More-on Democracy

Pardon the bad pun.

Democracy was a concept that early parlaiments were loath to extend to all members of their society. First it was landowning white men. Then it was just white men. Then it was men. Then it was anyone. To our egalitarian mindest, the notion that it ever was the case that only white landowning men could vote or hold office seems cruel and barbaric. If it were the case today, it certainly would be. The fight for progress was long and bloody, but it was also a matter of basic changes to the way we organized ourselves as nations. Before those changes had taken place, there were real reasons to fear the tyranny of the unlettered mob who had nothing to lose from the destruction of existing order. The problem was that no one with any power really wanted that mob to learn to read in the first place, so we had a long and bloody fight for progress. To gain universal suffrage, those outside of power: women, non-whites, non-owners, had to prove their worth to those who ruled over them. They also had to scare the hell out of them.

My point here isn't to make the case against extending democracy to all citizens of a nation. It's to say that its extension is only successful when citizens demand it themselves, and when they acquire the faculties to discuss and fight for a point of view on the floor of a legislative body, and not in the streets or on the battlefield. It avoids mob-driven extremism only when citizens play by these complex rules. It exists today only in the most tenuous form, and only after more than a century of total collapses, democratically-elected monsters such as Hitler and Mussolini, or both. Tyrannical regimes, be they modern-day Syria, or sixteenth century France have a tendency to atrophy the thinking of common citizens. They generate a dependence on old superstitions, or the strictly patriarchical protection of the Sovereign.

People aren't automatically able to step into the role of dialectical reasoning, and the clash of beliefs in a multiparty democracy. This is why the process was at times halting, why sometimes leaders with the best intentions would call for the slow extension of rights to such people. Today, the appeal of tyrants and fundamentalists echoes the demand of such people, who themselves are ripe for civic indoctrination by evil leaders.

Generations have to come and go, wars over rights must be fought in order for it to be a commodity worth owning and exchanging among a populace. At very least, it is difficult, if not impossible, to induce pure social demand for democracy out of thin air. As for our current conflicts, I see no one action that the West can commit to which would help this situation.

I do not think democracy equals peace. At least not in any short- or medium-term sense. If anything creates peace, it is mutual self-interest, or maybe in a perfect world, mutual love.

No Iranian Will Beat Us On Our Home Turf

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684696.html

A Danish newspaper ran a Cartoon depicting Mohammed (peace be upon him) with a bomb in (or on) his head. The Danish Cartoon was intended to gauge public sentiment towards potentially inflammatory or offensive content.

The Danish Cartoon caused a tremendous uproar across the globe. Scores of people have been trampled to death or otherwise killed in the midst of the furious actions. Scandinavian, American, and other embassies have been held under seige by angry protesters. Large demonstrations have taken place in many of the world's cities.

European newspapers continued to run the Danish Cartoon in order to demonstrate the value of free speech over poor taste, or cultural discretion. The European right got up on their rickety soapboxes, and shouted hoarsely, proclaiming this as further proof that foreigners should not be welcome on their soil. The left didn't know what to do. Inaffectual and intimidated Eurpoean leaders did nothing of consequence. Europeans lit a smoke, poured a glass and rolled their eyes, marking this as another sign of the existential decline of Civilization, or something to that effect.

The American press wrote coy responses to the uproar, and almost uniformly came up with witty, highminded or apologetic reasons not to run the Danish Cartoon. The American right wing media apparatus used this as one more example of Europeans and Muslims acting in character. This talking point was related via TV, radio, email, blogs, telegraph, smoke signals and semaphore. The left didn't know what to do. Our paranoid and belligerent leadership decided it best to blame Syria and Iran and challenge them on the world stage to some duel at high noon, (with no immediate or confirmable plans to show up) while offering condescending remarks to Europe by way of State Department spokesmen. Americans popped another handful of Cheddar Cheese Combos, washed it down with cold beer and changed the channel.

An Iranian newspaper came up with a retaliatory response to the Danish Cartoon. They created a contest to come up with the best antisemitic cartoon. The Iranian version of the right wing did to Denmark what the US right wing did to France. They called for boycotts of Danishes and certain cheeses, while clamoring for the heads of those cowardly, godless Europeans through their multipronged approach of AM radio, blogs, state newspapers and unscrupulously interpreted passages of Islamic scripture. The left had already fled to Beverly Hills in 1980, and hence, did nothing. Iran's paranoid and belligerent leadership decided to incite violence to consolidate their power and galvanize hatred for their enemy. Iranians probably never thought much of Denmark until this Cartoon, and would rather have had a little bread and hot tea, and gotten back to work instead of breaking stuff, if this had occurred to them.

