History is filled with examples of empires flourishing under the watch of great leaders and crumbling due to poor and corrupt leadership.
Caesar's Rome was vastly different from Nero's Rome. Even U.S. history demonstrates this concept: President Lincoln led the nation through grueling times to prosper, and he is generally viewed as a great leader, whereas Benjamin Harrison (remember him?) is remembered for nothing at all other than the great machine politics and corruption that marred his term.
Great leaders fuel great societies. Unfortunately, today it seems there is a lack of honorable politicians in much of the world.
Consider the recent crisis in Sri Lanka, for example. This week, a firestorm of controversy has mounted there because the president of the nation, Chandrika Kumaratunga, executed a series of incendiary political moves in an effort to undermine the ruling party in the Parliament.
In the last week, she has fired the defense, interior and information ministers, suspended parliament and dispatched military troops to television stations, radio, the government press and a main power plant in a brute show of force.
All this while her major rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of the ruling United National Front party was visiting Washington D.C. for diplomatic meetings with President Bush.
Her actions illustrate political opportunism at its worst. In a grand display of power politics, Kumaratunga has only added to the chaos of a war-torn nation by carrying out her personal political agenda instead of keeping promises of peace made nine years ago.
Kumaratunga's spokesmen, from her opposition People's Alliance party, have claimed that these measures were needed for vague "administrative and logistical" reasons.
But more likely, it is a final desperate attempt to salvage her increasing political irrelevancy. In 2005, a constitutional rule prevents her from running for office again, and her PA party had been able to achieve nothing while in power from 1994 to 2001, when she lost to the UNF coalition.
Moreover, her personal vendetta against Wickremesinghe is threatening the peace process with the rebel Tamil Tigers in the north.
As an MSNBC report declared Friday, "The animosity between Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe has so destabilized domestic politics for nearly a decade that some in Sri Lanka say peace between the two is more important than peace with the Tigers ... It is a battle for power, prestige, control and recognition."
Sadly, her trivial actions will lead to very real and harsh consequences for the people she claims to represent. Her exploits are jeopardizing the 20-month-long cease-fire with the rebel Tamil Tigers, and big business will balk at the prospect of political instability: The stock market has already fallen more than 15 percent in a few days.
Internal strife such as this is not uncommon in developing nations. In the Middle East, sultans and kings get together to bicker about nothing in Arab League meetings, while their countries' economies sputter.
Power struggles of this sort are characteristic of tribalist or clannish societies. However, for modern multinational societies to be successful in today's world, those in power must put aside personal politics and focus on the good of the nation.
The people in undeveloped countries already lag far behind the industrialized world in standard of living, health, technology and industry; they cannot afford for their leaders to waste time pursuing their own agendas.
Successful nations are built on solid principles - as Russell Crowe said in "Gladiator": "There once was a dream that was Rome."
For developing nations today, only a leader who is able to provide such a dream in which its government and its people work together to attain a common goal, can take his people to success.
Ishtiaque Masud is an economics junior. Reach him at ishtiaque.masud@asu.edu.
