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Double Standards and the Universality of Liberla Democracy

Double Standards and the Universality of Liberal Democracy

By

 Abdulrahman Mele

February 2009 (2nd Ed)

For sometime now, global politics, media and the academia are inclined towards accepting the illusion that liberal democracy has come to stay and that it is the eventual fulfilment of humanity's political, social and economic aspirations. Hegel's view that humanity will be satisfied at some stage of the evolution of history when a certain degree of harmony is attained between human ‘desire for recognition' and ‘reason' was recently apprehended by Fukuyama [1] to present his case of the ‘end of history'. And it is on the basis of theories such as this and the recent occurrences in the world that the belief in a universal liberal democracy is built and sustained.

Liberal democracy enjoys a status of implied common sense in the academy and the media and for this reason; Western policy-makers have little or no trouble pressing their cases against other non-Western values and their proponents. The US makes it a part of the justification for its obsession with and intervention into the Middle East and the continuous reference to ‘bringing freedom' to others.

The argument for the universality of liberal democracy is posited on the major premise that in the liberal democratic state, the really big issues of the human society are settled – namely the quest for a viable system that will guarantee the attainment  of     the     social,      political     and     economic     needs   of man. As a result, it is widely believed that history will not witness further fundamental changes in underlying institutions and principles. This is to say that future progress and changes, though inevitable, would however be in line with the basic principles of a liberal democratic set-up. That at the end of all the chaos – civil wars, tyranny, US interventions and terrorism e.t.c. – the highest order that will eventually emerge in all societies is a liberal democratic system – not even ‘guided' democracies, but West-styled ‘free' and ‘open' societies.

To make a case in favour of such acclaimed universality and unfaltering faith in liberalism, many ethical questions have to be left aside unresolved. Put all possible premises and in the conclusion, there will be many unanswered questions; liberal democracy answers the aspirations of a materialistic society since the most fundamental of ethical questions such as of the purpose of human existence and its eventual destiny – on which religions basically rest – would not appear in the syllogism. But while taking the discourse from  such a perspective will mean a diversion to ‘spiritualism' versus ‘materialism', liberal democracy – at least the claim that it is universal – can still be confronted seeing that the ‘really big questions' of humanity are very far from being solved – in fact they are only becoming even more complicated.

For people living in better living conditions in the industrialised world, and of course the liberal intelligentsia, there are a lot to celebrate, but to the vast majority of peoples, the ‘modern' is still a wishful dream and the post-modernist dreamland that liberalism claims to be taking us to is still a utopian idea in the academy, media and politics. Politicians and the principles of capitalism would always make gorgeous promises of ‘better futures' for all peoples of the world  but  the       real      workings      of      the     world   order presents a different reality – the best conclusion to draw from what holds presently is that most people would never live to be treated as equals with others, neither would they enjoy any of the fruits liberal democracy might have.

Two decisive things would certainly hit the final nails to the coffin of liberal democracy' credibility and viability: the undeniable and seemingly inevitable institutionalisation of double standards in global relations and the fact that liberal democracy treats human beings as nothing other that economic animals. Liberal democracy might be good in principle, but the moral foundation on which it stands is quite questionable. 

The future holds more than we could predict now. History is still marching towards fundamental changes. The French and American Revolutions might be credited for ushering in the beginning of modern liberalism but they have not wrought the ultimate solution to human aspirations for ‘economic prosperity' and the satisfaction of the ‘struggle for recognition'. This is mainly because the advancement of one society often comes at the detriment of others. The economic negation of the Third World (for instance) adds to the prosperity of the Industrialised economies (consider colonialism and globalisation). The Industrial Revolution of the 1800s was fuelled not only by the invention of the steam engine but also by colonialism and the slave trade. Today, as multi-national corporations and the developed states dominate the world economy, smaller states and corporations are kicked aside. Large agricultural subsidies given by wealthy states leave farmers and small-scale producers in the Third World crying wolf for market shares for their agricultural outputs. Small businesses all over the world are having no option other than to give way to giants – mostly coming from the occident. There is – and there will very likely continue to be – inferiority and superiority   complexes    on    peoples    and    cultures    since  it will be irrational to expect that peoples all over the world would relinquish their values to hug liberalism neither is there any sign that the West will back down from its arrogant sensation of superiority; there is no evidence of these except of their         

