For the Tyrant Who Has Everything

David Weigel | November 21, 2007

A great gallery over at Esquire: the chitzy Seven Wonders of the Totalitarian World.

While last month's election of the New Seven Wonders of the World hints at this point—the emperors who fed Christians to the lions in the Roman Coliseum were neither mild-mannered nor impoverished—they're basically positive tributes to mankind's triumphant, enduring half. But what of the tyranny that drove men to produce such wonders? On some level, each of the New Seven is also a colossal monument to narcissism, either some ruler or some culture's desire to go bigger and leave a mark that cannot be erased—a sentiment not unlike the one held by some of today's most ruthless dictators.

None of the monuments are mind-bogglingly huge, but with craftsmanship like you'll find in "Fist Crushing U.S. Fighter Plane," who cares?

Via Steve Sailer, who nominates a dark horse: the North Korean Hotel of Doom.

Comments

|11.21.07 @ 9:19AM|#

Would it be wrong of me to nominate Christ the Redeemer in Rio.

ed|11.21.07 @ 9:21AM|#

They're always pointing, and always with the wrong finger.

|11.21.07 @ 9:35AM|#

I can't open the link, but those two swords on the highway to Baghdad have gotta make the list, right?

|11.21.07 @ 9:38AM|#

joe,
The Hands of Victory are on the list.

shecky|11.21.07 @ 9:44AM|#

I always thought the Hands of Victory looked pretty cool.

Christ the Redeemer doesn't fit, because all these monuments must be run through the political filter, The Seven Wonders of the Totalitarian World.

|11.21.07 @ 9:46AM|#

They're called the Hands of Victory?

Ummmm...did Saddam ever actually win anything?

|11.21.07 @ 9:47AM|#

OK, check me on this. On the Monument to President Saparmurat Niyazov-Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, is he wearing the AIDS ribbon on his lapel?

ed|11.21.07 @ 9:47AM|#

Jesus's grip on the western world was pretty total there for a while.

|11.21.07 @ 9:47AM|#

Not very impressive. If I were a totalitarian despot, I'd build something more awe-inspiring. Like another moon or something. Or a five-mile high colossus of me.

jimmydageek|11.21.07 @ 9:55AM|#

...or a giant taint...

|11.21.07 @ 9:59AM|#

A pair of mountains carved, ala Mt Rushmore, into boobs.

|11.21.07 @ 9:59AM|#

I recall watching a documentary about Turkmenistan and the uhh... "decor" in Ashgabat.

I believe there's a golden statue of their [now-late] President that rotates to face the sun? I always thought that was a nice touch.

|11.21.07 @ 10:04AM|#

Ummmm...did Saddam ever actually win anything?

Well, if bombing unarmed Kurds with nerve gas counts as a battle, I guess Saddam won that one.

|11.21.07 @ 10:04AM|#

did Saddam ever actually win anything?

Besides a bunch of rigged elections, the wrath of the entire world, the fear of Iraq's female population and a few heads of his political enemies on his palace walls, not really.

Episiarch|11.21.07 @ 10:05AM|#

Ummmm...did Saddam ever actually win anything?

Leadership of the Ba'ath Party? Killing all the other contenders kind of makes that a given, though.

Abdul|11.21.07 @ 10:07AM|#

Saddam was a runner up on Dancing with the Stars. . . at the end of short rope.

drawnasunder|11.21.07 @ 10:18AM|#

Hotel Ryugyong: http://www.btinternet.com/~parrothouse/NHnkorearyugyonghotelpyongyang.jpg

R C Dean|11.21.07 @ 10:28AM|#

Ummmm...did Saddam ever actually win anything?

For that matter, did Khaddafi ever shoot down a US warplane?

Damian P.|11.21.07 @ 10:29AM|#

The most egregious omission, by far: Nicolae Ceausescu bulldozed several square miles of Bucharest to build the "House of the Republic," one of the world's largest buildings. Some difficulties around Christmas, 1989 prevented its completion...

http://www.artmargins.com/content/art/ioan/SquareofTheHouseoftheRepublic_ParliamentPalace_courtesyofarh.AugustinIoan.jpg

Damian P.|11.21.07 @ 10:29AM|#

Damn, I didn't realize that URL would be so long...

|11.21.07 @ 10:33AM|#

Somehow, Gaddafi has always come off like the Hugh Hefner of the totalitarian world. I wonder if the presidential palace in Tripoli has a Grotto?

ed|11.21.07 @ 10:36AM|#

I wonder if the presidential palace in Tripoli has a Grotto?

If by "grotto" you mean a big hole where the cruise missile came through, yeah,
I think it has one of those. The chicks dig it.

|11.21.07 @ 10:42AM|#

I have a step decrease in distaste for the monuments erected to Lenin, Mao, Kabila (and Jesus for that matter). At least these monuments were built by their followers, as opposed to the others, which were built by the personality cult founders themselves.

This is principle reason why I also object to the now all too common practice of naming buildings and institutions in the US after living people (and esp politicians). At its base, it has much in common with tackiness that that covers most of these type of third world tinpont dictator monuments.

|11.21.07 @ 10:51AM|#

Funny.

