Democracy promotion or a continuity of colonialism?

(Submitted in 2016)

History is said to be written by the winners; therefore, colonialism which was a horrible period for the colonized is deemed to have been beneficial for them and a mission driven by altruism. For instance, we tend to hear that colonization gave “wonderful gifts” (D’Souza 6) to civilizations or even that colonization was good because left colonies with stronger institutions apt to maintain stability within a given country. However, rarely we do talk about the negative consequences of colonization. Why? because the political discourse surrounding it has not only trivialized the phenomenon but has also justified it; the media through presenting “the others” in a way that arise compassion and dehumanize those persons and their culture have presented the world in a dichotomous way. A dichotomy based on us versus them, them being of course always inferior, in need of something or lacking important things such as technology or civilization. Both the political discourse and media have forged myths such as the “white man’s burden” that presents western people’s duty to enlighten parts of the world deemed to live in darkness, duty which of course has a ‘divine origin’. This twists the truth about the others and creates a climate of ignorance and fear that ensures people’s support of government’s actions presented as purposeful and justified despite the incredible violence they require. This leads to question ourselves on how is democracy promotion that involves forcible regime change a continuity of colonialism and how like colonialism nothing good can come out of it.

Democracy promotion, besides the white man’s burden can be explained by democracy being presented as the greatest and ultimate goal a country can achieve. Indeed, this type of political organization involves universal values such as freedom, justice, equality that are praised by the world’s order leading countries. Thus, in order to spread it the end justifies the means as Machiavelli said in his book The prince. This implies that all actions, whether good or bad, are justifiable as the ends are deemed honourable. As colonialism, democracy promotion is not “based on philanthropy”, it is “a form of conquest and rule” (D’Souza 6) even though presented diplomatically and peacefully. In other words, regime changers or democracy promoters “do not care whether these countries end up with democratic or constitutional regimes” (Owen 6). Only their interests matter and “the rhetoric about freedom and tyranny or democratization” (Owen 3) only act as “cover for domination” (Owen 3). The typical example is with the greatest regime changer in the world: The United States. For example, in 2001, 9/11 happens, Afghanistan is invaded, Iraq is in the news, the Middle East is presented as the axis of evil and Saddam Hussein as a tyrant. This raises within the United States’ elites a need to take him off in order to start a democratization process and establish a new political entity. The United States present their evidence to the United Nations who are unconvinced by those evidences and do not grant their support. Nonetheless, the United States wrapped in their reputation of Human Rights defender and seeing an opportunity to extend their presence in the Middle East went ahead and invaded Iraq. Later on, we will find out that the evidences presented by the USA were false and that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Their multiple interventions in the Middle East and their public strategy goal statements such as the Defense Planning Guidance presented in 1992 underline the true motivation behind their actions. The desire to maintain their global supremacy by maintaining a military preeminence around the world reinforced by the desire to remain the incontestable leader in the world, which involves getting rid of any rival that might contest their hegemony, is a plausible explanation for USA’s actions.

Moreover, as colonialism, democracy promotion is a race for resources. For instance, “imperialists vied to plant their flag in the most lucrative spots, wherever the spices were rich or the sugar cane tall” (The economist 1). Consequently, if during colonialism colonizers were interested by raw materials such as ivory, rubber, cocoa or tea, our modern colonizers, given the development of technology, are more interested by more expensive resources such as oil. In fact, “territories gain strategic importance from their natural resources” (Owen 26). Given this fact, it is interesting to take a look at the countries within which regime changers have intervened. Most of them are petroleum exporting countries and rich in natural resources such as Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan. This is revelatory as there are many countries in the world that suffer from political instability but as they do not have interesting resources for the regime changers are not qualified for the help presented through the forcible regime promotion. Burundi, an East African country which suffers from wars and genocides since decades is an example.

All the facts mentioned above put a light on the parallel that exists between colonialism and forcible regime promotion. Not only similar because they both involve a race for resources and a hypocrisy from political elites that hide their real intentions behind share of values, both colonialism and democracy promotion are not likely to have good consequences. Colonialism has decimated populations, whether by murder or sanctions “Tens of thousands were worked to death; crops were destroyed so that many starved” (Sante 2). The same scenario is repeated with democracy promotion, and it is funny how Owen through mentioning that “most promoters are governments (…) with significant relative military capability” (Owen 26), underlines the necessity to have a military power in order to be a great and effective promoter. It gives the impression that having the ability to kill and instore terror and chaos is a great requirement for an effective democracy promotion. In fact, when regime changers such as the United States were bombing Gaddafi’s Libya, it was not only on the government, it was all over the country destroying citizens’ houses and killing them. The same for Iraq and Afghanistan where on a daily basis thousands of people are killed because of American troops and bombings. Not only causing physical damages, the diverse sanctions the United States has imposed on Iran only strangle the population and hurt the middle class considered to be the most democratizing forces in any country. Rather than freeing citizens of these countries, the foreign occupation and intervention bring the deprivation of human rights but also of legal and constitutional rights.

Furthermore, like colonialism which provokes ethnical fragmentation and conflicts, forcible regime change plays an important part in the rise of dangerous groups. As a matter of fact, even though it does not seem like, the biggest factor in the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was the United States’ invasion. This finds explanation in the fact that the United States upon arrival dismantled the Iraqi government and army leaving people that have lived their entire life in the army without job. Moreover, American detention centers were also an oasis for ISIS’s members as they created opportunities for them to get together, target their common enemies and draw up their plans.

Finally, if colonization was detrimental to society because of population decimation, exploitation of resources and deprivation of rights, democracy promotion appears to be a continuity of colonization, and seems to have similar dramatic consequences. Included in democracy promotion, forcible regime as argued by Owen and Downes is a recipe for chaos as it generally involves military use of force and does not solve problems at their roots. Lastly, as soon as military power or force is involved, it never brings something good. In other words, whatever admirable purpose the United States or any regime changer claim to have, there are little or none benefits for the countries receiving this help. Intolerance towards others’ sufferings, exploitation, stereotypes and prejudges are just some examples of what colonialism has done and of what democracy promotion aka forcible regime change might amplify.

WORKS CITED

• Owen, John. “Forcible regime promotion, then and now”. Clash of Ideologies. 2010

• Downes, Alexander B. “Regime Change Doesn’t Work”. Boston Review. 2011

• Sante, Luc. “Leopold’s Heart of Darkness”. San Francisco Gate. 1998

• D’Souza, Dinesh. (2002) “Two Cheers for Colonialism”. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2002

• The Economist. “Winds of Change”. The Economist journal. 2006

• Caricature from https://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/us-backed-politicians-against-syrians/ , Ajamu Baraka