New DPC op-ed on Bosnia
admin November 4th, 2008
James Lyon, a veteran Balkan analyst with the International Crisis Group, recently joined DPC as a senior associate. Today he and Kurt Bassuener had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Europe. They argue that the situation in Bosnia is deteriorating, and that the European Union must take the lead in stemming the decline in the immediate term, while also putting the cause of the problem - the Dayton constitution - firmly on the international agenda.
America’s Crusade For Democracy
All people of every nation and every state should be allowed to decide for themselves what kind of government they will have, be it a democracy, monarchy, authoritarian regime or a theocracy. For the United States and the other western powers to impose democracy upon other states, or to make critical humanitarian aid contingent upon a state conforming to a democratic form of government, is no different from the crusades of old forcing Christianity upon people of other faiths.
The new faith is now democracy. And “democrats” are just as intolerant of other forms of government as the crusaders were of other religions. America’s crusade for democracy is especially problematic given its selective tolerance to certain non-democratic states, such as Saudi Arabia.
While many will argue that democracy protects the civil liberties and the rights of the people, there are many cases where democracies have slaughtered and enslaved there own people. The United States is a classic example.
The human existence is evolving slowly over time. We have finally begun to reach a point where we recognize that all people (not just white people, or rich people, or citizens of certain countries) have certain inalienable rights that should actually be protected (and not just written and talked about but largely ignored in day to day reality).
This recognition is not the sole domain of democracy alone; all forms of government can evolve to recognize the rights of their people. The United States has evolved- from a democracy where only white landowning males could vote, where slavery was legal and genocide was practiced against Native Americans- to where it is today. Surely other forms of government can evolve as well.
Why are we in the west who are supposedly so democratic, the very ones who are so quick to deprive others of the right to chose their own form of government?