Still, a little disappointed that they left out the Three Gorges Dam....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_gorges_dam

|11.21.07 @ 11:08AM|#

That North Korean hotel's architecture is downright Cardassian.

Billy Beck|11.21.07 @ 11:11AM|#

Considering the sensationally dismal performance of Libyan aviators against Americans, that sculpture is particularly hilarious.

Kolohe|11.21.07 @ 11:28AM|#

Ya know, for a bunch of quasi-Randians, I find it ironic that y'all are hatin' on some ego-driven architecture.

*takes a sip of his beer* (?)

|11.21.07 @ 11:34AM|#

If I were a totalitarian despot, I'd build something more awe-inspiring. Like another moon or something.

That's no moon... it's a space station.

The Wine Commonsewer|11.21.07 @ 11:45AM|#

Gotta go with Billy, that fist grabbing what appears to be an A-7 is amazing in the psychosis it projects.

I'd never seen Lennin pickled before. That's a little weird. He looks a like a Winchell Mahoney doll. Or maybe like Chuckie's dad.

VM|11.21.07 @ 11:48AM|#

hier.

Wolfgang Becker|11.21.07 @ 12:16PM|#

Hey! My boy Lenin doesn't deserve to be on the list! He didn't place himself in a mausoleum.

ed|11.21.07 @ 12:18PM|#

for a bunch of quasi-Randians...

(Looks around)
I don't see any. But none of the "architecture" in question was built by free people and private money. Go back two spaces and roll again.

|11.21.07 @ 12:32PM|#

This is principle reason why I also object to the now all too common practice of naming buildings and institutions in the US after living people (and esp politicians).

I totally agree with this.

My favorite is the "Bud Shuster Highway."

|11.21.07 @ 1:35PM|#

Ya know, for a bunch of quasi-Randians, I find it ironic that y'all are hatin' on some ego-driven architecture.

*takes a sip of his beer* (?)

(Looks around)
I don't see any. But none of the "architecture" in question was built by free people and private money. Go back two spaces and roll again.

I think Kolohe was trying to be funny, ed. I say he wins the thread for that snarkiness.

Marcvs|11.21.07 @ 1:56PM|#

You know, I'm no Randian and I really hate me some dictator, but I do have a thing for triumphalist architecture. I even like Albert Speer's design for "Germania". Maybe that makes me an artistic dunce, but it's purely an emotional thing. I still hate the groups that usually create that sort of architecture.

Yes, I'm a big fan of Roman architecture as well.

GILMORE|11.21.07 @ 4:38PM|#

Weigel, did you mean Chintzy

e.g.

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923-). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

chintzy (adj.)


From its literal sense, meaning "characteristic of the fabric chintz or looking like it or covered with it," the adjective has undergone what may well turn out to be a permanent figurative pejorative semantic change to a slang or at best a Conversational cluster of meanings, "cheap, penny-pinching, gaudy, trashy." 1

Paul|11.21.07 @ 5:01PM|#

I think that monument behind Khadaffi/Qadaffi/Kadhafi is actually a cruise missile through the head of one his kids. Oh, my bad, that was in bad taste.

Paul|11.21.07 @ 5:04PM|#

I like the one of Biggie Smalls thrusting the #1 sign.

Paul|11.21.07 @ 5:07PM|#

You know, the more I think of it, if I could get a miniature version of that fist with the plane, I'd totally put it up somewhere in my house. The yuk factor is just too much.

Asharak|11.21.07 @ 11:17PM|#

Hopefully Reason will also do something on despot fashion soon.

|11.22.07 @ 12:28AM|#

Although it's been demolished, I believe Ferdinand Marcos' bust, which was bigger than Washington's head at Mt. Rushmore, should still get an honorary mention:

http://www.nndb.com/people/014/000029924/ferdinand-marcos-sized.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2612709.stm

Guy Montag|11.22.07 @ 9:40AM|#

Well, if bombing unarmed Kurds with nerve gas counts as a battle, I guess Saddam won that one.

Shhh!!!! the Party line arond here is that he never had WMD and needed to be left alone!

|11.22.07 @ 10:21AM|#

The Monument to the Founding of the Party ain't half bad, but I've always been partial to this:

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/North_Korea/photo603730.htm

Just think what NK foundries could have done if capitalist encirclement hadn't forced them to skimp on bronze.

|11.23.07 @ 12:59AM|#

The soldier on the viewer's left of Mao seems to be holding his rifle like its an electric guitar.

|11.23.07 @ 1:28AM|#

Of course the more sophisticated, western world has its own problems wrt publicly funded 'art'. From my home town, Ventura, CA:

http://blog.kavefish.com/archive/art/thats-a-bus-stop.html

At an open, pre-construction, City council meeting that invited bus riders to weigh in on the new bus stop artwork, one bus rider asked, "Can we have a restroom instead?"

Guy Montag|11.23.07 @ 8:34AM|#

jkii,

Those stupid R2D2 painted mailboxes started appearing in my neighborhood a few months ago and I had similar thoughts.

Granted, I do prefer the items of excessive infrastructure that we are stuck with to at least look neat and decent, but that was a bit much.