THE TRAGEDY OF MODERN DEMOCRACY
John Chuckman
I read and heard about Hong Kong’s students putting
themselves at risk demonstrating for democracy, and my first instinct was
sympathy, sympathy for their passionate idealism, but sympathy in another sense
too, for their sad illusions. I ask myself, and it is not a trivial question, what
is it exactly that they believe they fight for? Democracy has become such a totemic
word, we all are trained to revere it, unquestioningly, almost the way 16th
century people were expected to behave in the presence of the Host during
Communion. But just where in the West do we see countries who call themselves democracies
behaving in democratic ways, indeed where do we see genuine democracies? And if
it is such an important concept, why should that be?
In Canada, to start where I live, we have a serious
democratic deficit. A Conservative government today, elected to a parliamentary
“majority” with about 39% of the national vote, behaves for all the world as an
authoritarian government in many things at home and abroad. It turned its back
completely on Canada’s historic support of green initiatives, embarrassing our
people in international forums with blunderingly incompetent ministers of the
environment. It has built a large new batch of prisons, completely against the
general public’s sympathies and in contradiction to historically low and
falling crime rates. It echoes the sentiments from Washington on almost
anything you care to name and does so completely against Canada’s modern history
and prevailing public opinion. It has lost the respect Canada once commanded in
the United Nations. It has dropped Canada’s tradition of fairness in the Middle
East, blindly supporting Israel’s periodic slaughters, ignoring the horrifying
situation of the Palestinians. Only now the government decided to send fighter
jets to support the American anti-ISIS farce, an act completely out of step
with Canada’s long-term policy of using force only where there is a United
Nations’ mandate.
But Canada still has a way to go to match the appalling modern
record of Great Britain. Its recent prime ministers include Tony Blair and
David Cameron – men, supposedly from separate parties, who both cringingly assent
to America’s every wink or nod suggesting some policy, ever ready to throw armies,
planes, money, and propaganda at questionable enterprises their people neither
understand nor would be likely to support if they did. Promoting the mass deaths
of innocents and the support of lies and great injustice are now fixtures in
the mother of all parliaments. And, with all the scandals around Rupert Murdoch’s
news empire, we got a breathtaking glimpse of how shabbily public policy is formulated
behind the scenes, of how smarmy politicians like Blair and Cameron cater to unethical
individuals of great wealth and influence.
Israel’s endless patter of propaganda always includes the
refrain, “the Middle East’s only democracy.” The press does not think to ask how
you can have a democracy with only one kind of person wanted as a voter and with
only one kind of citizen enjoying full rights. Nor do they inquire about the
millions who live under systematic oppression enforced by that “democracy.” Effectively,
Israel rules millions of people who have no rights and no ability to change
their status through any form of citizenship, not even the ability to keep their
family home if Israel suddenly wants to take it. We have seen “democracies”
like that before, as for example in South Africa or in the Confederate States
of America, both places where people voted but only a specified portion of the
people, millions of others being consigned to a netherworld existence
maintained with a carefully designed structure of fraudulent legality. Ironically,
viewed from the Middle East’s perspective, it is undoubtedly a good thing there
are not more such democracies as Israel.
And the students should perhaps keep in mind the tragic
example of Egypt. It too had huge demonstrations with thrilling moments like a
dictator of thirty years fleeing and the nation assembling its first free
election. But a brief spring garden of elected government was bulldozed after
the government said and did things its small neighbor, Israel, did not like.
There were more huge demonstrations and thousands of deaths and illegal arrests
and the return to military dictatorship in a threadbare disguise of elected
government. Eighty million people must now continue life under repressive government
because seven million people with extraordinary influence in Washington can’t
tolerate democracy next door.
As far as what Colin Powell once called, in a tit-for-tat
with a French Foreign Minister, “the world’s oldest democracy,” well, he was just
as inaccurate in that assertion as he was about hidden weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. America’s own founding documents do not proclaim a
democracy but rather that most fuzzily-defined of all forms of government, a
republic. It was a republic in which the President was not elected by the
general population, where the Senate was appointed, where the Supreme Court had
no authority to enforce the high-sounding phrases of the Bill of Rights, and
where as little as one-percent of the population could even vote – it was, in
sum, an aristocracy of wealthy and influential citizens dressed up in
high-sounding phrases. The American Revolution was aptly summed up by a writer
as “a homegrown aristocracy replacing one from abroad.”
And since America’s founding, while the voting franchise
gradually has been extended to become nearly universal (prisoners and
ex-convicts still often cannot vote in a nation with the world’s highest
incarceration rate), equally gradual changes in the structure of America’s
institutions pretty much keep that original form of government intact. At every
level, barriers erected by the two ruling parties make it nearly impossible to
establish an effective alternative party. Even getting listed on all the
ballots was an immense task for a billionaire – Ross Perot - who in fact represented
no substantive alternative by any measure. The two parties’ privileged position
also is protected by the need for immense amounts of campaign funds, America’s
regular election costs being in the billions, the Supreme Court having declared
money as “free speech.” You do not get that kind of money from ordinary
citizens, and you necessarily owe those who do supply it, and you simply cannot
compete in American politics without it.
For major offices, the vetting of politicians is now so long
and demanding that no candidate can possibly run who isn’t completely acceptable
to the establishment. The campaign money simply will not appear otherwise. Such
quiet political controls are now backed up by a gigantic military-intelligence
establishment with such authorities and resources that it much resembles a
government within the government. For example, with the NSA spying on every
form of communication by every person around the clock, information about
politicians is close to perfect. No undesirables can slip through and no
undesirable policy can be enacted given the ability to threaten or blackmail
every politician over his or her monitored personal and financial affairs. Nobody
in his right mind calls that democracy.
The truth is that despite a long history of struggle, revolutions,
and movements of various descriptions characterizing the West’s modern era,
those with great wealth and influence still rule as effectively as they did
centuries ago. Their rule is not as apparent and open to scrutiny as it once
was, and there are many mechanisms in place to give the appearance of democracy,
at least for those who do not examine closely. Modern elections require money
and lots of it. Voters’ choices are limited as surely as they are in many authoritarian
states. The ability of any elected officials to act in the public interest is
curtailed by a powerful establishment and a number of special interests.
Once in power, modern democratic governments behave little
differently than many authoritarian states do. Wars are started without consent
and for purposes not in the public interest. Secret services carry out acts
government would be ashamed to be seen openly doing. Armies for needless wars are
conscripted or bribed into existence. Rights people regarded as basic may be
suspended at any time. Injustices abound. Many “democratic” states practice
illegal arrest, torture, assassination, and, above all, secrecy. Secrecy is so
much a part of things today that when citizens do vote, they haven’t the least
idea what they are voting for. Public education is generally poor, especially
with regard to the real workings of government and the encouragement of
critical thinking. The press has become nothing more than an informal extension
of government, a volunteer cheering section, in many important matters. Voters
go to the polls hardly understanding what is happening in the world.
So I praise the idealism and bravery of the Chinese
students, but I know democracy everywhere remains only a small, hopeful glimmer
in the eyes of people.
