Peaceful, orderly election in Africa

Seeing as I'm on a bit of a good news roll right now, let's highlight today's election in Ghana. The fifth, peaceful orderly election in a row in that country. Turnout is expected to exceed the 85% achieved last time. (Yes, you read right. 85%)

Although my heart has frequently ached for Zimbabwe and Somalia, and some of the lesser known basket cases of Africa, Ghana shows us that Africans are quite capable of doing democracy right. And while we're at it, when is the last time you heard news about Gambia, Senegal, or Botswana? That's because they too, know how to do it right. And doing it right is so boring. Proof that boring can be very, very good.


Technorati tags: Ghana

Deluded internationalists

This quote from Pankaj Mishra's review of Erez Manela's The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anti-Colonial Nationalism strikes me with all the force of a sudden spotlight. I have long bemoaned the profound ignorance of global realities among people who should know better (the people who actually hold some geopolitical power), most especially the incredibly naive idea that most of the world wants to become a clone of America. The debacle in Iraq, which is only now beginning to be turned around, is largely attributable to this cultural arrogance. But Mishra says it better:

The victories of the Cold War – and the giddy speculation that history had reached the ideological terminus of liberal democracy – revived illusions of omnipotence among an Anglo-American political and media elite that has always known very little about the modern world it claims to have made. Consequently, almost every event since the end of the Cold War – the rise of radical Islam, of India and China, the assertiveness of oil-rich Russia, Iran and Venezuela – has come as a shock, a rude reminder that the natives of Delhi, Cairo and Beijing have geopolitical ambitions of their own, not to mention a sense of history marked by resentment and suspicion of the metropolitan West. The liberal internationalists persist, trying to revive the Wilsonian moment in places where Anglo-American liberalism has been seen as an especially aggressive form of hypocrisy. Increasingly, however, they expose themselves as the new provincials, dangerously blundering about in a volatile world.

Hat tip to David Akin's On the Hill.

Technorati tags: Pankaj Mishra, Geopolitics, Internationalism

Lying in a democratic society

John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia points us to a very interesting article by prominent journalist Amir Taheri about the function of lies in the political life of a democracy.

In theory at least, political leaders do not need to lie in democratic societies. These are societies supposed to be based on transparency and mutual trust. If voters are considered mature and responsible enough to choose a government, they must also be assumed to have an almost generic preference for truth.

The problem is that things are not always exactly the same in theory and practice. Voters in democratic societies might resent being lied to, especially when the liar is caught in the act. But they have an immense capacity for lying to themselves. The topic once came up when I was interviewing the late British Prime Minister James Callaghan. According to Callaghan, democracy was a system that led societies to the edge of ungovernability, and that was the best place to be for an advanced human society. In such a system, lies could push society over the edge.

And, yet, the advanced Western democracies have lived, and continue to live, with some basic lies - lies that electorate likes to hear. The former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok had a nice formula: the entire welfare state was based on the lie that the same guilder could be spent many times over.

...

In despotic societies, the people lie to the despot who, when he lies back to them, invites only derision. In democratic societies, voters lie to themselves, forcing their rulers to lie back to them. The difference is that in democratic societies, whenever the need arises, the few can always be blamed for the sins of the many and chased out of power in an election. In despotic systems, however, the vicious circle of lies is seldom broken without violence.

I think he's hit the nail on the head. I have wondered for many years how to overcome this inherent weakness of democracies, that voters virtually insist on being lied to. It is indeed difficult to be an honest politician, because we punish them so brutally if they try it. But if they push the lies too far, we punish them brutally for that too.

My only consolation is that autocracies have not come to grips any better with the dynamics of lying; it just has a different dynamic.

Padded cell vs. open road

Open letter to MP John Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper


Dear Sirs,

The Anti-terrorism Act is coming up for review. This law was passed hastily in the aftermath of 9/11 and contains some of the most alarming provisions ever enacted in a Canadian Parliament.

I have been impressed by the level-headedness and willingness to act according to principle that your government has demonstrated. Could you please use both in retooling this act?

Security certificates and the extremely broad wording limiting freedom of the press are especially troubling, as they dangerously undermine the foundational values of a free society. Allowing this legislation to be reintroduced in its present form would leave a legacy of open doors for legally sanctioned despotism. While you may have no intention of abusing the possibilities of this highly regressive act (although one could argue that any use at all is abuse), you cannot guarantee the actions of your successors.

I am confident that there are ways to protect our society from terrorism without sacrificing our most fundamental principles: freedom of speech, presumption of innocence and open trials.

I for one, am willing to accept some measure of risk in protecting these principles. Padded cells may be safe and even comfortable, but I prefer the risk of the open road.

On a related note, I believe it is high time that charges against Juliet O'Neill were dropped. This was a shameful move by the previous government and it dishonours you to allow it to continue.

Respectfully,

Technorati tags: Juliet O'Neill, Anti-Terrorism Act

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 11

The Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength is talking about how one man seeks to love the world by giving away wheelchairs.

Pat at Stubborn Facts is singing the praises of the Electoral College and asserting that democracy does not mean majority rule all the time. Being contrarian and thought-provoking again, are you Pat?

John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia gives an impressive list of reasons why he's cautiously optimistic about the liberalization occuring in Saudi Arabia since 9/11.

Wanted—A Petition to Support Muslim Democrats

Joseph N. Kickasola, professor of International policy at Regent University, issued a call yesterday - directed most especially at evangelical Christians - to support Muslims democrats. He is uncomfortable with a call to sign a petition to support Israel issued recently by American Jewish organizations and some Christian broadcast media, because it leaves Muslim democrats out of the picture, which he argues is discouraging to them. In essence, he is protesting against a them/us mentality which puts all Christians and Jews on one side, and all Muslims on the other.

What most of my fellow evangelical Christians do not realize is that the clash between Islam and the West is due largely to the clash within Islam. This is at least a clash between Sunni and Shi’a, as the sectarian conflict between them in Iraq shows. But as the Shi’ite and Sunni groups in Lebanon coalesce for the annihilation of Israel, it shows that a much deeper and more generative clash exists within both the Sunni and Shi’ite communities, namely the clash between Muslim democrats and theocrats, moderates and militants, modernity and tradition, and, ultimately, between the national rule of law and the universal rule of sharia—the coercive quest of Islamic extremists.

He finds this clash even in different translations and commentaries of the Koran.

There are many peace verses and war verses in the Koran, and the democrats interpret the war verses in light of the peace verses, but the anti-democrats interpret the peace verses in the light of the war verses.

He argues finally that the Muslim democrats are the only ones that can lead the Muslim world into modernity and away from extremism and should therefore get our explicit, stated support. Please check out the entire text. He provides a link to a Muslim Washington think tank and to a paper he presented earlier this year on this clash in Islam.

I'm not too sure how useful a petition would be, apart from providing a bit of a morale boost and hopefully raising awareness in Western democracies of potential allies in the Muslim world. When you stop to think of it, those are not unworthy goals.

So how would YOU word such a petition?