those patriots inevitably become dismantled directly, indirectly or by any local agent or creating opposition parties so that the patriots become frustrated. Sometimes those patriots become victimized by being assassinated.

Not only in their own country the superpowers and corporate giants have also their own global mission to keep their financial, strategic and military interests intact through manipulating, interfering other country's affairs directly, indirectly and even taking military action shamelessly violating all basic human rights and international laws.

The speech, 'might is right'-- was not as widespread as it is found in today's world. But this has been implemented very much tactfully in the name of national security, fighting terrorism, protecting personal freedom, individualism and many other blackmailing traps. At the same time divide and rule policy is still continuing as a very effective weapon. But today's divide and rule policy is being implemented through local agents, hypocrites and collaborators who are acting against their own society, nation and country just for gaining a tiny personal interest.

Having said that there had been some progressive leaders, who are to be found at all levels of society and in all countries. If we look into the ideology and acts of some leaders in 20th century, we will find that Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King in the US, or Julius Nyerere in Tanzania all emerged at critical junctures in history-moments of abrupt change, crisis, or external threat-and they seized the opportunity to alter the balance of power in their societies. Those great leaders helped to remake societies, rather than simply making them work a bit better.

Even in the absence of crisis, leaders in developing countries often have more opportunity to transform society. Despite relatively weak constitutional institutions, force of will and personality can help for building national culture, laws, and political institutions, including the checks and balances on the power of future leaders. Perhaps that is why early leaders like Bismarck in Germany, George Washington in the USA, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Ataturk in Turkey, or Mandela in South Africa achieved mythic status as the founders of the nation.

Globalization has brought with it many new challenges and opportunities for societies all around the world. Information technology, virtual reality, artificial intelligence are dominating world's business, lifestyle as well as politics which are leading the world to the so called fourth industrial revolution. So today's leadership must have dynamism, IT literacy, ability to keep pace with the fastest changing world. But they must not utilize modern information technology and tools to come into power as well as to remain in power for long.

Leaders have to react to these new developments positively and fairly. Their positive reactions in turn affect the lives of people both within their societies and around the world. These challenges and opportunities vary according to context, yet there are certain threads of similarity. Because the difference of interest, demand, thinking based on religion, race, nation, culture are reducing day by day.

So we can consider the whole world as a tiny global village. If all of the leaders become respectful to the expectation of the people, rule of law, basic human rights- then peace, prosperity must prevail in the society, country and all over the world.

Noore Alam Siddiqui is a freelance writer and columnist