Spare a thought for the sons of dictators. Not a nice thought — that would be overkill. Still, spare one all the same. The dictators themselves are somehow easier to understand. Start out as a freedom fighter, get carried away, end up as a murderous tyrant dressed in a beret and a full-body lampshade. Fine. But the sons? What’s going on there?
Saif Gaddafi’s appearance on Libyan TV at the start of the week was something pretty special. Arabic is a language which I suspect we’re culturally programmed to find vaguely intimidating even when it’s being used to whisper a lullaby, but his body language said more than the subtitles. Beyond Scorsese, more the full Mario Puzo.
People talk about David Cameron having an unsettling air of entitlement, but he’s got nothing on Saif. In the eyes, in the pout, in the shrug of the shoulders, you could see a fundamental incomprehension that things could ever not be as they had always been.
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