Teaching Democracy
Jun. 24th, 2009 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kent_allard_jrI just finished George Herring's From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776. They discussed the book at Lawyers, Guns and Money (as well as Alterdestiny) if you're curious about it.
I'm a big believer in democracy and self-determination, and tend to get angry when folks run down the former (for instance I blew up, probably unjustly, at a WoW guild member who said that people don't like having a say and prefer to be bossed around). So it's painful to read Herring's book, and confront all the times the US stomped on one third-world government after another, to defend business interests or snuff out non-existent Communist influence. Racism often justified intervention, with US officials claiming the natives were "childlike" and "needed to be schooled in democracy." Far as I can tell, the only people who needed "schooling" were the Americans themselves.
The fact is, "democracy" is pretty easy for most people to understand: just about everyone gets to run; just about everyone gets to vote; the ballots are counted fairly and the guy with the most votes wins. Polls show that, no matter where you go, people like this method more than any other. Democracy falls apart not because people don't grasp the concept but because they can anticipate who might win. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, you hold elections with the parties you have, not the parties you want, and dictators tend to squash Good Guys who believe in free debate and tolerance, leaving Bad Guys with guns behind. When you have to choose between folks who want to shoot you, folks who want to shoot the people who want to shoot you, and a small group of exiles you've never heard of ... well, it's natural to vote for Group 2, who might be a group of unsavory characters.
Before the Iraq war, there was a lot of talk about spreading democracy through the Arab world, which I liked; but I remember being dismayed by some of the approaches they were discussing. There was talk about building a democratic society from the ground up, instructing the Iraqi people in the basics of self-government, etc. etc. When people fear their neighbors, no amount of "instruction" in high school civics will do any good. All you can do is prevent people from fearing each other, a tough job in any environment, an impossible one if you don't even see the problem. Unfortunately the neo-conservatives didn't understand the issues, or democracy, any better than the gunboat diplomats of earlier eras.
I'm a big believer in democracy and self-determination, and tend to get angry when folks run down the former (for instance I blew up, probably unjustly, at a WoW guild member who said that people don't like having a say and prefer to be bossed around). So it's painful to read Herring's book, and confront all the times the US stomped on one third-world government after another, to defend business interests or snuff out non-existent Communist influence. Racism often justified intervention, with US officials claiming the natives were "childlike" and "needed to be schooled in democracy." Far as I can tell, the only people who needed "schooling" were the Americans themselves.
The fact is, "democracy" is pretty easy for most people to understand: just about everyone gets to run; just about everyone gets to vote; the ballots are counted fairly and the guy with the most votes wins. Polls show that, no matter where you go, people like this method more than any other. Democracy falls apart not because people don't grasp the concept but because they can anticipate who might win. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, you hold elections with the parties you have, not the parties you want, and dictators tend to squash Good Guys who believe in free debate and tolerance, leaving Bad Guys with guns behind. When you have to choose between folks who want to shoot you, folks who want to shoot the people who want to shoot you, and a small group of exiles you've never heard of ... well, it's natural to vote for Group 2, who might be a group of unsavory characters.
Before the Iraq war, there was a lot of talk about spreading democracy through the Arab world, which I liked; but I remember being dismayed by some of the approaches they were discussing. There was talk about building a democratic society from the ground up, instructing the Iraqi people in the basics of self-government, etc. etc. When people fear their neighbors, no amount of "instruction" in high school civics will do any good. All you can do is prevent people from fearing each other, a tough job in any environment, an impossible one if you don't even see the problem. Unfortunately the neo-conservatives didn't understand the issues, or democracy, any better than the gunboat diplomats of earlier eras.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 05:32 pm (UTC)You should've just told him, in a stern and authoritative tone, to shut up. He'd have liked it!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 09:32 pm (UTC)When you hear talk of people needing to be taught democracy, you're right to smell a rat. But not because that teaching might not be necessary: sometimes it is; sometimes it isn't. The problem is that such tutelage is almost never the outcome of such talk.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 03:03 am (UTC)Fostering a civil society is a much more worthwhile goal.