{"id":186,"date":"2006-08-09T10:48:26","date_gmt":"2006-08-09T06:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=186"},"modified":"2006-08-09T12:37:09","modified_gmt":"2006-08-09T08:37:09","slug":"a-russian-looks-at-western-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/186\/","title":{"rendered":"A Russian looks at Western Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Konstantin of Russia Blog has written a post<\/a> on the failure of western democracy, and it contains such an enormous number of factual errors that I am compelled to address his entire post on here.<\/p>\n

Firstly, he makes the assertion that:<\/p>\n

It is not hard to see that at the heart of the model of democracy lies confrontation. Conflict and conflict based competition is the essence of democracy. Elections, multi-party system, checks and balances, free press, civil society \u2013 they are all about competing, warring, struggling for power, dividing people into winners and losers, fighting for minorities rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, quite.\u00a0 The whole idea of democracy is that issues which lead to confrontation are resolved non-violently, even though the confrontation remains.\u00a0 As rational debate is a non-violent alternative to a fist-fight, so democracy is an alternative to going to war for political ends.\u00a0 Indeed, conflict and conflict based competition is the essence of democracy as it is the essence of human nature:\u00a0 managing that conflict is therefore essential, and democracy is the best way of achieving this without killing people or locking them up.<\/p>\n

It all works in aggressive cultures where people prefer competition over harmony, criticism over consensus, and change over stability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not entirely sure what he means here.\u00a0 Is he saying that there are cultures where people prefer harmony over competition in all cases?\u00a0 If so, I pity their olympic team.\u00a0 Is there a culture anywhere which reaches a concensus without first enduring criticism from within?\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00a0\u00a0And assuming that the world can be divided into “aggressive” and\u00a0“non-agressive” cultures,\u00a0does a quick look around us confirm that\u00a0it is only the former\u00a0that are able\u00a0to successfully adopt\u00a0democracy?\u00a0 It wouldn’t seem so.\u00a0 The Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Irish, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Portugese could be described under the circumstances as “non-aggressive”, yet they are all functioning democracies.\u00a0 Yet places where violence\u00a0is commonplace\u00a0such as\u00a0the North Caucasus, East\u00a0Africa, and\u00a0the Middle East\u00a0are\u00a0devoid of anything which could be described as a functioning democracy.\u00a0 The evidence does not stack up in support of the sentence I’ve quoted above.<\/p>\n

How comes people of democratic cultures did not annihilate each other so far? I think it\u2019s a result of several factors.<\/p>\n

First, the ability to keep aggression “pacified” is a result of a thousand years of never ending wars in Europe between dozens of countries varying is size. The sheer instinct of survival \u201ccivilized\u201d European nations and by the time first concepts of democracy were tried European wars were so \u201ccivilized\u201d that citizens of some Crapenburg Principality didn\u2019t even know if today they belong to France or to Prussia although the quantity of wars and conflicts never really decreased. Millennium of European never ending wars also brought up a new type of man \u2013 a person who is friendly or neutral towards occupying troops, who is ready to compromise, who values above all the life of an individual but doesn\u2019t care much about the fate of his Crapenburg Motherland. But the most important – Europeans learnt to treat conflicts and even wars more like a game that should be kept within \u201ccivilized\u201d rules forged over centuries. Fortunately, it all ended with an invention of weapons of mass destruction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not sure exactly what he is saying here.\u00a0 It seems to be that after centuries of fighting, Europeans adopted a style of warfare which was less brutal than that practised elsewhere and Europeans were more concerned with individual wellbeing than nationalism.\u00a0 Whether this actually occurred at any point I am not in a position to say, but I can assure Konstantin that had this ever been the case, all these principles were abandoned at the outbreak of WWI and by WWII they had long been forgotten.\u00a0 I don’t think there was anything that was civilised about the Nazi invasions of WWII and the subsequent occupations, and I certainly don’t think there were a great many examples of “a person who is friendly or neutral towards occupying troops, who is ready to compromise”<\/em>, with the notable exception, of course, of the Vichy French.<\/p>\n

In countries where wars were very rare and where people could enjoy at least a hundred years of peace another type culture was molded. We are talking about India, China, Japan, and Russia. In these cultures conflicts were frowned upon, harmony was more important than competition, unity more important winning, where individual interests were less important then interests of a family, group, nation or country. In such cultures conflicts were subdued, competition highly regulated, team spirit encouraged and individualists ostracized.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I really don’t know where to start with this one.\u00a0 I think I can see what Konstantin is trying to say, and that is in many non-European cultures the unity of the family or group is more important than that of the individual.\u00a0 We have a word for this kind of arrangement: tribalism.<\/em>\u00a0 Far from being a model of harmony and unity, it is probably the single biggest cause of bloodshed in the world today.\u00a0 Take a brief look at the histories of each country he mentions, for instance.<\/p>\n

