R. Meidani: Some Remarks on Diagnosis: Projecting 2000-2015 democratic trends into 2015-2030-Wider Europe and Post Soviet Eurasia (Democracy and Human Rights in Decline - a call to action) Florence-Italy 23-26 November 2014 1. During the democracy’s third wave, beginning in 1974 in Portugal with Carnation Revolution, followed by the democratic transitions in Latin America and Asia Pacific countries in the 1980s, and a little later in Eastern Europe the number of democracies makes a marked increase in just a few decades. Many of these new democracies are not fully “consolidated,” and remain still fragile. Reasons for this fragility include economic instability, continued elite dominance of politics, a military interference in civilian affairs, tendency for autocratic governance, and others. Some of these countries are now subject to backsliding. It has created the perception that the third wave has crested and began to fall, just as its predecessors did in the first and second waves; to prepare in this way the start of the fourth wave. Another question is the link between economic stagnation or recession and political process. Very important are economic development and political leadership, because as Huntington said the economic development makes potential the democracy, while the political leadership makes it real. In fact, after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, in the immediately followed period of the war on terror some backsliding was evident. Also, the global financial- economic crisis has had a very negative influence. Indeed, this democracy erosion or decline remains a subject of debate. On the other side, the recent events of the Arab Spring, along with democracy movements across several African and Asian nations, at beginning, have created perception of a start of a fourth wave of democratization. But, the change of the Arab Spring to the Arab Winter, and other dangerous events in Africa, including the creation of Caliphate or Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) are manifesting, in fact, the opposite. Particularly, based on many indexes, there is more a decline in the democratic process inside the third wave than the start of the fourth wave... 2. 25 years ago, the collapse of communism generated a massive support and a lot of enthusiasm in all socialist countries. This ferment produced fresh political stars in the new parties. Very promised have been the statutory bases of these new parties. Now, after 25 years, instead of embodying the serious triumph of democratic parameters and free market economy, the situation is evolving wrongly. Indeed, we are now in front of a more complicated puzzle. The political systems, in some of these countries, Albania included, became and remained as hybrid ones, a kind of “Frozen Democracies”. Particularly, during the economic-financial crisis, some of Western values are coming there to question. Instead of further strengthening the democratic institutions, it is considered as an “easy way” to bring into political play “so called strong individuals” quite inclined and fond of powers accumulation. Based on their individual political cultures, traditions and economic problems; a direct consequence is the political desire, through a populist scheme, to feed the nationalist feelings, to centralize the governance while supporting and raising a crop of oligarchs, even admiring the Putinist style of governing, as Joschka Fisher has said. And, it is a clear step back, against people’s democratic aspirations. It means that established democracies should not forget that democracy can be corroded or lost, becomes overtaken by “plutocracy”. And this is happening or has happened, with no substantial reversal in sight. Some argue that increasingly, liberal democracy is threatened by monetocracy, due to growing power of lobbying and money- rather than people-driven political decisions. A clear example is the Orban’s authoritarian government. It has faced these last days a large-scale public protest against the plan to impose a tax on Internet use, as it was before the Erdogan tentative . This reversal of “democracy” to authoritarian regimes following Russia, Turkey, etc., is becoming serious. Because, many leaders of CEE countries, Albania included, while, externally, they are servile and smiling, internally they are rather arrogant or undemocratic, silencing the opposition, media and civil society groups, on pretending to get rid of the attitudes cultivated in the former system. In realty, their main objective is to assemble systematically power through packing courts and the general prosecutor’s office with militants and loyalists, amending the Constitution, approving problematic laws for increasing their entire domination. And this is very bad for the young and fragile democracy! 3. In my view, for a new phase of democratic development or the fourth wave, very important is the use of smart power as a fusion of hard power and soft power strategies. In the fight against terror utilizing simply soft power resources to change the “hearts and minds” of the Taliban groups or IS militants would be quite ineffective; to combat them a hard power component is absolutely necessary. In contrast, in developing relationships with the mainstream Muslim world the soft power resources are needed, while the use of hard power would have damaging effects. In some cases, in international agreements, the “hard power” is present also in diplomacy, even in different negotiations, the involvement of “diplomatic” pressure is quite clear. For instance, in the Ch. V, Ch. VI of Charter of the UN, any recommendation included there could be considered soft. The problem becomes different when we are referring to the Ch. VII. But, explicitly, the military intervention and the use of force are included in the article 42. On the other side, the veto power in the Security Council is a hard power mechanism, which in many cases is blocking the process itself or postponing the right solution for different crises. It speaks on the necessity of the reform in UN, particularly for the Security Council. Also, considering the actual critical situation in the world, I believe, new amendments are necessary in the Charter of UN, considering the fact that the world of today