Since the advent of the century, observers who keep an eye on the ideological conflict have predicted that liberal democracy is on a decline. I remember my meeting with General Hamid Gul over 15 years ago in which he said that the first sign of the defeat of the Western democracy would be the disintegration of the European Union. This would be followed by NATO and then people will lose their trust in the Western system.
General Hamid Gul is no longer among us but EU is mired in uncertainty and Britain has left. NATO has suffered a defeat in Afghanistan against a force that wasn’t even a state. The Afghan Taliban, who launched small attacks from motorcycles, defeated 44 powerful nations. This clearly implies that the victors who defeated NATO had the support of non-NATO countries. The United States – the leader of the NATO – had now signed a ‘treaty of defeat’ with the victors and failed to negotiate any terms with the Taliban. In fact, they even failed to guarantee the survival of the Western democracy that was imposed on Afghan society during Karzai’s era.
The US is considered the flag-bearer of Western democracy since Second World War and imposed its system on the world. Today democracy is under threat in its own country with an attack on Capitol Hill, the icon of American democracy. There were scenes of chaos with a 60-year-old rebel sitting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with his feet on the desk and another sitting on the chairman’s seat in Congress while another walking away with the podium and grinning at the media. The most organized police force failed to protect the highest seat of office. The building was completely overrun and all parliamentarians were forced to take refuge in bunkers remembering God which they have evicted from the corridors of power. God is confined to the church and people are expected to pay their respect every Sunday and certainly has no place in the affairs of the state.
It is rather pitiful that the 20th Century was considered the era of US democracy. But since the previous twenty years of this century, the US has suffered 9/11 attacks, defeat in two under-developed countries, retreated from Syria when being confronted by Russians, and humiliation by a staged military coup in Turkey. The most horrifying thing is that while the coronavirus pandemic may have killed a few thousand people in third-world countries, it has devastated the US where 400,000 people are infected and an average of 4,000 are dying every day. This is the result of the hypocritical system which gives the illusion that it is ‘by the people, for the people’.
The system of Western democracy only exists for the capitalists and appeases the traders, businessmen and industrialists not the helpless ordinary citizens.
Then why is Pakistan not allowed to introduce a uniform syllabus? Can’t we have our own media policy? Do we have the freedom to make out own laws? If barbarians like Mullah Fazlullah impose their ignorance on us then doesn’t the United States also imposes their system on us? Is imposition a crime or imposition by anyone except the US a crime?
The US is now in a tussle with China which will lead to even greater global disorder. Didn’t the US cause the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising to impose its system? Didn’t it occupy Georgia’s parliament with the help of rebels a few years ago? Didn’t it instigate people to come on the street against Putin? After Gadhafi’s body was dragged on the street of Libya, Hillary Clinton exclaimed ‘we’re here, we’ve won’? Hasn’t the US interfered in electoral system and deposed elected prime ministers?
This is the summary of US democracy. If this system favoured the people then why would Trump receive 70 million votes even though he refused to accept defeat and claimed the elections were rigged. Why would people prefer populism over liberal democracy? What was considered ‘revolution’ in other countries is considered ‘rebellion’ in US? This is nothing by hypocrisy.
This nationalism has penetrated US society that Francis Fukuyama had predicted the end of history and liberal democracy. Noam Chomsky has already dismissed the notion of US democracy. This raises the question why US is no longer giving the lessons of Western democracy. The mighty US is gradually losing its grip on the world. Millions of people are handed food stamps while the US is spending billions on rebellions in other countries. This great game cannot continue anymore.
