Cult of Personality.

Cult of Personality.

Wow.

A very "cheem" term, right?

I have been reading Animal Farm and found that the leader of the animals, Napoleon has been constantly applying this.

He put up public "portraits of himself" and forced the animals to sing a song in which the goodness and heroic deeds of Napoleon were being exaggerated.

Puzzled about this "cheem" term like some of you are now, I looked it up in many dictionary and finally understood what it means.

It is basically a country's leader using mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships. A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship, except that it is created specifically for political leaders.

I figured out that many real-life and past leaders use this too.

Stalin, for example uses the mass media, to show only positive side of his plans. He shows the public positive information and thus the peasants will naturally regard him as a great leader who has made their lives improve.

Stalin also hangs many big pictures of him. In the portraits, he seemed to be a kind, caring, selfless and benevolent leader who cares for the people's welfare. He uses assertion to make people feel that they are happier under his leadership, when they are actually not(famine and starvation), through pictures of people thanking him for making their lives happier and better.

Check this out.


Mao Zedong also hangs huge portraits of himself, as if he is the founder fo China and the one who brought prosperity and happiness to the people.

There are still present day leaders who uses cult personalities.

The current North Korean leader uses cult personality. He alters facts to influence his people into thinking that life under him has improved. (eg. Saying that food production has increased when it has declined)

He puts up, again, huge portraits of himself to create a larger-than-life image of himself. He is sort of worshipped by the people as a "god" by using these methods.

Actually, I suspect our Singapore government also uses cult of personality. Media reporting may be biased, or government presents 'tainted' information to advance certain political agenda. Sometimes I cannot help to question certain overly optimistic economic data presented vis a vis the real situation. Leaders' remuneration is always a hot topic of debate. Their pay increase is always justified after comparing to the ' Average industrial top individuals pay ' ; but have we ever question this : Those top individuals are constantly not the same set of people every year?

Newspaper usually show kind, caring and benevolent pictures of our political leaders. All these are attempts to gain favour of the people and make a heroic image of themselves.

Next time you open the newspapers, read it with a grain of salt.