is clearly different of the post-war world! For that, new defined roles or new regulations are needed for different structures or mechanisms of hard power (i.e., NATO) or soft power (i.e., OSCE, or collective bodies functioning by consensus). Very important remains the fight for the respect of Freedoms and Human Rights, particularly strengthening the gender equality in decision-making process. A serious problem today is also the pollution, particularly the global warming. Unfortunately, till now, there is no particular UN Charter for Environment, but only different conventions or treaties, in some cases rejected or not being applied from superpowers- permanent members of SC. But, with the protection of nature it is linked the problem of guarantee of life. Even today, the environmental component of human security makes in many cases more human harm than that of the number of victims in different conflicts. Another problem is the strong protection of the life of any person. As I remember, years ago, the Israelis’ legal, ethical and operational approach to killing terrorist leaders was criticised sharply around the world. But after 9/11, it was adopted by the US and others as a tool in the global war against terror. As we see, it is becoming a central component of the war on terror, a key weapon in the fighting on the IS militants after the execution of journalist James Foley on August 19. For that, based on the principle of Habeas Corpus (Magna Carta 1215), a special legislation in national and global level must be drafted and approved regarding the targeted killing, or the tactical (targeted bombing), particularly when it could be considered a legal and necessary action and when not. On the other hand, we have to think seriously on the future, because something is going wrong in our today world! We have to understand and to find the right response for different questions. For example, what is the real motivation and why there is an increasing number of angry and disaffected young men from around the world now rallying to the IS banner?! Why they are pulled to kill and be killed in the wastelands of Syria and Iraq, to commit to a form of predication unrecognizable to their parents or their communities; what is driving them to acts of horror such as that perpetrated upon Foley, the first American citizen to be killed by the ISIS/ISIL or the other further executions?!...In my view, we must rebuild the trust among peoples, religions, ethnic communities and countries. To rebuild this trust we must rebuild the conceptual framework on democratic governance, particularly considering the free and fair elections as a necessary condition, while the sufficient conditions are linked to cultural, social and economic emancipation. Also, more is needed for the shift of the power from the central government to local authorities, on one side, and to supranational structures (as UN, SC, IMF, WB, WTO, etc.), on the other one, and more strengthening the role of civil society and private agencies in the process of governance. A new political balance and evaluation is needed for the binomials: stability and democracy, democracy and effectiveness, particularly considering many frozen conflicts. 4. One of them was the division of Germany in two parts: East and West, which was resolved successfully, but, not to make wrong estimations on that very important event. Another success, towards the end of the century, was the peace agreement between two main religious groups, the Protestants and the Catholics, in Northern Ireland. Actually, the Belgrade–Pristina negotiations are helping for normalization of relations between two communities, however the finalization is the recognition of Kosovo state (recognized now by 110 countries) from Serbia. But, there are many frozen conflicts everywhere in the world, such as: relations India- Pakistan for Kashmir (“frozen” since 1947/1965/1999), division of Korea (frozen since 1953), Arab- Israeli conflict with Palestinian question in the center (“frozen” since 1948 /1967 /1973 /1982 /2006 /2009 /2012/2014); Western Sahara conflict (frozen since 1991); Cyprus dispute (frozen since 1974); situation in Transnistria (frozen since 1992); Nagorno- Karabakh war (frozen since 1994); Abkhaz –Georgian conflict (frozen since 2008); Georgian- Ossetian conflict (frozen since 2008), or today Ukraine- Russia conflict with a Russian tendency to treat it as a frozen one after the Crimea annexation, etc. They must be resolved…Another question is what to do in international level when one of the permanent members is in the origin of the conflict, like in the case of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine! For that we need to consider respective amendments in the UN Charter to find answers to those dangerous situations...Coming back again to the conflict Palestine- Israel, it was very important, in the framework of two states solution, the decision of the Swedish government to recognize the state of Palestine. And, the solution is there. It was, for the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Margot Wallstrom “an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”; while Foreign Minister Lieberman of Israel, in his statement said that the decision by the Swedish government to recognize a Palestinian state was unfortunate and would strengthen radical elements and Palestinian recalcitrance. He has also added, with a wrong unjustified irony: “the Swedish government must understand that relations in the Middle East are more complex than one of Ikea’s flat-pack pieces of furniture, and would do well to act with greater sensitivity and responsibility”…Also, in global level the intervention must be better legalized and different sanctions or military might must be applied when it should be absolutely necessary, because in all these cases the simple people are suffering, while the leaders in conflicts could only accumulated more power and nationalist support. More, in the global world of digital penetration, we must elaborate in detail the strategy of smart power, using particularly special mechanisms such as cultural, educational (teaching) and economic diplomacy.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 11:39:01 +0000
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