Let's put up a statue of...um.. I know ... Me!

What is it about despots and sculpture? Memories of four years ago and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue by US marines in central Baghdad square sent us scurrying for other examples of this fringe activity. Now that there is talk of removing the giant cross-swords monument erected 18 years ago at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the search, and recognition of these great works, feels even more urgent. Here then, with some help from the Guardian, is the best of the best, as it were. We’ve already mentioned The Hands of Victory in Baghdad as a leader in its field, but a close second for the metaphor prize is Fist Crushing U.S. Fighter Plane out of Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libya. A special mention in this class goes to the Monument to the Founding of the North Korean Workers' Party. Best sculpture of a despotic leader pointing his finger in the air, is tied between the Monument to President Laurent Kabila Kinshasa of the Democratic Republic of Congo and President Kim Il Sung of Korea. And the specialty gold-leaf award was carried away by the Monument to President Saparmurat Niyazov in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Images: Clockwise from top left, Fist Crushing U.S. Fighter Plane, Monument to President Saparmurat Niyazov, Monument to President Laurent Kabila Kinshasa, President Kim Il Sung of Korea, Monument to the Founding of the North Korean Workers' Party and The Hands of Victory.