Leaders and Sycophants

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

I am not one to easily admire my leader. I hold a profound disdain for the hypocrisy of leaders. I neither flatter nor bear false witness. I do not fall in love with my leader at first glance; I reassess and reevaluate repeatedly. I despise sycophants, opportunists, and those who seek to exploit. I do not offer praise or lean towards flattery except to the extent that a leader deserves it, to the degree that they inspire in me admiration and awe, and reflect credibility, humility, and selflessness.

I do not seek to exaggerate or idealize; I do not expect perfection from leaders. Instead, I seek the best within the realm of possibility, not the impossible. I do not overstate the ideal I pursue. I understand the flaws and shortcomings of humanity and recognize that the pursuit of perfection or a pure ideal is a quest beyond impossibility, a notion that does not exist, even in the form of a prophet or an angel.

I am not nihilistic; I strive to find excuses for others, to understand their reasons, and to seek even in the wicked some virtues and remnants of conscience that many may overlook. Everything in this existence seems relative to me, even truth and existence itself.

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Yet today, we endure an even worse and more catastrophic reality. The corrupt are imposed upon us as leaders, presidents, and managers. They throw their contracts, identities, and sticky desires in the face of our purity; our sincerity and our quest for justice. They impose upon us their foul outcomes, their more putrid corruption, and their ignorance that surpasses ignorance itself, leveraging their power to extort and humiliate us regarding our rights, exploiting our needs, destitution, and poverty in a desire to turn us