Prior to India being occupied by the colonial forces of Portugal, Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom, India did not exist as a single entity but as dozens of sultanates, kingdoms, and fiefdoms.\u00a0 Contrary to Konstantin’s suggestion that conflict was frowned upon, these various entities fought each other tooth and nail until the Europeans arrived\u00a0and took advantage<\/a> of the fractious nature of relations between the kingdoms to establish their colonies and eventually subdue the whole of what became India.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China was similar to India in that the country we now know as China existed only as a collection of ruling dynasties and states<\/a>,\u00a0 who fought each other with a regularity broken only when one or two grew strong enough to completely dominate the others.\u00a0 Then the Mongols invaded and slaughtered the northern Chinese peasantry in the millions, which doesn’t exactly stack up with Konstantin’s assertion that conflict was frowned upon.\u00a0 Then the peasants overthrew the Mongols, and\u00a0founded the Ming Dynasty which embarked on a series of military conquests<\/a> which kept it in power for 300 years before it was overthrown with much bloodshed and the Manchu Dynasty took over.\u00a0 Sadly for Konstantin’s theory and the Han Chinese, the Manchu Dynasty set about subduing the latter and\u00a0wound up fighting the bloodiest civil war in history<\/a>\u00a0which cost some 20 million lives.<\/p>\n

Japan as a conflict free, peaceful nation in harmony with itself and others sounds more like post 1945 than any time before that.\u00a0 Power struggles between rival clans characterised Japan’s medieval era<\/a>, with the emergence of the warrior class known as the samurai.\u00a0 Presumably these warriors lay around getting bored under Konstantin’s version of history.\u00a0 Then there was a bloody ten-year civil war<\/a>\u00a0which led to the “Warring States”<\/em> or Sengoku<\/a> period.\u00a0 Things then looked good for a while, until Japan invaded Korea, leaving only when kicked out by the Chinese, who had come to Korea’s aid.\u00a0 This brought things into the Edo Era<\/a>, characterised by – you guessed it – fighting between rival families and clans, all seeking to suppress the others by brute force.\u00a0 After adopting numerous Western institutions, Japan proceeded to\u00a0fight and defeat\u00a0China, thrash the Russian navy, and annex Taiwan, Korea, and the south of Sakhalin Island.\u00a0 Helping itself to several Pacific islands in WWI, Japan then invaded and occupied Chinese Manchuria and later entered into the war with the USA which would eventually lead to\u00a0Japan’s complete destruction and capitulation.<\/p>\n

All three of the above are examples of tribal conflict, or its big brother nationalism.\u00a0 Whereas conflict within<\/em> each family unit, clan, or\u00a0nation\u00a0is rare in such a setup, this is because any dissenters are dealt with quickly and brutally.\u00a0 And under such a system, discontent and conflict was directed, quite deliberately, to those outside the family, clan, or nation.\u00a0 Far from being a system of peace and harmony, it has caused more wars and bloodshed than any perceived violent by-products of western democracy.<\/p>\n

The fourth nation which Konstantin cites as being a place where wars were rare and people lived in harmony rather than conflict is Russia.\u00a0 I am not sure which period he is referring to, but I think we can safely rule out the time from the violent revolution in 1917, through the barbaric civil war in which no less than 4 sides fought each other across the whole country in thousands of localised actions over 5 years, to the brutal suppression, incarceration, and starvation of the population up to the Great Patriotic War which claimed somewhere in the region of 25 million lives.\u00a0 No, I don’t think he’s referring to\u00a0that period.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what about the Tsarist times?\u00a0 Weren’t they periods in which wars were rare and conflict frowned upon?\u00a0 Hardly.\u00a0 Having eventually kicked the Mongols out, under whose occupation Russians had suffered for 300 years, Russia spent the next 350 expanding their empire in all directions, fighting Poland<\/a>, Sweden<\/a>, Belorussia, Ukraine, Turkey<\/a>, France<\/a>, Britain<\/a>, and Japan<\/a>.\u00a0 During this period, Russia conquered and claimed\u00a0the vast stretches of Siberia and Far East, destroyed the tribal rulers in the Caucasus, and smashed the khanates\u00a0and\u00a0kingdoms\u00a0in the process of annexing most of Central Asia.<\/p>\n

I can only assume that the period of peace and harmony that Konstantin is referring to is\u00a0from WWII up until 1991, during which the opportunities to express dissent with the ruling powers were almost nil, and the government demonstrated its willingness to use force in the face of opposition by sending tanks to crush protests in Budapest and Prague.\u00a0 Small wonder the voices of political dissent remained a squeak.<\/p>\n

