Robert Buddan, Contributor
THE UNITED States presidential elections went much better than many had expected. The results were clear, the elections went fairly smoothly, and the winner was declared quickly.
However, the campaign leaves us to wonder about issues of democracy in a country like the U.S. the threat of terrorism in the world, and what countries in the Caribbean need to think about.
There are two kinds of thinking about democracy that were in play during the campaign. Western scholars believe that democracy develops best when economies grow, the middle class expands and freedoms are valued.
What they don't generally acknowledge is that Western democracies breed wealthy corporate elites who can undermine that very democracy.
The other kind of thinking is that since developing (non-Western) countries have less developed economies, smaller middle classes, and values that are not necessarily consistent with liberal freedoms, the political elites of those countries must be made to commit to democratic norms, international agencies must sponsor democratisation, and policies of economic liberalisation must be introduced for the free market and civil society to operate. This position underestimates the resistance to this imposition.
PERSPECTIVE
The U.S. presidential elections brought two dangers into perspective the danger that democracy might be threatened by the very society is produces, a society of wealth, class, and freedom, and how they use their power; and the danger in the belief that the U.S. and Western countries have a right to impose their kind of democracy on developing countries, even by invasion and overthrow, such as in Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
The problem becomes even more serious when it is perceived that a country like the U.S. is imposing democracy to the benefit, not of the people of those countries, but to the wealthy corporations that drive American democracy itself.
Democracy in the West and the Western pursuit of democratisation in the non-Western countries might be two sides of the same coin, one that ends up serving the same people the corporate rich of the Western countries and the Westernised élites of the developing countries.
Osama bin Laden is a symbol of resistance against both kinds of elites. The problems are not merely academic. They have implications for war and peace.
The clash of civilisations between the Muslim and Christian worlds results from mutual distrust, and fundamentalist convictions that differences are irreconcilable.
The violence in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reaction against the imposition of an outside western corporate agenda. Africans, Asians and Middle Eastern people are not convinced that there can only be one democracy Western democracy.
They want a democracy that preserves their own traditions and values, not one that sacrifices these to the values of the west.
ENEMIES AT THE DOOR
This brings us to two kinds of enemies of democracy. The first is external. There is a view that bin Laden attacked the U.S. on 9/11 in order to bring it (and the West) into a war with the Muslim world.
This view was expressed by London-based syndicated columnist, Gwynn Dyer, whose columns appear in this newspaper. An extension of this view comes from an interpretation of the tape of bin Laden released just before the presidential elections.
It was supposedly designed to make Americans afraid enough of terrorism to vote Bush back into power because, in bin Laden's eyes, Mr. Bush is the best symbol of American political and cultural arrogance against which he can most effectively rally the Muslim world against the west.
This interpretation came from a Muslim political analyst on CNN. If these views are correct then bin Laden suckered the U.S. into the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and suckered the American electorate into re-electing Mr. Bush, all in accordance with his game plan.
In doing so, however, Bush, the corporate elite, and the American political class, used all their power to win the two presidential elections since they could not resist the chance to take revenge against Saddam, controlling the oil landscape, and using religious faith to justify defense against Muslim terrorism according to the logic of the 'clash of civilisations'.
ENEMIES WITHIN
This leads us to the enemies of democracy from within.
Campaign finance reform has failed to rein in the power of private wealth which runs the machines of the two major American parties. The wealthy and middle class 'civil society' groups argue that to ban private financing is a violation of freedom of speech because it allows them to sponsor candidates who can speak for their issues.
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS
The two major parties received between two and four times more money in 2004 than they did in 2000. For all the talk about the evils of wealthy special interest groups, the presidential elections were the most heavily financed in U.S. history.
This violates the principle that every vote should count equally since money buys influence out of proportion to one person, one vote. It violates the basic principle of democracy equal rights.
Campaign finance laws have placed limits on how much money can be directly given to a candidate. But this has only given rise to well-funded middle class civil society groups who raise and spend money for the causes of the candidates.
They have spent millions on registration drives that, in many cases, were designed to register only those who would vote for 'their' party while trashing the names of those who would not; padding registration lists with their own signatures; writing in the names of dead people; or taking names from telephone directories. They have disgraced American democracy.
Then there were the abuses of freedom in the name of countering terrorism. The Paris-based Reporters across Borders, said in its 2003 report, that wealthy countries do not necessarily have better records of press freedom than less wealthy ones. The U.S. was ranked lower than many other countries because of the Patriot Act's restrictions on freedom of expression at home and the occupation's restrictions on press freedom in Iraq.
Shirin Shebadi, the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace (in 2003) accused the U.S. (and Western countries) of using terrorism as a guise for attacking freedoms. Even the conservative Economist which backed Bush in 2000, endorsed Kerry in 2004, out of disappointment with the Bush administration's disregard for due process and torture of persons imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
POST-ELECTION CARIBBEAN
Bin Laden, Bush, and the wealthy in the U.S. and the Western countries, are playing a dangerous game, one in which the fires of war can easily spread out of control. Caribbean countries must work in international and regional bodies for peace.
The American elections, for example, have given Latortue in Haiti license to disregard the deadline for new elections in 2005, which will cause more violence if he does. It will raise new tensions over Cuba. We must reaffirm the principles of CARICOM's charter of civil society, ideological pluralism, and respect for the Caribbean as a zone of peace.
We must secure our own democracies by making rules for campaign finance to ensure one person, one vote and make sure that our Anti-Terrorism Act does not cause liberties to suffer. We need to study the pitfalls of voting machines to protect electoral integrity, (see, for example, Scientific American, October 2004). We must make codes of conduct for civil society groups so that our middle class does not parade under names like
'democracy', 'justice' and so on, while pursuing uncivil agendas.
Jamaican and Caribbean people in New York, Florida and elsewhere have been more active in these past elections than at any other time, mainly for Kerry and the Democratic Party.
We should build bridges with them to extend our political influence into the heartland to work for peace and democracy in the Caribbean.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government at UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
