Laws and Walls
E-mail debate with a German friend:
No, of course not. They are words on the edge of being so loaded with different meanings for different people that they lose all meaning. But not yet. They still mean something. And you can throw in a third bloated word -- liberty -- which means yet a third important thing.
A people's governance is essentially in its own hands. People have the power to change governments, not the other way around. I call that "democracy." If you want to find out if a word has any meaning or not, try to find its opposite. If you can't find it, the meaning is gone. The opposite of "democracy" is "autocracy."
It doesn't much matter whether the economic system is capitalist or socialist, or whether it is a federal system or a town meeting or a parliamentary democracy. There's an essential quality we're talking about.
Ask the Afghans. Ask the Iraqis. Ask the Ukrainians.
Very well. Iraq under Saddam had a constitution. Iraq under Saddam had a rule of law. Saddam followed the laws he wrote. He won the elections he set up. All was done according to law. I remember a story from an Iraqi blogger I read: Saddam used to take triumphal tours of the cities he ruled, to receive his adoring (and terrified) public. One day, he seemed in a particularly jovial mood, and a citizen dared to approach him with some personal grievance -- a property dispute or something like that.
It was a bold move; the man literally took his life in his hands. But he had read the tyrant's mood correctly, and Saddam was disposed to grant his request. Saddam turned to one of his lackeys, pointed to his supplicant, and said, "Sabaa, write a law for him!"
Who determines what rule is just? The Saddams of the world? Or the people?
Your typical European will turn away from the hard question, but answer with, "not American bombs!" As though that's all we have been doing these three years. You see the weeds and thistles cleared away, and think, "how violent." You don't stick around to see the soil tilled and planted, and the flowers and fruits begin to grow.
That's because you already have it. It was an outgrowth of your national past. It was not the only possible outcome for Germany. You got there by a hard road, in which many German people sacrificed everything.
One of the peculiarities of this American administration is that it wraps up free market economics into democracy and freedom. I don't think that's always a mistake, but I do think it's taken to excess in the White House's thinking. Perhaps a Swedish economic model wouild work better for Iraq than an American one. Hell, it probably would work better for Iraq than it does in Sweden, since Iraq has a vast, and youthful work force.
More and more? I'd say less and less. In the '80s, we talked the same way, and had a sad tendency to support dictators in the Phillipines, South Korea, Latin America. Arbitrary? Ask the Afghans. Ask the Iraqis. I'd say we're finally living up to our rhetoric. Don't you recognize what's starting to happen in the Middle East? Look at Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia.
News quiz: Who said this this week?
But the Germans, who ought to know better than anyone, can't.
The answer to "Who Said That" is Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation.
P.S.: Nice to know we still have about 100 friends over there.
P.P.S.: Even "Der Spiegel" is willing to think the unthinkable:
(Let me first mention that "Freiheit und Demokratie" and "freedom and democracy" are used at equivalent translations everywhere -- while they are not.)
No, of course not. They are words on the edge of being so loaded with different meanings for different people that they lose all meaning. But not yet. They still mean something. And you can throw in a third bloated word -- liberty -- which means yet a third important thing.
A people's governance is essentially in its own hands. People have the power to change governments, not the other way around. I call that "democracy." If you want to find out if a word has any meaning or not, try to find its opposite. If you can't find it, the meaning is gone. The opposite of "democracy" is "autocracy."
It doesn't much matter whether the economic system is capitalist or socialist, or whether it is a federal system or a town meeting or a parliamentary democracy. There's an essential quality we're talking about.
Ask the Afghans. Ask the Iraqis. Ask the Ukrainians.
Let me pass on a very interesting comment I heard yesterday on tv. It went along the lines of: Bush spricht immer von Demokratie und Freiheit. Aber er meidet den Begriff Rechtsstaatlichkeit wie der Teufel das Weihwasser.
Rechtsstaatlichkeit - A mediocre translation of that would be "rule of law", like "Rechtsstaat" can be translated as "constitutional state".
Very well. Iraq under Saddam had a constitution. Iraq under Saddam had a rule of law. Saddam followed the laws he wrote. He won the elections he set up. All was done according to law. I remember a story from an Iraqi blogger I read: Saddam used to take triumphal tours of the cities he ruled, to receive his adoring (and terrified) public. One day, he seemed in a particularly jovial mood, and a citizen dared to approach him with some personal grievance -- a property dispute or something like that.
It was a bold move; the man literally took his life in his hands. But he had read the tyrant's mood correctly, and Saddam was disposed to grant his request. Saddam turned to one of his lackeys, pointed to his supplicant, and said, "Sabaa, write a law for him!"
But the German word is more comprehensive. "Recht" means "right" and "justice" too. (so, e.g., in a way Rechtsstaatlichket means "just rule" too).
Who determines what rule is just? The Saddams of the world? Or the people?
Your typical European will turn away from the hard question, but answer with, "not American bombs!" As though that's all we have been doing these three years. You see the weeds and thistles cleared away, and think, "how violent." You don't stick around to see the soil tilled and planted, and the flowers and fruits begin to grow.
A lot of what is carried in the term "freedom and democracy" for you Americans is carried in the term "rule of law" for us Germans.
That's because you already have it. It was an outgrowth of your national past. It was not the only possible outcome for Germany. You got there by a hard road, in which many German people sacrificed everything.
(you Americans, as always, focus on opportunities, on the opportunity to participate -- we Germans focus on the result, on getting a share)
One of the peculiarities of this American administration is that it wraps up free market economics into democracy and freedom. I don't think that's always a mistake, but I do think it's taken to excess in the White House's thinking. Perhaps a Swedish economic model wouild work better for Iraq than an American one. Hell, it probably would work better for Iraq than it does in Sweden, since Iraq has a vast, and youthful work force.
"Freiheit und Demokratie" on the other hand has more and more become an US slogan, used seemingly arbitrarily.
More and more? I'd say less and less. In the '80s, we talked the same way, and had a sad tendency to support dictators in the Phillipines, South Korea, Latin America. Arbitrary? Ask the Afghans. Ask the Iraqis. I'd say we're finally living up to our rhetoric. Don't you recognize what's starting to happen in the Middle East? Look at Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia.
News quiz: Who said this this week?
"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
But the Germans, who ought to know better than anyone, can't.
The answer to "Who Said That" is Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation.
P.S.: Nice to know we still have about 100 friends over there.
P.P.S.: Even "Der Spiegel" is willing to think the unthinkable:
"President Ronald Reagan's visit to Berlin in 1987 was, in many respects, very similar to President George W. Bush's visit to Mainz on Wednesday. Like Bush's visit, Reagan's trip was likewise accompanied by unprecedented security precautions. A handpicked crowd cheered Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate while large parts of the Berlin subway system were shut down. And the Germany Reagan was traveling in, much like today's Germany, was very skeptical of the American president and his foreign policy. When Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate -- and the Berlin Wall -- and demanded that Gorbachev "tear down this Wall," he was lampooned the next day on the editorial pages. He is a dreamer, wrote commentators. Realpolitik looks different.
But history has shown that it wasn't Reagan who was the dreamer as he voiced his demand. Rather, it was German politicians who were lacking in imagination -- a group who in 1987 couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany. Those who spoke of reunification were labelled as nationalists and the entire German left was completely uninterested in a unified Germany. ...
When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall fell."
