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Published by the government of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: Reason Wafavarova - Reverence for Hatred of Democracy

21 July 2011

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THE truism that characterises US meddling in the political affairs of weaker nations can be the Reaganite "democracy enhancement", the Bush II "democratisation," or the Blairite "democracy promotion," but the dramatic demonstration of the West's general hatred and contempt for democracy cannot be treated as controversial, at least from the view point of Aristotle's idea of democracy.

Refutations in relation to the declared nobility of the West's intentions whenever Western elites make interventions in world affairs are quite numerous and dramatic, but the reverence for such rhetoric as Bush's "messianic mission" to "democratise" is undoubtedly significant, even among the victims. Equally revered is Barack Obama's "responsibility to protect," a doctrine that has reduced prosperous and debt free Libya to a rabble - rendering its population desperate and its territory desolate.

The reverence continues no matter how dramatic the refutations. To select just one of many cases, in January 2006, the population of Palestine voted in an election that was recognised to be free and fair - apart from the Bush administration's intervention in an effort to gain victory for its favoured candidate, Mahmoud Abbas.

When the wrong side won, the US and Israel instantly turned to severe punishment of the population for their democratic errors, with Europe toddling along quite politely.

Israel even decided to brazenly intimidate the Palestinian population by cutting off water supplies to Gaza, where water shortages were already severe. When this did not prove to be effective enough, Israel increased its terror and started bombing and destroying power plants that provide electricity for pumping and sewage removal.

Of course this brutality was widely reported in the mainstream Western media, albeit within the confines of Bush's "messianic mission" to "democratise" the lesser nations, especially in the Middle East.

As usual there were pretexts, like saying Hamas was shelling Israel with unidentified missiles, pretexts that collapse even under superficial examination.

It is like the NATO brutality on Libya today. While the goal of the triumvirate US, UK and France to brazenly assassinate the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been openly declared, there are pretexts thrown around to explain the insane NATO aerial attacks on Tripoli; like heroically claiming to be protecting the civilian population of Libya - a reference shamelessly used in describing the Western-backed armed rebels from Benghazi.

This pretext would be laughable if what was happening in Libya was not so tragic. The Libya that NATO is freely destroying by spraying high precision aerial bombs endlessly is a country that under the same "dictatorial" Gaddafi gives its citizens loans at zero interest, albeit because of a religious value based on the Islamic faith.

It is a country where students are entitled the entry salary for the profession for which they are studying. After studying, if one is unable to get employment the state pays the full salary as if one were employed, until employment is secured for the person in question.

When Libyan citizens get married, the couple is entitled to an apartment or a house for free, or to a start up sum payment of US$60 000 - all provided by the State.

For those Libyans who choose to study abroad, the state pays US$2 500 plus accommodation and a car allowance.

Cars sold to Libyan citizens are sold at factory price, with the state subsidising the rest. In terms of university education, 25 percent of Libyans have a university degree. There are no beggars on Libyan streets, no one is homeless, and bread is sold at US$0,15 per loaf.

The country is debt free, with no loan whatsoever from the IMF, WB or any other source.

This is what NATO is bombing to pieces in the name of protecting Libyan civilians. The real crime committed by Libyans is to have a leader who called on oil producing countries not to sell their oil using the US dollar or the Euro, but to demand the gold equivalent.

The last person to make this deadly suggestion was Saddam Hussein, and of course the US hanged him for it - again on the basis of pretexts that are absolutely laughable, the blatant lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was about to destroy the whole planet.

Like they did to Saddam Hussein, the Western powers are going to kill Gaddafi, and there is no sign they will fail.

When Israel started bombing Palestine in 2007, the US-Israeli goals were not at all concealed. The main goal was to impose suffering on the population to induce them to shift their support to Washington's favourite.

It is not different to what the US did to the Nicaraguan population when they wanted it to disengage from the Sandinistas. It is not different to what the US continues to do in its bid to destroy the relationship between the Castro power and the people of Cuba.

It is not different to the West collective effort in disenchanting the population of Zimbabwe, and setting it against the revolutionary Zanu-PF and its principled and incorruptible leader, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The script never changes. It is the players that change.

The hostility against Hamas' victory was a dramatic demonstration of hatred and contempt for democracy by the US and her Western allies.

It was reported quite frankly even in the Western mainstream media, albeit alongside praises for Bush and Blair's dedication to promoting democracy. Criticism from the right was more against the idealistic democracy, (emerging in Palestine) that could be harmful to the West's "civilisation".

To be in power in the West, one has to have this exceptional talent of being able to command a tolerance of contradiction, the talent for George Orwell's "doublethink": the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, while accepting both of them.

Demagoguery is all about this exceptional talent, and most oppressors and dictators are quite gifted in this art.

So the Western elites can on one hand utterly destroy prevailing democracies in Palestine, Chile or in Nicaragua, while on the other hand claiming to be fighting for it in Cuba, Libya or Zimbabwe.

It is hardly controversial that these elites get praised by some for both activities, baffling as it may sound.

It needs to be observed that Gazans and Libyans are protected people under the Geneva Conventions, and that any harm done to individuals except in response to their personal criminal acts is severe crime.

All signatories to the conventions are indeed obligated not only to adhere to the provisions of the conventions, but also to apprehend and punish those who are responsible for any breaches, including the leaders from the United States, or any other leaders from elsewhere.

When a victim of an open assassination attempt by Western powers seeks the protection of the Geneva Conventions, what we get is a politically charged ICC prosecutor coming to the victim's rescue wielding an arrest warrant, not for the leaders of the NATO assassins, but for the victim himself. This is exactly what has happened to Col Gaddafi. The African Union was absolutely disgusted, but could hardly do anything to stop the terrible joke.

The Geneva Conventions and all of international law would be helpfully relevant in a world of law-abiding states. But with states such as the US, France and Britain, international law is scarcely even intelligible.

Scholarship dealing with democracy promotion has come up with similar conclusions. Thomas Carothers is one prominent scholar-advocate for this cause. He calls himself a neo-Reaganite, and he agrees with mainstream scholarship that Wilsonian idealism took on particular "salience" under Ronald Reagan's leadership.

When George W. Bush suddenly discovered the quintessential mission to democratise the world, Carothers published a book reviewing the record of democracy promotion by the US since the end of the Cold War. He concluded that there was "a strong continuity" running through Bush Senior, Clinton all the way to Bush II himself.

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