For most people, there is still a long way to go to accomplish the struggle for recognition since it will take far more than a perfect and complete adoption of liberal democracy to make the US, for instance, to regard Israel and Pakistan or France and Saudi Arabia as equals. Neither could the reformation, modernisation and redefinition of the Islamic and other non-Western civilisations make them equal partners to capitalism. The underlying differences among people will always remain a decisive matter and the answer is not in forcing democracy down peoples' throats or in the direction in which

The argument in favour of the universality of liberal democracy is always put forward with a simultaneous dismissal (deliberately or unconsciously) of the non-material account of civilisation and our familiarity with this perception gives liberalism the upper hand. Man is not primarily an economic animal and building the world on any ideology that rests primarily on economic foundations is suicidal. Solving economic questions alone will not mean a real progress to humankind. The moral decadence ascribable to Western-style freedoms and civil liberties is a reasonable cause of worry. The use of science and technology against man in the form of nuclear and biological weapons and the drastic and ever-increasing damage to the environment are even more disturbing.

        In the tradition of political philosophy from Plato running down to Hegel and Fukuyama's ‘End of History', there is no break    from    the  fact   that    "desire  induces men to look for objects outside themselves while reason or calculation shows them the best way to get them". Yet, even things as fundamental as ‘reason' is subject to differing perceptions. The debate on ethics is still as fierce, complicated and unresolved as it had always been.

Reason is still a subject of controversy and most precious object in the possession of man. There is no universal consensus on the moral inspirations that creates the direction for our reasoning. What is reasonable to one people is not always so to others. The schema for ‘reason' itself is provided by cultural and ideological considerations of which none is universally accepted to this day.

For liberal democracy to pose itself as a universal civilisation, many things must be intentionally put at the stake. The recent row over the publication of cartoons satirising the Holy Prophet of Islam, for instance, shows the limit of the ‘democratic' value of freedom of speech and expression as far as non-Westerners are concerned. The feelings expressed by the Muslim world on that incident could not be rightfully regarded as ‘isolated sentiments of extremists or fundamentalists'. A universal subscription to this version of democracy will therefore require an unexplainable but necessary rejection of such moral considerations on which the whole of the Islamic civilisation rests.

On most occasions, the historical origin of liberalism is completely ignored and discarded from most discourses on this topic. The belief that liberal democracy is a recipe for economic progress (an argument that always brings the USA and Western Europe into mind for justification) is however refuted both historically and contemporarily. Historically, authoritarian states    like    Meiji    Japan    and    Bismarckian     Germany have competed fairly with their contemporaries in economic strength and today; Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the Arabian Gulf Sultanates are performing far better than many democratic economies despite being authoritarian. [2] The miseries of Africa, Asia and Latin America could not be reasonably ascribed to the presence or absence of democracy.

 

On a different perspective still, liberal democracy could not be universal because it so often serve as a tool for ascertaining Western hegemony (Mostly American these days). It could not by itself satisfy the aspirations of non-Westerners and pragmatically it is not working on a universal scale. Because while capitalism is hypocritically preached to the world on one hand, it is on the other not really meant to be universal as it is evidently preached the most in places and instances where there is the opportunity to subordinate other cultures, particularly the Islamic, to the Western or when democratisation will directly serve some Western interest.

By merely trying to cultivate the liberal democratic values of     tolerance,     integration     and     multiculturalism on a universal     scale,     the     viability     of democracy will have to be revisited. For When we talk of the    world as a global village (and it is    ever     increasingly     becoming     just that) and try to apply the concept of ‘tolerance', then everybody's     values     and     cultures     must     be acceptable     in     order     to     have a truly universal ‘democracy'. But    when    Western     values     are     the criteria,     then    tolerance     and     multiculturalism     are mere     sham.

