Keep me hanging on

Or when it’s best to quit. This is the first post in J’accuse’s new initiative for the lazy and the short of concentration – Sunday’s article split into edible sizes. The lengths (or cuts) we go through to please our readers.

Hang on

I had a dream that consisted of a crazed Muammar Gaddafi in exile travelling around “his” Africa filming little snippets with a videocam and commenting, “My people, they love me”. The theatricals of the tyrant in the last violent throes of his deposition have been starkly surreal. In the midst of all the firing and chaos, who does Gaddafi call? The Russian head of the World Chess Player Federation that’s who. He called Mr Ilyumzhinov to tell him that he was alive and well (just in case the Russian was thinking of checking in on his friend) and this call was reported in a manner that made it seem like the most normal conversations. The world, as you know it, is crumbling around you and you find time to call your chess partner? Checkmate.

Oh the irony. We normally attribute the term “checkmate” to Arabic origins. The phrase “Shah mat” is explained as meaning “the King is Dead” in common lore. Apparently, the Persian phrase Shah mat does not actually mean that the king is dead but rather that “the king is helpless”. Which makes more sense because the checkmate position in chess involves the noble realisation that your king is in an indefensible corner and that the next step is the gallant toppling of your own king in humble acceptance of the inevitability of defeat. Gaddafi will wander around “helpless” for a few more days, or maybe months – everybody but Muammar has realised the inevitability of his defeat. Shah mat.

Hold on

Gaddafi’s lessons in chess over a 10-year period do not seem to have included the noble art of accepting the inevitability of defeat. The tyrant hangs on for his dear life and his power, still backed by the die-hard rebels. He has become the latest tyrant on the run, a fugitive spitting away from a corner − just like Adolf and Saddam before him. Even the greatest foot shufflers and fence sitters have finally begun to publicly denounce the Green Leader and throw their lot in with the new leadership. Malta − or the slower part of it − has begun to realise the inevitability of having to rewrite its relationship with its southern neighbour.

While one powerful man gave us a lesson on how not to relinquish power, another man of a completely different cut was in the news this week. Steve Jobs, the famed Apple CEO, resigned from his post as CEO of what is probably one of the world’s most powerful companies. His resignation reverberated around the world of tech-nerds and stock markets. Apple shares shot down for a while − such was the confidence in this guru of marketing who had reinvented two worlds in one lifetime. Jobs, the man who re-branded Apple via snazzy computers and a music world revolution, has chosen to step aside.

Steve Jobs could not just teach us one lesson. He could have his own faculty in a university to teach us lessons in life, from business acumen to surviving illnesses after facing death in the face. If there is one lesson Jobs could teach us right now it is that of knowing when to quit:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

There you have it. The King is dead. Long live King Jobs.