Dystopia

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Ap
La Jornada Maya

Martes 23 de octubre, 2018

In my last few articles, I have focused on the current trends against liberal democracy and towards authoritarian populism in many parts of the world. I have questioned how it is that people support authoritarian populists; why they seem to be abandoning liberal democrats in certain countries, and what can be done to reverse these trends.

This leads me to question in what kind of world do we live today?

A world where a journalist can walk into a Consulate General and be killed and dismembered for his political beliefs. On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist critical of the current Saudi regime, entered the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey, and never came out. Although at the time of writing there was no confirmation of his fate, CNN was reporting that, after weeks of denying that Khashoggi had been killed, the Saudi government was planning to announce that he had died as a result of an interrogation gone wrong. The Turkish government informed media that Khashoggi had been tortured, murdered, and dismembered inside the Consulate.

All evidence indicates that a hit squad of fifteen had arrived at the Consulate General from Saudi Arabia the Saturday before Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Indeed, as Adnan R. Khan reported in the October 15, 2018 edition of Canada’s Macleans magazine, “It’s not the first time, and they’re not alone. It seems these days more and more authoritarian regimes are using diplomatic missions as command centres where they hatch plots to intimidate and, in some cases, murder their critics. Russia is the most obvious example. Turkey has also gone down that path, though not to such an extreme degree as the Russians or the Saudis. The trend is part of a bigger shift in diplomacy, from its traditional role as purveyor of information and conflict de-escalation to active participant in the political agendas of whichever government it represents”.

What kind of a world do we live in?

A world in which the U.S. Supreme Court can have two accused sexual aggressors seated and passing judgement on laws that will affect a generation or two of U.S. citizens. Their nominations supported by all Republican Senators and Trump followers. A world in which the White House blocked the FBI from conducting a full-fledged investigation of the accusations made against now Justice Brett Kavanagh. A world in which the President himself stands accused of multiple counts of sexual aggression, and who has been quoted on tape as enjoying “grabbing women by the pussy”.

A world in which U.S. legislators from the Republican party can preclude tens of thousands of indigenous and African-Americans from voting simply by changing rules arbitrarily. By insisting that people in North Dakota, with a large indigenous population, use street addresses rather than post office boxes when, in fact, many indigenous reservations do not have street addresses and indigenous people must rely on post office boxes to receive their mail and establish residency. By insisting that citizens use government issued photo identification cards and then closing down motor vehicle licensing offices in African-American neighborhoods, making it extremely difficult to obtain the credentials they need to cast their vote.

A world in which President Trump can accuse a Senator of lying about her indigenous background and announce on videotape that he will donate $1 million to her favorite charity if she submits to a DNA test to prove her claim. When she does, he has the audacity to claim that he never made such a promise, although the tape is played on all non-Trump global media. He then says on air that he will only believe her if he himself performs the test. As if he knows anything about science!

A world in which the U.S. president has been quoted lying outright several thousand times since assuming office, and, yet, whose core support grows with every announcement of some defect in his personality. And in which he is supported by almost all Republican legislators at all levels of government despite his continued attacks on the institutions of democracy.

Example?

President Trump has come out publicly against the Federal Reserve´s increase in interest rates when the Fed is completely independent of government. Indeed, in all democracies, central banks are independent of government control to avoid governments or political parties from using the fundamental levers of financial power for political and partisan ends.

What kind of a world do we live in?

A world in which the United Nations announces that climate change will be irreversible within twelve years if steps are not taken immediately by governments to reverse global warming.

Yet political leaders like Donald Trump continue to posit that climate change is not a man-made phenomenon as he pushes for the reintroduction of fossil fuels as a major source of energy for the foreseeable future. He has tried to eliminate the solar energy industry from the United States in favor of what he calls “clean coal” – a complete contradiction in terms but one aimed at gaining a few votes in economically depressed regions of the United States where people voted for him and continue to form his core of support.

A world in which Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party, says that the UN report is telling humanity, “You’ve got one chance to protect your kids’ world, you’ve got one chance, and it’s expiring in about 10-12 years, to hold global average temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees and if you miss that ... you end up in a situation where the worst case scenario isn’t bad weather, it’s the collapse of our civilization and the extinction of millions of species, potentially including us.”

And politicians on the Right refuse to listen while many on the left pretend to listen by simply upping tax revenues without believable policy or plans. Indeed, Ontario premier Doug Ford cancelled the Ontario Government’s cap and trade program – a move that could cost the Canadian province up to three billion dollars to buy back cap and trade contracts or risk getting sued, according to an article in The Globe and Mail on October 16th, in which Ontario Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman was quoted as saying that “Ontario’s financial watchdog says the Ford government’s decision to cancel the province’s cap-and-trade system will lead to a loss of $3-billion in revenue over the next four years. By cancelling cap-and-trade, the province’s annual budget balance will worsen by a cumulative total of $3-billion over the next four years.”

A world in which politicians, especially on the Left, stand mildly against the construction of pipelines, although they are far safer than road or rail for transporting petroleum. As long as we all insist on driving cars and trucks, running trains and flying planes, we will need fuel. We are still at least a generation away from using electricity generated cleanly to power transportation vehicles.

A world in which the UN Human Rights Commission finds Israel the biggest transgressor of human rights in a world suffering from too many Saudi Arabias, Irans, Syrias, and North Koreas. Indeed, where decisions of life or death in many countries are taken arbitrarily while the rest of the world simply acquiesces.

Yet on we go, foregoing common sense and human decency.

The perfect becomes the enemy of the good.

We live in a world in which populists continue trying to emulate Donald Trump’s politics of division and fear and feel legitimized by his behavior and language.

And in which the left also continues to attack the foundations of democracy and of economic sustainability as in Venezuela. Where the current Nicaraguan leadership continues its armed attacks on demonstrators simply calling for democratic change. Where the leadership of both countries have stacked the courts and the Congress with supporters in lieu of democratically elected legislators. Where the media has been cowed into submission or simply eliminated. Where thousands or even millions of citizens have had to flee oppression and a collapsing economy incapable of sustaining decent human life.

A world in which the extreme right and left are gaining power every day as they seek to remake the liberal order of the late 20th Century into a dystopian world of their own creation. And voters are following blindly without creative and innovative ideas from the center that would result in renewed faith by a majority of voters in the democratic institutions that populists are weakening by the day.

Dystopia?

It is gaining ground and we who share a liberal viewpoint should be very concerned.

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