A Bad Example
It still comes as a shock to me whenever I see how the rest of the world has come to view the United States. It shouldn't, I know, but it does. I just never expected that the US would ever be used as an example of what's wrong in the world. Even our allies now hold the US up as a measure of wrongfullness, of evil, and the sad part of it is that we've earned it.
The latest jolt comes in an op-ed piece written for Germany's Financial Times Deutschland. The article begins by invoking Francis Fukuyama's famous "end of history" theory:
He wrote in that revolutionary year, 1989: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Fukuyama has since distanced himself from this theory, but he certainly can be forgiven a lot, given the heady atmosphere of that period. It wasn't just the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but how it was accomplished. It didn't take a shooting war. All claims of the Reagan deifiers aside, the Soviet Union failed when the people suffering under that reign had had enough. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, and finally Russia took back what had been taken from them. It really did appear that liberal democracy had finally taken hold.
But that was then, nearly twenty years ago.
Nowadays the hope of democracy’s triumph no longer dominates. Quite the contrary - the fear of a lasting renaissance of authoritarianism now dominates. In Russia as in China, authoritarian central governments enjoy tremendous popular support thanks to strong economic growth. In Latin America, Venezuelan Hugo Chavez demonstrates that in the southern half of the continent, the long-term dominant trend toward more democracy is not at all irreversible. The situation seems even more dismal in Arab countries, where almost everywhere, free elections would bring to power Islamic disciples of Savonarola, who would usher in democratic rule to achieve Puritanical terror. [Emphasis added]
And here's the part that delivered a punch to my gut:
A Renaissance of Puritanism, a Renaissance of authoritarianism, and perhaps the decoupling of free-market principles from the principles of democracy - these are the messages heard by people today. And to this we must add the weakening of the fundamental values of democratic humanism, such as the ban on torture and arbitrary imprisonment in the United States. The wind has changed and it's blowing in the wrong direction. [Emphasis added]
Thomas Klau, the author of the piece, doesn't close the door on a reversal of this trend, but he makes it clear that those who are committed to liberal democracy have their work cut out for them, and his closing comments zero in, once again, on the United States:
But the fact remains that supporters of a liberal, humanistic respect for basic democratic values now must do battle on many fronts - and their greatest - the USA - now constitutes one of the greatest battle fronts of all.
Mr. Klau's call to action is timely, but I have some doubts that much can be accomplished in this country with the government as it is presently constituted. Unless there is an overwhelming and highly visible groundswell against the current administration and all of its enablers (on both sides of the aisle), this nation will fail to live up the promise laid out at our inception and nourished for over two hundred years.
And because I don't see much evidence of such a groundswell, I weep tears of shame, frustration, anger, and deep hurt.
The latest jolt comes in an op-ed piece written for Germany's Financial Times Deutschland. The article begins by invoking Francis Fukuyama's famous "end of history" theory:
He wrote in that revolutionary year, 1989: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Fukuyama has since distanced himself from this theory, but he certainly can be forgiven a lot, given the heady atmosphere of that period. It wasn't just the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but how it was accomplished. It didn't take a shooting war. All claims of the Reagan deifiers aside, the Soviet Union failed when the people suffering under that reign had had enough. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, and finally Russia took back what had been taken from them. It really did appear that liberal democracy had finally taken hold.
But that was then, nearly twenty years ago.
Nowadays the hope of democracy’s triumph no longer dominates. Quite the contrary - the fear of a lasting renaissance of authoritarianism now dominates. In Russia as in China, authoritarian central governments enjoy tremendous popular support thanks to strong economic growth. In Latin America, Venezuelan Hugo Chavez demonstrates that in the southern half of the continent, the long-term dominant trend toward more democracy is not at all irreversible. The situation seems even more dismal in Arab countries, where almost everywhere, free elections would bring to power Islamic disciples of Savonarola, who would usher in democratic rule to achieve Puritanical terror. [Emphasis added]
And here's the part that delivered a punch to my gut:
A Renaissance of Puritanism, a Renaissance of authoritarianism, and perhaps the decoupling of free-market principles from the principles of democracy - these are the messages heard by people today. And to this we must add the weakening of the fundamental values of democratic humanism, such as the ban on torture and arbitrary imprisonment in the United States. The wind has changed and it's blowing in the wrong direction. [Emphasis added]
Thomas Klau, the author of the piece, doesn't close the door on a reversal of this trend, but he makes it clear that those who are committed to liberal democracy have their work cut out for them, and his closing comments zero in, once again, on the United States:
But the fact remains that supporters of a liberal, humanistic respect for basic democratic values now must do battle on many fronts - and their greatest - the USA - now constitutes one of the greatest battle fronts of all.
Mr. Klau's call to action is timely, but I have some doubts that much can be accomplished in this country with the government as it is presently constituted. Unless there is an overwhelming and highly visible groundswell against the current administration and all of its enablers (on both sides of the aisle), this nation will fail to live up the promise laid out at our inception and nourished for over two hundred years.
And because I don't see much evidence of such a groundswell, I weep tears of shame, frustration, anger, and deep hurt.
Labels: Election 2008
posted by Diane at 12:55 PM
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