Apart    from    the    Westerners    and    the    many libertines    scattered    across    the    world,    there    are    still billions    more    who    subscribe    to   other civilisations  that  operate   on utterly    different foundations from Western liberalism. The undeniable intrusion of the ‘American way of life' as the dominant way is only superficial and its vivid face is an enforced one. It should not be seen as the "satisfaction of other peoples' long-suppressed aspirations". 

From those stigmatised to turn against their own cultural values to become its prime enemies to those forcedly made to accept foreign cultures (post-Taliban Afghanistan, for instance), peoples all over the world had been subjected to a worst kind of intolerance by the same West that talks of tolerance all the time. The call for tolerance is only made when and where the nascent yearnings (always by a very tiny minority) for these Western values are at stake, such as in the Middle East. It is often only a call on non-democratic regimes to tolerate and be respectful of the voices of dissent, but never on democratic states to respect and tolerate the voices of ‘dissent'. 

From these distorted pictures however, the West and other staunch adherents of the ‘liberal cause' finds it easy to pick up pieces of issues here and there and demagogically present their case of universal liberal democracy through inconsiderate ‘international' institutions that could not look beyond Western beliefs and convictions.

 

Double Standards

 

Robert Cooper [3] believes we should get used to the idea of double standards. He and a growing number of academics and statesmen at least believe liberal democracy is not yet universal.  While  they   believe   in  and    advocate   different standards and rules for different peoples, they are not too hypocritical as to claim universality for a global system under which people are treated differently.

The term ‘double standards' is not merely or coincidentally repeated. While a large part of the Western intelligentsia is obviously hypnotised beyond its power to reconsider its duplicitous attitude, it is reasonable to wonder if it is intentional or unconscious. You will understand this better if you watch or listen to some Western supporter of the status-quo fanatically defending it.

            Many commentators and analysts however believe that most political decisions today, especially in global politics, are used for the benefit of some and to suppress others. Double Standards might continue to be denied by the White House (it is the foremost culprit and the most ferocious denier) but it is obviously institutionalised in inter-state relations – after all, this is what political realism involuntarily espouses.

The easiest way to earn a bad reputation today is to espouse something other than liberal democracy. Almost everyone is doing their best to avoid being termed fundamentalist, extremist, terrorist, conspiracy theorist and many such names that will justify their being treated differently. There are many such stamps of illegitimacy on the tables of the White House, 10 Downing Street and many top offices in the West; get stamped with one, and you will all but at best get ignored by a world that don't ask too many questions anymore.

In the game of double standards, America is the champion. The flimsy excuses it gives to questions on IWCT, climate change, Iraq, Camp Delta (Guantanamo Bay), the Extraordinary Rendition, pre-emptive strikes, regime change, the CIA,   the   Arab-Israeli   question, all  indicate how the US does not care what direction the world is moving as long as it will and does achieve its selfish goals.[4]

 NOTES:

 1.         Francis Fukuyama is Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, His book "The End of History and the Last Man" had stirred curiosity and controversy in political and academic circles. 

2.         See the analysis on this in the Introduction to Fukuyama's "End of History and the Last Man".

3.         Cooper, R. – "The Post-modern State", in "Reordering the World: the long-term implications of 9/11". Foreign Policy Centre (2002). P.3

 4.         The United States was instrumental in the establishment of the UN War Crimes tribunal but immediately seek immunity of the court for its army personnel. To achieve this, it lured and threatened poor countries in the UN with economic incentives and boycotts. By 2006, Americans have committed more war crimes than anyone else. In June 2006, five US soldiers raped an Iraqi woman then killed her and four other members of her family and set the house and the corpses ablaze. By August the US army authorities themselves found them guilty of the crime. This happened over a year after the Abu Ghraib scandals and an international row and condemnations that were at most only expected to make the US invaders put a little civility in their behaviour.

 

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