Duke Leto and Paul Atreides are the templates for which I have in mind for the discussion on what makes a DUNE-veined leader. Leto, as a leader, cares more about his people than for the resources which everyone else craves. Rather than see himself as above his subjects, he works with them and tries to gain their trust. On the other hand, privately, he occasionally treats Jessica like his secretary, and is an emotional man. He also charges propaganda to be distributed to convince the people of Arrakis that he is the best ruler. Overall, in comparison to most rulers, he is an honorable man, and is superior to the other House leaders of the Landsraad, and probably in comparison to political leaders today (imagine someone caring more for their men than for oil, coal, or any other substance we depend on).
Paul Atreides , as a man, is intelligent, well educated, very knowledgeable of the politics of his universe, well verse in the religion of his time, and well trained in the underground mystical arts. His heritage, however, is a serious problem, because he was the unintentional byproduct of a cultist messianic experiment, his body was predetermined for life-long drug addiction, and the circumstances behind his birth allow him to mix politics and religion on Arrakis for his own ends. He is an honorable Atreides, but he begins to rely on his visions of the future for guidance rather than his own intuition, and his final decision to bring about the jihad against the Landsraad is based more so upon his hunger for vengeance and retribution for the death of his father and son rather than upon the basis of foreseeing a positive future for the Fremen. His decision is of a personal concern, not a universal one.
From these brief descriptions, I roughly see the elements of a DUNE-veined leader: a good and intelligent leader with personal faults, benevolent yet still operating by the rules of politics, someone who cannot separate their popular images from their actual ones, and who try to do their best, but always limited by some obstacle and knowledge which they are struggling to work around.
Keep in mind, I am not trying to start a bunch of fights within the Jacurutu sietch. I would recommend not fighting for the possession of each other's wives, either. I’m just wondering whether President Obama is worthy of the criticism of a DUNE-veined leader, and if there is more to the leader’s story that we perceive to be flawed than we realize, like there is much more to Paul’s and Leto’s personal life than their popular or mythological images suggest. Let’s not say “He’s a mere man!” or “He’s Shaitain!” or “He became the Mahdi and had forgotten about us!” I’ll divert back to my question again: does Jacurutu consider him a DUNE-veined leader within the qualities I have listed, or are there other leaders that better fit the description?
