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Monday, May 23, 2005
Reading List: The Case for Democracy
- Sharansky, Natan with Ron Dermer. The Case for Democracy. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. ISBN 1-58648-261-0.
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Every now and then you come across a book which cuts through the fog
of contemporary political discourse with pure clarity of thought.
Well of course, the programmer peanut gallery shouts in
unison, Sharansky was a computer scientist before becoming a
Soviet dissident and political prisoner, then Israeli politician! In
this book Sharansky draws a line of unambiguous binary distinction
between "free societies" and "fear societies". In a free society,
you can walk into the town square and express your views without fear
of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm (p. 41); in a "fear
society", you can't--it's that simple. Note that, as Sharansky is
quick to observe, this counts as free societies without a trace of
democracy, with dirigiste economies, and which
discriminate against minorities and women--yet permit those who live
there to protest these and other shortcomings without fear of
recrimination. A society which he deems "free" may not be
just, but a society which doesn't pass this most basic test
of freedom is always unjust.
From this viewpoint, every compromise with fear societies and their tyrants in the interest of "stability" and "geopolitics" is always ill-considered, not just in terms of the human rights of those who live there, but in the self-interest of all free people. Fear societies require an enemy, internal or external, to unite their victims behind the tyrant, and history shows how fickle the affections of dictators can be when self-interest is at stake.
The disastrous example of funding Arafat's ugly dictatorship over the Palestinian people is dissected in detail, but the message is applicable everywhere diplomats argue for a "stable partner" over the inherent human right of people to own their own lives and govern themselves. Sharansky is forthright in saying it's better to face a democratically elected fanatic opponent than a dictator "we can do business with", because ultimately the democratic regime will converge on meeting the needs of its citizens, while the dictator will focus on feathering his own nest at the expense of those he exploits.
If you're puzzled about which side to back in all the myriad conflicts around the globe, you could do a lot worse that simply picking the side which comes out best in Sharansky's "town square test". Certainly, the world would be a better place if the diplomats who prattle on about "complexity" and realpolitik were hit over the head with the wisdom of an author who spent 13 years in Siberian labour camps rather than compromise his liberty.
Posted at
23:58
