Overview

The Arab Spring was a watershed in Arab history, which gave young protesters the impetus to challenge established and entrenched dictatorial regimes for the first time, and to demand democracy. In this unique book, Muriel Mirak-Weissbach reviews specialist literature and provides a profile of the personality disorder of narcissism displayed by five leaders (Mubarak, Qaddafi, Ben Ali, Saleh and Assad), together with the related syndromes of paranoia, hysteria, and sociopathy. She argues that the responses of these leaders to the challenges they faced indicate that they were psychologically incapable of facing reality, and indeed displayed pathological symptoms in clinging fanatically to power in the face of revolt. Mirak-Weissbach considers each of the five leaders in turn, examining their behavior during the upheavals as expressed in their public statements, speeches, interviews and courses of action. Thus she identifies patterns and similarities of behavior that serve to prove that the five 'stony-faced old men in power' displayed specific pathological personality types in their responses to the political and cultural circumstances in which they were operating. A postscript to the book widens this context by identifying two cases of narcissism in contemporary American politics: George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. This highly topical, accessible and relevant book provides a psycho-historical insight into the actions and responses of the deposed dictators, viewed from a unique clinical psychological perspective.

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9780863724541

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Reviews

One of the unfortunate realities is that at one time or another the United States of America has allied itself with dictators. This is especially true of the nations comprising the Middle East. That's one reason why Madmen at the Helm: Pathology and Politics in the Arab Spring is a particularly informed and informative book that deserves the widest possible readership in this country. Author and political journalist Muriel Mirak-Weissbach's 164 page compendium profiles key political leaders whose once iron-clad control of their respective countries finally lost their control (and sometimes their lives) in response to the revolt of their citizenry in what has been popularly termed the 'Arab Spring'. . . . Madmen at the Helm: Pathology and Politics in the Arab Spring is insightful, astute, observant, and impressively knowledgeable, and should be considered mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand the mind-sets of the leaders of these Middle Eastern countries whose sudden downfall was completely unexpected by most western observers in such places as the American state department and oil company headquarters.

Author Information

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach is an Armenian-American who grew up in New England. She has been a political journalist specialising in economic, political and cultural development in the Arab and Islamic world for thirty years. She worked with an international press agency for many years and published hundreds of articles in various political and cultural journals. In late 2009 she published Through the Wall of Fire, Armenia-Iraq-Palestine: From Wrath to Reconciliation, (English edition to be published by Ithaca Press in 2012), a reflection on her family history and how that shaped her humanitarian and political wok in Iraq and Palestine.

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