Hubris syndrome and the Arab spring: shared ideology or folie partagée? (2014). Can leaders’ hubris expand into a collective form?

“All the deposed rulers in the Arab Spring appear to fulfil the proposed diagnostic criteria for hubris syndrome as described by Lord Owen. They have been replaced by ‘democratically’ elected leaders with strong religious ideology.

Salwa Khalil, Consultant Psychiatrist, Hallam Street Hospital, West Bromwich, UK
Emad Salib, retired Consultant Psychiatrist, London, UK

Published as Correspondence in International Psychiatry, Volume 11, Number 1, February 2014. Page 24

The Arab Spring … began in Tunisia in December 2010. To date, rulers have been forced from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and civil war has engulfed Syria for the past 2 years.

In all these countries, a common feature appears to exist: all the deposed rulers in the Arab Spring appear to fulfil the proposed diagnostic criteria for hubris syndrome as described by Lord Owen. They have been replaced by ‘democratically’ elected leaders with strong religious ideology.

However, within a few weeks in office, the symptoms of hubris syn­drome were in evidence in all of the newly elected leaders, perhaps even sooner than Lord Owen (2012) postulated.

These elected leaders appear to have crossed the dividing line between decisive leadership on the one hand and hubristic leadership on the other, with the accompanying loss of trust of the people who elected them. Moreover, the syndrome appears to have rapidly spread beyond the leaders themselves, and to have infected the ruling parties, the wider governments and their supporters. These groups now also appear to exhibit identical hubristic behaviour.

The prevailing collective hubristic behaviour in each of these countries has led to deep social divisions, civil unrest, mindless violence and loss of lives and liberty. Political opponents, liberals, intel­lectuals and minorities have been regarded as the enemy (nemesis) (Owen, 2012). The leaders and their followers appear to have developed an ex­traordinary mindset that fits the classic dynamic of hubris opposing nemesis with a vengeful desire to confront, defeat, humiliate and punish an adver­sary who may be accused of hubris (Owen, 2012).

It may therefore be plausible that the hubris­ tic behaviour of a leader – based on beliefs or intoxication of power, and induced or acquired in circumstances of religious fanaticism and po­litical power – may expand into a collective form affecting the leader’s supporters in a manner not dissimilar to folie partagée, where followers share and act on such beliefs, albeit not of equal strength (Enoch & Ball, 2001).

View a Word document of the full letter here: Hubris-syndrome-and-the-Arab-springFull-text

View the original letter and access the full journal here: International Psychiatry, February 2014

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