authoritarian | Talking Bollocks

Posts Tagged ‘authoritarian

Feb

Democracy in the Arab world – Everyone’s a winner

She wont vote for militant Islam

This evening BBC Radio 4′s Moral Maze is discussing the unrest in Egypt. I usually find this program to irritating to listen to. The panelist seem to consider that it is their soul objective to be obnoxious and insulting to the “witnesses”.

In describing tonight’s program the BBC web site asks: “Is it morally justifiable to tolerate or support unpleasant, authoritarian, undemocratic regimes because we feel the likely alternatives might prove worse for the citizens of Egypt.”

My answer is simple: NO! No because it is wrong to support unpleasant, authoritarian, undemocratic regimes. NO because we cannot know what the alternative will be. And NO because we have experience of what happens when revolution finally breaks out in countries where the West has connived to suppress democracy. i.e. the people despise the West along with the dictator which they have just thrown off.

The classic example of this is Iran. In 1953 the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d’état instigated by the United States and the United Kingdom. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed as Shāh and propped up by the United States until the revolution in 1977.

From what I have read the revolution was initially backed by a secular movement but militant Islamists used the chance to grab power. Secular Iranians tried to resist but were crushed by the new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. They could have received help from the West but having been responsible for 20 years of their repression we were not trusted and there followed a caustic division between Iran and the West that lasts ’till this day. That is an example of what happens when we support unpleasant, authoritarian, undemocratic regimes because we feel the likely alternatives might prove worse.

We should support the people of Egypt in ejecting their dictator. If they then elect an authoritarian Islamist government then more fool them. At least the responsibility will not be ours and when they are finally in a position to reject authoritarianism we will be in a position to help.

More optimistically I believe that Egyptians will have learned from the experiences of Iran and Afghanistan and will reject outright Islamist rule though Islamists may have some role in a coalition. It is possible that Egypt could finally break the curse that has afflicted the Arab world for decades and start to modernise.

Imagine a middle east of modern democratic countries right on the border of the largest trading block in the world. I am talking of the European Union. While the world obsesses over whether China will supplant America as the largest economy in the world they overlook the fact that the EU has an economy larger than both. With the Arab world modernising trade would take off and this would be great news for Arabs and Europeans.

The financial crisis has caused market uncertainty and companies have been nervous about initiating capital projects. Investors are also unenthusiastic as many assets appear overpriced; there is even talk of a Chinese asset bubble. Consequently some sectors, such as insurance, are awash with capital.

If democracy were to blossom then this capital could find it’s way to infrastructure projects in the Arab world. There was speculation in The Economist in 2009 of solar powered electricity generation in the Sahara with the electricity transported to Europe across the Mediterranean. That is not going to happen while the region is ruled by unstable dictators.

Lastly consider the effect on the Arab / Israeli conflict. Today the subtext of much of Israel’s argument is that the Palestinians are just Arabs who are used to being oppressed and the Palestinians are no worse off than citizens of other Arab countries.

Imagine if Israel were surrounded by thriving democracies. Israel would be forced to confront it’s oppressive and racist policies toward the Palestinians. Could The United States continue to support the siege of Gaza or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? Shame on them if they did.

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Jan

CPS prosecute man for warning drivers of speed gun

By jonesxxx 2 Comments

Prosecuted for flashing his lights

Open Email to Keir Starmer via CPS web site

Sir,

I just heard on Radio 4 that the CPS have prosecuted a driver ( Michael Thompson ) who flashed his lights to warn motorists of a mobile police speed gun. They charged him with wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties.

This is an outrageous infringement of civil liberties. The speed gun is to catch people who are actually speeding NOT people who may be INTENDING to speed. By flashing his lights Mr Thompson could not have affected anyone who was actually speeding.

More and more the police are taking authoritarian stances and feeling that they are entitled to harass individuals. Often this takes the form of stopping ordinary people taking photographs in public by pretending that there is some terrorism threat.

From the point of view of the general public this clashes dreadfully with the police inability to prosecute their own officers even when they have been photographed in the act of assaulting a member of the public.

I have been critical of police tactics at various demonstrations but had been sympathetic during the recent student demonstrations because of the obvious violent intent of some demonstrators (fire extinguishers etc).

However, incidence such as the prosecution of Mr. Thompson, merely reinforce the negative image of the police as an oppressive organisation who take advantage of their position and are unaccountable to anybody.

I suggest that you remember that you are British officers in a country with a long tradition of civil liberty and not mindless officials from some soviet satellite state.

Stop harassing ordinary people and start effectively disciplining your own officers.

Regards

______________________________________________________________________________

I understand from this What’s On Xiamen that the presiding magistrate was Jean Ellerton of Grimsby Magistrates Court.

Why not email them and register your disgust? You could use the text above as a template.

Dec

China in Who’s hands?

By jonesxxx 2 Comments

President Hu - Who made him leader?

There is an interesting article in todays’s Independent blaming China for the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit. The article quotes a source who was supposedly in the room when the heads of state were drafting the document who says:

“If China had not been in that room you would have had a deal which would have had everyone popping champagne corks…..”

“The Chinese were happy as they’d win either way. If the process collapsed they’d win because they don’t have to do anything and they know the rich countries will get the blame.

“If the deal doesn’t collapse because everyone is so desperate to accommodate them that they water it down to something completely meaningless, they get their way again. Either way they win. I think all the other world leaders knew that by that stage and were just furious that they couldn’t do anything about it.”

Why am I not surprised?

Protestors? - pah!

China was admitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001 after the United States dropped it’s veto. Since that time trade with China has grown very quickly and the Chinese economy has grown massively. The generally accepted view is that China is now OK as it has accepted capitalism. This is wrong. The regime in power in China today is not substantially different from the regime which drove tanks over unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square just two years before being admitted to the WTO.

The West too often confuses democracy with capitalism, they are not the same. It is possible to have a democratic government that is socialist. It is certainly possible to have a capitalist government which is non-democratic and China is the proof of this.

Both China and the West have gained from the flow of trade but we should consider that, having now allowed so much industry to move to China, we have become reliant on an authoritarian regime which cares for nothing but perpetuating it’s own existence. We should also keep this in mind when businessmen and political leaders talk of the necessity of allowing the free flow of trade to countries where there is “competitive advantage”. This competitive advantage is, very often, the absence of political rights, civil rights and the rule of law.

China may have legitimate reasons for not being able to commit to the climate change targets discussed in Copenhagen but it’s impossible to tell. The Chinese regime is not elected and therefore illegitimate and cannot be said to represent the views of the Chinese people. When one deals with regimes such as China one must accept that their word is worth nothing.

During the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit Nuclear Forces Ronald Regan frequently used the phrase “Trust, but verify”. United States president, Barack Obama, seemed to understand this when, during a speech at Copenhagen he appeared to upset the Chinese by implying that verification was key to any agreement. The fact that this was mentioned caused the Chinese representatives to throw a hissy fit and refuse to attend various meetings.

Send in the tanks!

And that’s another thing, China too often uses tantrums as a negotiating tactic. We are told by Chinese watchers that this anger is related to the difference in culture. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the Chinese fly off the handle so often because they are not used to having to justify themselves.

I wonder how the Chinese regime would have responded to the demonstrators in Copenhagen? Rather than explaining their position perhaps they would simply have sent in the tanks.

This should give us pause for thought.

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