How democratic is democracy?

USA in modern time is Mecca for worshippers of democracy. In many respects it is rightly so. USA has a written constitution providing fundamental rights including freedom of speech for the people, protection against illegal search and seizure, elected government, independent judiciary, respect for law and executive responsive to the will of people through their elected representative system and through referendum and recall. But does USA domestically practice in real terms the democracy it preaches to the outside world? Here are some examples.

Example#1: In 1950s CIA installed the Shah of Iran to the throne by staging a coup in complicity with Iranian generals and by assassinating the elected leader Mossadegh, who earlier abolished monarchy. How the so-called democracy imposed by America under the Shah is superior to Iran's home grown democratic movements such as its constitutional Revolution of the early 2oth. Century or mid century parliamentary system headed by Mohammed Mossadegh?

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Example #2: In 1973 an armed coup in Chile against its elected leader Allende was staged by some generals in the army in collaboration with CIA leading to assassination of Allende, slaughtering and detention of a large number of people who supported the elected government.

Example #3: In the recent past General Musharraf, who ousted by coup the elected leader of Pakistan has been embraced as a friend by President Bush despite the fact that Pakistan a year back had supplied nuclear bomb technology to North Korea. On June 25, 2003 he was the first South East Asian country leader to be entertained in Camp David and warmly praised by President Bush. Pakistan was also promised aid of three billion dollars over a period of four years, half of which was economic and the other half for defence related expenses including upgrading of her MIG 15 planes. This promise was made without extracting any assurance from the General that Pakistan Army would abdicate its rule and genuine democracy will be restored in the country.

Earlier in the 80s USA funneled through still worse army dictator General Ziaul Huq immense sums of money and huge quantities of arms including large number of stinger missiles to Afghan fundamentalists and the so-called Saudi Arabian Mujahideens. In consequence, Russian Army retreated and Afghan government toppled towards the late 80s but Taliban and Osama Bin Laden appeared in Afghan horizon with left over stinger missiles and arms.

Example #4: In the late 60s CIA in collaboration with some generals staged an armed coup against Mr Sukarno and installed General Suharto as the president of Indonesia. President Suharto, in turn, in the name of purging the communists slaughtered and or detained about a million people without even any semblance of trial. Among those slaughtered and or detained, there were a large number of people of Chinese origin who were mostly engaged in trade or business.

Example #5: During Reagan presidency USA laid mines in the sea around Nicaragua. When Nicaraguan government filed a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against this intrusion, the Court ordered the US government to remove those mines.

United States government refused to carry out the order.

Example #6: Even within USA during World War II the US government illegally interned all nationals of Japanese origin in concentration camps denying the victims their rights to recourse to the court of law as guaranteed by the American Constitution. Only in the recent past US Congress and the President apologised to the victims and their descendants for this illegal action.

Example #7: At the present moment, under the so-called Patriot's Act and Protection of Witness Act, a large number of people have been arrested and held in custody on mere suspicion and against whom no evidence of wrong doing could be established. A recent report of the Inspector General of Justice Department itself makes a chilling reading. The people are held without bond, without regard to actual evidence that they are dangerous, a flight risk, or tied to terrorism. In fact some were arrested when they appeared before the authorities voluntarily in response to their request. During detention they are held 23 hours a day lockdown (one hour in theory for exercise) and are physically and verbally abused by prison guards. (Washington Post, June 26, 2003). They were initially barred from communicating with each other and outside world including lawyers. Even detainees whose immigration cases were resolved remained locked up simply because FBI had not cleared them, a process that took an average of 80 days and as long as 245 days to complete. This happened even when some were ready to leave USA permanently. According to the Washington Post Report, the number of people so detained stood between 4000 to 5000. It is understood that the Attorney General is planning to put Patriot's Act, passed as a temporary measure, expiring in the end of 2004, in permanent statute book. One should ponder very carefully whether preemptive attack on a country on "faith based intelligence" and arbitrary arrest and detention of persons on "faith based suspicions" are really the strong points of democracy for sale abroad.

Justice Department officials through their actions seems to be echoing what historian Gibbon has said in his famous book (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume III) "The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorise the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice is a doctrine of which I am ignorant and so desire to remain ignorant." While these happenings are going on in his administration, President Bush in honour of Torture Victims Recognition Day said on June 26, "The United States is committed to the world wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight, by example. I call on the governments to join with the United States and the community of law abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and an undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment"! (Washington Post June 27, 2003).

Example #8: The declaration of Independence and the Constitution of USA in the beginning excluded black population and women from all rights and privileges enjoyed by an American citizen. Only after long-sufferings, these rights have been earned by them through struggle. Let us not forget, that the bottom line of American democracy in the beginning was: Jefferson after declaring in Philadelphia that all men are created equal, went to his slaves in Virginia. It still continues to be what Paul Bremer, American Pro-Counsel in Iraq had stated: "higher living standards and political freedom can not emerge if economic freedom is denied." (Article in Washington Journal June 20, 2003).

Example # 9: Government under American democracy is supposed to be government of the people, for the people and by the people as enunciated by President Abraham Lincoln. But because of high cost of contesting in elections and corrupt money flowing to legislators and political parties through lobbyists and special interest groups, elections to the Congress and to the position of President has become a spectacle of money, power and not the true worth of the candidate. The faceless donors, corporate and wealthy individuals have really become the makers and breakers of the American Presidency and Houses of Congress. Even the so-called independent media have now become chattels of the concentrated money power. This has been amply demonstrated during just concluded Iraq war. Journalists are supposed to be professional skeptics, but nowhere in their reports, on or about Iraq war this quality was displayed. If the first quality of war is truth, then the media is the next. During the Iraq war, journalists have allowed themselves to be embedded in army vehicles for reporting war news, losing their independence to find news by themselves. None of them has reported, in compliance with the reported government directives, on the number of Iraqis killed. The Army has also openly confessed that they have not kept any count of Iraqis killed during battles.

In the instances cited above, the objectives may be laudable but the means are not. Unless of course we are called upon to believe like communists that the end justifies the means. In fact these instances have been mentioned only to demonstrate the undemocratic aspects of American democratic government. Some inherent faults and deficiencies of American democracy were pointed out by Toqueville in as early as middle of 19th. Century when he wrote his famous book (Democracy in America, 1838AD). Pointing out the political hazards of American democracy he then observed that political parties were "an inherent evil of free government," the press was prone to gratuitous muckraking, the electorate tend to vote mediocrity into high office and above all there was the danger of the "tyranny of the majority". But that risk, he believed, was held in check by the vitality of some distinctively American institutions that tended to preserve individual freedom, the decentralization of government, the power of the courts, the strength of the associational life and the vigor of country's churches. Over the years since then, the defects pointed out by him have aggravated and the checks mentioned by him have largely disappeared. American government has now become centralized, bureaucratic and secretive than ever. Its election procedure is riddled with corruption; American public has alienated from its government and is now frequently voting with their feet. Churches are riddled with sexual and other abuses losing their high moral ground and the respect of the community they are supposed to serve.

Given this situation, is it appropriate to sell American brand of democracy to other countries by pressure, and eventually by war? Should we not revisit what Karl Popper, an eminent philosopher of the 20th. Century said, "We must plan for freedom and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure"? (The Open Society and its Enemies).

AKN Ahmed is the former Governor of Bangladesh Bank.

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