Democracy: A sturdy truck
I really like this David Brooks column.
First he gives us a bit of historical perspective:
Conditions were horrible when Salvadorans went to the polls on March 28, 1982. The country was in the midst of a civil war that would take 75,000 lives. An insurgent army controlled about a third of the nation’s territory. Just before election day, the insurgents stepped up their terror campaign. They attacked the National Palace, staged highway assaults that cut the nation in two and blew up schools that were to be polling places.Yet voters came out in the hundreds of thousands. In some towns, they had to duck beneath sniper fire to get to the polls. In San Salvador, a bomb went off near a line of people waiting outside a polling station. The people scattered, then the line reformed. “This nation may be falling apart,” one voter told The Christian Science Monitor, “but by voting we may help to hold it together.”
Compartively of course, Iraq and Afghanistan are both much better off than El Salvadore was in 1982. Additionaly, they have much more support from the U.S. This doesn’t mean things will be quick or easy, but it does help to realize that they are do-able.
Brooks also offers these two criticisms:
As William Raspberry wrote yesterday in The Washington Post, “the new consensus seems to be that bringing American-style democracy to Iraq is no longer an achievable goal.” We should just settle for what John Kerry calls “stability.” We should be satisfied if some strongman comes in who can restore order.The people who make this argument pat themselves on the back for being hard-headed, but the fact is they are naïve. They’ve got things exactly backward. The reason we should work for full democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not just because it’s noble, but because it’s practical. It is easier to defeat an insurgency and restore order with elections than without.
…
It’s simply astounding that in the United States, the home of the greatest and most effective democratic revolution, so many people have come to regard democracy as a luxury-brand vehicle, suited only for the culturally upscale, when it’s really a sturdy truck, effective in conditions both rough and smooth.
One thing that really bothers me is when people claim that a given group are not ‘ready’ for Democracy. In my opinion, this is pure bigotry. I have a lot more faith in people than that.
Please note that I in fact do believe in Democracy as the best form of government there is. However, there are a couple of things that have to be in place before Democracy can work as a free society rather than a Dictatorship that simply “elects” the strongman over and over again. That is an informed populace, and some system of checks and balances.
By informed, I mean education in history, in philosophy, in politics. Also necessary is education about the current events that have led to the current political institution and the last elected government. A system of checks and balances is necessary to prevent the elected official from tampering with the electoral system and producing the “Democratic Dictatorship” previously mentioned.
Can we put these institutions in place in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, I believe we can. Have we yet? No, we haven’t. Will these Democracies succeed? I hope so, but if they do, it will be because of one of two factors: Sheer luck or a forty-year long “Marshal Plan” type of reconstruction in these two countries focusing on nation building. Any bets on whether we’ll be doing that?
While the article mentioned is inspirational, it would appear that the historical situation in El Salvador is somewhat more complex:
In 1972 the PCN nearly lost power to the Nationalist Democratic Union (UDN), whose presidential candidate, José Napoleón Duarte, accused the government of massive electoral fraud and attempted a coup. Disillusionment with the electoral process led to the formation of many popular organisations and guerrilla groups. There were renewed allegations of fraud after the 1977 elections, officially won by PCN candidate Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, who was overthrown by a group of reformist officers in Oct. 1979. They formed a revolutionary junta and promised major social and political changes, including a land reform program. However, their failure to curb the political violence of large sections of the army led to the outbreak of civil war when, in Jan. 1981, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Movement (FMLN) launched its first major military offensive.
In the new Constituent Assembly elected in 1982, Duarte’s Christian Democratic Party (PDC) was the largest single party, though it did not command a majority. In the presidential election of 1984 Duarte defeated the extreme right-wing Maj. Roberto d’Aubuisson of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). But in Mar. 1989 ARENA’s Alfredo Cristiani was elected president. Under Duarte, attempts had been made to open negotiations with the rebels. But Cristiani adopted a harder line, declaring his support for a military solution. A major FMLN offensive in Nov. 1989 followed the collapse of negotiations. Some 2000 people were killed or wounded in one week of fighting in the capital.
In Mar. 1993 the International Truth Commission confirmed that state terrorism was systematically committed by the army, police and the associated paramilitary groups during the civil war. It concluded that the US’s Reagan administration was involved in training the infamous Atlacatl Battalion and in covering up its abuses. It also found that Roberto d’Aubisson (the late founder of ARENA) was responsible for the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
Source: http://www.theworldnews.com.au/Worldguide/index.php3?country=62&header=4
More on our “Support” of El Salvador:
The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA’s nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians.
Source: http://www.soaw.org/new/