4 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

This is more or less a summary of an norwegian article written by Erling Dokk Holm. But i found it to be extremely enlightening and wish to share if with you.

When Amnesty International criticizes China for breaking vital human rights, it sounds great in our western ears. But in a large amount of countries this criticism falls on deaf ears. China stands as a model of how a state should be organized. A strong centralized government that does not allow political opposition or individual freedom in the political field, still manages to keep the wheels spinning. Ten percent economic growth, year after year, is an argument hard to match.

Once upon a time - that is during the aftershocks of the ending of the cold war and the collapse of Soviet -practically everybody thoguht that the western democratic model would become the standard model for governments. The american philosopher Francis Fukuyama gained world celebrity in 1992 by postulating: "what we may be witnessing is (...) the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government".

[...]

China is in many fields today most likely the worlds most capitalistic society. Workers without independent unions to protect themselves, the capitalist have very little to worry about. Competition between children, even at kindergarten-age, are extreme. And even the most competition-oriented western parents would be apalled if they got to see what their children would have to go through to gain success in the Chinese system. The chinese leaders are not just holding their 1.4 billion citizens together with the help of suppression and control, but also patriotism. how much support the system has nobody knows, but its not unlikely that the communist party would have won an free election.

200 years ago Great Britain became the world's leading superpower. throughout the entire medieval age and up to that time china had the biggest amount of power. the biggest amount of citizens, the biggest territory, the most developed economy, the most advanced industry, the most sofisticated government, no other nation could reach China. Although China have been invaded many times and its influences and borders have varied in size, the central government have been very stable, compared to the chaos of royalties and kingdoms in Europe.

The Olympics shows us that this 200 year break has now ended. the Chinese are back, and it should not surprise anyone that they have returned. The Chinese model works, its a neat package og market economy, suppression and nationalism. Russia under Putin adopted a related form of this model and it worked out alot better for them than during Jeltzins west-european democracy-model. A large number of countries looks up to China. The countries of the middle east especially. What makes matters worse is that the Chinese model looks alot like Fascism, and its this beast that we see the contours of under the waving Chinese flag. It takes time to realign and see the world as it really is, but the fact is that its about time to give up the dream that China will become like us, and rather admit that Fascism is the ruling system of the 21st century.

So, wow. this article really turns my view upon ourselves around. mixed together with Russia attacking Georgia now, we in the west are in for a much darker time than what we have anticipated. If Russia continues down the path of fascism together with China, we will quickly be outmaneuvered by hard-line governments that have the right to kill their own citizens in the name of victory over other opposing nations.

The two biggest elements to change this development is imo:

• Spreading knowledge of democracy and freedom to the grass-root of such countries, making the wish for more freedom an dangerous undercurrent to the aforementioned countries.
• Keeping up our own economic growth and influences with more and more hard-line and neoconservative thinking, ultimately gazing into the abyss long enough to become a monster ourselves.

Personally i can't really imagine how things will look in a few decades. We are still somewhat on top, but we are looking at a potential humanitarian loss beyond imagination. It might be the turning point of civilization as we know it, and it is the stuff of legends. it is a reprise of the political climate before world war two imo, and i don't like it whatsoever.

[Romanul]

Interesting.

But unhappily,fascism lives in Europe too.(Italy...)

Disguise as an romanian ghepsy,go to Rome,and wait to get kicked.

[Phil]

An interesting article. However, I guess I'm still one of those misguided people who think the democratic model is the future.

I believe China's role as fascist, anti-humanitarian country has been exaggerated and distorted recently. I do not deny that they still lack a big deal of societal progress (first and foremost being the human rights), but we in the 'modern' western world often tend to forget how long it took America and Europe to reach our status quo. If you set the starting point with the industrialisation you can round it up to 200 years. China, however, hasn't started with this evolution until about 30 years ago, yet still everybody expects them to reach 'our level' almost instantly. And that's not even taking the huge cultural and historical differences into account.
Don't get me wrong, I am in no way a fan of the Communist Party, neither do I want to depict them as fighting for western standards, facing unreachable expectations. I'm just saying it might not be as bad as it looks, on the whole.

I'm not quite sure what to think of Russia, but I'd say they are not becoming a fascist country, but rather returning to a tsarist system. Admittedly, that's not really an advantage...

Also, our glorious western democracies aren't exactly flawless either. Sometimes, I'm just as worried by things happening in our countries. Not to forget that it's a fine line between advocating democracy and imperialist behaviour. Of course I want to see democracy as the ruling system in all countries, but we need to realise that we, the west, do not own the truth and neither are we meant to take care of the rest of the world.

[duke_Qa]

DL:
Nothing is perfect, and the Chinese system is as of yet not a fascist system the way we think of fascism. The problem is that its a second good choice in a modern capitalistic society, and for many dictatorships and low-end nations, its alot better than jumping into democracy and go through that birth-hell. In fact, its the best out of two worlds in their eyes, and once they get to that point they might not need to "upgrade" later on.

Romanul:
Italy and its reversion back to Berlusconi might have been a right-turn, but its far from the suppression and government control that we see in the Chinese or Russian systems. Although the political attacks on Roma people in Italy is not something we cherish, its not as bad as that we have in other nations.


If we only worry about the inconveniences of our own people, who will raise their voices to the distant horrors of the more savage world? Nothing is perfect, and sometimes we need to look at the bigger picture and look at what will bring a brighter future...

[Phil]

I'm not sure how many countries actually think "let's do fascism first and when the country has reached a certain stability and prosperity, we can move on to democracy". Those who are fascists probably plan to keep their system anyway. It needs to be noted though that totalitarianism alone is not fascism.

If we only worry about the inconveniences of our own people, who will raise their voices to the distant horrors of the more savage world? Nothing is perfect, and sometimes we need to look at the bigger picture and look at what will bring a brighter future...

I actually didn't mean we simply shouldn't care. What I was saying is that we can't tell other countries, let alone cultures, what they should and should not do and expect them to obey. We're not the pure angels who need to educate the savage barbaric tribes around us. Europe has shown this attitude in the past and it wasn't one of our magic moments.

I realise this is quite paradox because our western culture kind of demands that we spread the humanitarian ideals, but on the other hand, every people has the right to live their own way. This, again, is of course paradox because in many nations it seems the people just don't manage to free themselves from their oppresive leaders.

I've had a rather interesting discussion on this topic recently in which my father claimed it would be Europe's job to eliminate people like Mugabe and ensure that african countries can develop into real democracies, but I'm not quite convinced. Maybe it would be our job to free the people who want their rights from their dictators, maybe democracy really needs a long time and a lot of blood before it actually works and remains stable. I can't tell.