I like the response from Israel the best. Someone decided to copy the Iranian paper and start their own contest for the best anti-semetic cartoon. They'd had their symbols defiled in every context from the destruction of the Second Temple to the kicked-over tombstones of a Jewish cemetary in Poland last week. As a defense mechanism, Jews have been making jokes about themselves for thousands of years. This one goes way back. You ever hear the one about Moses and burning bush? Never mind. Israel simply refused to be beat on their home turf. More important, the authors of the contest believed that humor and satire are some of the most powerful weapons against tyranny, hatred, and even indifference.

A little laugh, especially at one's own expense, can make any tense situation more manageable, or wake someone up from a stupor. I think it's a vastly underrated way to change the world. In any case, buoyant humor and lightheartedness can't be any more dangerous than the waves of fervent anger that seem to pound us from all directions these days, or the eddies of apathy in between.

Hamas and the Mid East

I remember seeing the lights at night, lining the streets of the slum favela hilltops of Rio. Speaking to a friend who had lived there for a number of years, I remarked how incredible it was that such progress had been made in those shanties. He smirked and shot back that it was the drug dealers who had wired the slums. In the same way, most governments are democratic in that people who do not choose to opt out of a situation, either by fleeing or outright revolution, accept the rulership over them.

This acceptance of the ruling powers comes through a crude combination of fear, pride, services, economic activity, common interests and a slew of other socially measurable beliefs and attitudes. Hobbes would have called this acceptance a "contract between the sovereign and his subjects". Weber added that this contract between "rulers and the ruled" could come about through the passive acceptance of the ruled. Often this contract is signed, sealed and delivered long before any person or party wins an election.

In the case of Hamas, it is to the great shock of the world that such an organization should be democratically elected in a free and fair sense. Many on both sides of the divide between Western secularism and Islamofascism see Hamas' overwhelming victory last month as a testament to the murderous strength of terrorists, or the inspiration of freedom fighters, as parlance permits. Hamas' power to place a suicide bomber in the center of Tel Aviv is not some mystery of religious fervor, nor is it an act of pure military strategy. It's the whole package of what a government offers, including a foreign policy. This power took years of civic involvment on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank, providing many of the services that we would expect of government, as well as some we don't. Hamas was powerful long before they won the majority in the Palestinian parlaiment. While the Palestinian Authority steeped itself in the wealth of elitist corruption, squandering foreign aid and peace process negotiation activities under Arafat, Hamas was providing education, health care, jobs and faith to Palestinians. Hamas worked hard to earn the trust of civil society while the PLO was writing press releases out of Cairo and Paris, and gladhanding rich sympathizers. Unfortunately, Hamas was (and is) funded by fascists with a totalitarian mindset bent on destroying Western hegemony.

In my opinion, Sharon was a subscriber to this world view as well. His time in Lebanon would have shown him first hand the power that small movements can wield through providing the basic services that citizenry need. Lebanon was a sea of militias at war with one another, who generated civic support and the ground troops needed to fight for this or that interest. They couldn't have created homegrown mini-armies without creating mini-nations first. In the absence of a responsible government, someone will step in and provide services in exchange for propogating their views of how the world is, and how it should be. First the butter, then the guns. Surely, Sharon's decision to abandon Gaza had many dimensions to it. I think that among those dimensions, Sharon recognized Hamas' power in Gaza and saw an opportunity to split and dismantle the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority so that there would be no negotiating partner, and Israel could dictate the terms of a final boundry on its own. Originally, I thought he envisioned a civil war breaking out soon after the withdrawl of Israeli forces, making the case that Palestinians did not present a legitimate negotiating partner. Now I think he was subtler than that. All he needed was to allow Palestinians to elect the party that got things done internally to justify and end to negotiations externally. Pulling out of Gaza asserted Hamas' strength and legitimacy as an influence to Israeli policy; something that Fatah hadn't done in years. Sharon put them in power. For peace Sharon wanted an enemy, not a partner. From there, Israel could play by their rules, and not those of the international community.

In the future, we need to look not at the votes that one group or another garner in elections. We need to pay attention to who is really serving people. A nation will elect, or allow to remain in power, anyone who either fulfills a few basic needs, scares the hell out of them, or both. When Fatah ceased to do either, they lost. But they lost long before these elections. Thinking about Macchiavelli's "The Prince" it looks like he grossly underestimated the power of love, especially when, as is the case of Gaza, or Post-Saddam Iraq, the fear of the tyrant is removed. Leaders are almost always elected by people, regardless of whether there's a vote. This lesson should shape further efforts towards democracy anywhere, not just in the mid east.