Now what happens when an aggressive democratic model is installed in such countries? Let\u2019s have a look. In Saddam times Sunni and Shia lived together in peace, marriages between Sunni and Shia were common, people didn\u2019t even know if their neighbors are Shia or Sunni.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This, in my opinion, is utter nonsence.\u00a0 I have yet to meet any Sunni who has married a Shia in the Middle East.\u00a0 In Kuwait, hardly a bastion of western democracy, Sunnis and Shias live together in peace but are fully aware of which side of the line their neighbour sits.\u00a0 During the Iran-Iraq war, Sunnis in Kuwait sent money to Iraq whereas Shias sent cash to Iran.\u00a0 And all this ignores the suppression of the majority Shia by the minority Sunni under Saddam Hussein, which involved years of bloody repression culminating in the massacre of Shia by the Iraqi army after the USA had unwisely persuaded them to rise up in arms against the ruling elite before neatly leaving them right in the shit.\u00a0 Shia and Sunni lived in peace side by side in Saddam’s Iraq for the same reason there was peace in 1930s Russia: anyone who spoke out was murdered, along with their family and close friends.<\/p>\n

Of course, there were small groups of radicals but they were underground.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, they were underground all right:\u00a0 in mass graves.<\/p>\n

Then \u201cdemocracy\u201d comes. It was all but natural that major political parties and organizations competing for votes start profiteering on the most evident topic \u2013 religious differences. Conflict that was almost invisible before is blown out of proportion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The conflict was invisible because anyone who made it visible was immediately killed.\u00a0 As in the case of the Soviet Union’s demise, conflict arose in the post-Saddam Iraq once the iron fist of tyranny was removed, not because democracy arrived and forced these hitherto peaceful folk to start competing for votes.\u00a0 Like a boiling pot whose lid is suddenly removed, previously suppressed internal conflict boils over into violence once a tyrant is removed from power.\u00a0 The notion that democracy forces peaceful people to start shooting each other as they compete for votes is utter nonsense.<\/p>\n

At the same time, unlike Westerners, people in Iraq are not used to treat conflicts as a \u201cgame\u201d. They take it very seriously. A country is divided by implacable differences \u2013 you belong either to a Sunni party or to a Shia party. What\u2019s more \u2013 the so-called system of checks and balances leaves no hopes to resolve the conflict peacefully. We get a civil war but what is the real reason of the civil war \u2013 religious differences or a model of democracy that encourages confrontation?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So here we have a country with an ugly sectarian split running down its middle, yet the sectarian fighting is not caused by religious differences but by a model of democracy which encourages people to turn violent?\u00a0 Sorry, but this is shite.<\/p>\n

More then that \u2013 countries that achieved some harmony are strongly criticized by democracy pundits for lack of conflicts and fights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eh?\u00a0 Such as where?\u00a0 What countries which are currently living in peace and harmony are criticised by democrats for not being in a state of war?\u00a0 Sadly, Konstantin doesn’t say.<\/p>\n

There are hundreds of examples when a Western type model of democracy gave rise to civil wars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really?\u00a0 Hundreds?\u00a0 Name them.\u00a0 And\u00a0have there really been more civil wars born from western democracy than tribalist systems of government?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

American model was probably the worst although Americans try really hard to implement it all around the globe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why is the American model the worst form of western democracy?\u00a0 Again, Konstantin doesn’t say, but I suspect it is simply because it is American and nothing more.<\/p>\n

Take Latin America, for example. In the 19th century it took only a year or two for a Latin American country to adopt American type \u201cdemocracy\u201d and a new civil war between \u201cDemocrats\u201d and \u201cRepublicans\u201d started.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think it only took a year or two of a Latin American\u00a0government adopting Communism,\u00a0receiving large handouts of Soviet cash and weapons,\u00a0jailing the opposition and\u00a0confiscating property before civil war would break out.\u00a0 Under\u00a0current circumstances, those Latin American countries which have adopted\u00a0constitutional democracy\u00a0seem to being doing better than at any time in their history.<\/p>\n

Wonder why only 15 years ago conflict between Ukrainian-speaking citizens of Ukraine and Russian-speaking Ukrainian was almost non-existent? Why differences between Northern and Southern clans in Kirgizia were so meager?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Erm, would that be because anyone\u00a0advocating such nationalist ideas as Ukrainian language would find themselves harrassed, jobless, arrested, imprisoned, or shot prior to 1991?<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy\u201d in countries like India or Japan is very far away from the Western model. Japan managed to live fifty years with a one-party parliament, symbolic checks and balances system, incredible lack of any political dissent on TV and in newspapers. Things are not better in India.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is true that the Japanese Liberal Democrat Party held the reigns of power for 35 years, but since the early 90s<\/a> various opposition parties have sprung up and been included in coalition governments and nobody can say that in the last 15 years there has been an “incredible” lack of any political dissent.\u00a0 Currently, Japan’s\u00a0governmental system very much resembles that of western democracies.\u00a0 So where is the violence and fighting which according to Konstantin should have occured following Japan’s supposed conversion to western democracy?\u00a0 It doesn’t exist, of course.\u00a0 Konstantin, in an effort to promote tribalism and dictatorship over western democracy, is talking utter nonsense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Konstantin of Russia Blog has written a post on the failure of western democracy, and it contains such an enormous number of factual errors that I am compelled to address his entire post on here. Firstly, he makes the assertion … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}