WANTED

 

This week's stroll along the Camino a Ítaca circles back to Azerbaijan and beyond. Memories of images of Strong Men, Royalty and Dictators crying out to be loved and admired. Read the English version below or click over to the published version in Spanish. 

Even though it was against my better judgement, I just had to take the picture. Travel around the world and you soon learn the differences between places regarding where you can and can’t take pictures. Selfies at sunset for your Instagram account are just fine but if they happen to be next to a military complex or top secret laboratory, you’re better off to either take it very discreetly or simply wait until that next orange sky. That is, of course, if you don’t want to face some uncomfortable questioning that isn’t exactly focused on how happy you are with the buffet at the hotel.

But this one I just had to have.

We had been living in Azerbaijan for months by then and had become almost inured to the ever-present moustachioed faces of the great leader or his deceased father looking down on you. In some photos they were dressed up in military fatigues bursting at the gut. Others saw them trying, and failing, to look debonair, donning their tailored Savile Row suits. But the most tragicomic were those that had them dressed up in traditional garments, frolicking with their subjects. Subjects that would have been boiled in hot oil if they refused to take part in the montage. This one though, was different.

We were near the Nagorno-Karabakh region, close to the frontline where Azeri and Armenian soldiers still stare down the sights of their guns at each other, when I saw it. There they were, father and son together in dark sunglasses and 1960’s style turtlenecks, looking like villains that had just stepped out of a vintage James Bond movie.

I got out of the car and raised my camera and took the shot only to see out of the corner of my eye some military guards in their unmistakable soviet-style top hats start to shout and run towards me. Even though they were probably only looking for a small bribe to help feed their families, I didn’t fancy going through the elaborate ceremony situations like these involve and we took off down the road.

I have always held a morbid curiosity for the omnipresent pictures of Dear Leaders and their close counterparts, monarchs that you can see around the world. What purpose do action shots of the aforementioned Bond villains, tattered pictures of the King of Morocco in the most remote shop in the High Atlas, the God King of Thailand staring out of a rusted frame or the head  of the Queen of England stamped on every coin in Canada really serve? Are they desperate attempts to constantly validate their dominion over others. Like surreal WANTED posters or Tinder profile pictures that in fact should read, WANT ME: looking for love and admiration? Or are they simply narcissistic gestures to appease the hyper-inflated egos of people whose position leads them to believe they are superior to lesser mortals?

Dress them up however you want though but it won’t change the fact that their roles are immoral and unjust. Disguise a king up as a great warrior, a cosmopolitan diplomat or even a circus monkey and it won’t change the fact that a hereditary monarchy is as anachronistic as a Strong Man in the Caucasus or a bad haircut in North Korea. It’s time these idols are taken off the walls and put into the dusty drawers of history where they belong.