Conservative
columnist George Will warns about overreaching to establish democracy in Iraq by
comparing notes as Keith has recently about Northern Ireland. But he spends
most of his space here describing Putinism’s
dark side. If we are
comparing, maybe he could also write a column about gerrymandering and voting
integrity that challenge US democracy. This is dated
for Sunday’s edition but online today. KWC Democracy
Under Siege
By George F. Will,
Sunday, December 14, 2003; Page B07 On Europe's western
edge, in Ulster, democracy is producing unlovely results. On Europe's eastern
edge, in Russia, the results are even more unsavory. Those whose mission is to finish
regime change in Iraq by constructing democracy can sense how long their task
may take by noting the difficulties in Europe, which is more politically mature
than the Middle East. When did the troubles
in Northern Ireland begin? The Battle of the Boyne is a convenient marker. That
victory of the armies of King William III, a Protestant, over those of King
James II, a Catholic, is still celebrated by Ulster Protestants, largely to
lacerate the feelings of Catholics, every July 12. It occurred in 1690. Thirty-five years ago
Northern Ireland boiled into violence that in three decades claimed 3,000
lives. Five years ago the Good Friday agreement, brokered by the United States
and endorsed by 71 percent of Ulster voters, supposedly brought peace by bringing
paramilitary forces into politics. Concerning another
country, the Los Angeles Times reports that U.S. and other diplomats "have
met commanders of an Afghan faction that is attacking the U.S.-led troops,
urging the militants to dump their leader, disarm and form democratic
parties." Sudden conversions to civility would solve most of the world's
problems -- and would be especially helpful in Ulster. There the "power
sharing" under the 1998 agreement, which was supposed to marginalize or moderate
the extremists, has marginalized the moderates. The party of Ian
Paisley, the 77-year-old Protestant fanatic who says the pope is the
"antichrist," has become the largest party in the province's
assembly, which has been suspended for more than a year, since allegations of
Irish Republican Army spying. Paisley refuses to deal with Sinn Fein, the
political arm of the IRA, a paramilitary force that probably will now refuse to
continue the "decommissioning" -- disarmament -- that it has
committed to but has done only partially and grudgingly. For the first time,
Sinn Fein has surpassed more moderate parties to become the dominant voice of
those who reject British rule in Ulster. In Russia, a
bastardized mockery of democracy has produced the marginalization -- actually,
the annihilation -- of the moderates. After the elections to Russia's
parliament, a senior adviser to the real winner, President Vladimir Putin, used
a familiar Marxist trope in reading out of history the two pro-Western parties
that failed to win any seats. They should, he said, "be calm about it and
realize that their historical mission has been completed." One reason they have
been, in Trotsky's words, consigned to the dustbin of history is that Putin,
who trained for democracy in the Soviet KGB, is using "managed
democracy" to concoct a meretricious legitimacy for lawless
authoritarianism. In a post-election statement, Putin blandly promised to
correct "shortcomings" in the election. They include his measures
suffocating independent media, controlling political communication from urban
billboards to broadcasting, and jailing the richest Russian on the eve of the
election. Optimists are construing his statement that Russia's constitution is
"the basis of stability" as a promise not to repeal the two-term limit
on the presidency. Do not bet on that. Putinism is uprooting the shallow seedlings of
democracy across Russia's 11 time zones. Putinism is becoming a toxic brew of
nationalism directed against neighboring nations, and populist envy, backed by
assaults of state power, directed against private wealth. Putinism is a
national socialism without the demonic element of its pioneer who, 70 years ago
this year, used plebiscitary democracy to acquire the power to extinguish
German democracy. There probably are not enough Jews remaining in Russia to
make anti-Semitism a useful component of Putinism. But do not bet on that
either. Responding to another
act of anti-Semitic violence, an attack on a Jewish school, Rabbi Joseph Sitruk
has suggested that Jewish men wear baseball caps rather than skullcaps in
public and "avoid walking alone" lest they become "targets for
potential assailants." This is in France, birthplace of the Enlightenment,
where Sitruk is chief rabbi. Anti-Semitism in
post-Holocaust Europe, where Jews are few, is a reminder -- especially to
France, where Marxism was a long time dying -- of just how wrong Marx was. He
said modernity -- industrialism and the attendant demystification of the world
-- would drain the history-making power from premodern forces such as religion
and ethnicity. Those forces will
drive developments in Iraq for years. The durability of those forces, around
the world, is the big news -- although there is nothing really new about it --
of 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61277-2003Dec12.html |
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