Democratic values suffering steady erosion in the West
July 13, 2016, 12:00 pm
People pose for photographs with members of the New Black Panther party after they announced their intent to protest the death of Alton Sterling at the Baton Rouge Police Department Headquarters in Baton Rouge, Saturday, July 9, 2016 - AFP
With the steady rise of racial tensions in the US, close on the heels of the killing of two black men by the US police in Minnesota and Louisiana and the retaliatory gunning down of five white US police officers in Dallas, comes the disquieting news that support for Ku Klux Clan type organizations is on the increase in the US. In fact, there has been a notable addition to the number of such extremist outfits in the country.
It is against this general backdrop that current race related developments in the US should be assessed. Politicians such as Donald Trump are creatures of the spreading anti-minority sentiment in sections of the West and the recent killing of Afro-Americans could not have come at a worse time for the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’. There is no doubt that the anti-minority rhetoric of the US Right, spewed by the likes of Trump, has played a major role in intensifying anti-Black sentiments in the country. Their rhetoric, if not devalued and debunked quickly, sets the tone for future race relations in the US and this thought ought to be most discomforting for liberal-democratic opinion everywhere.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US which monitors racist and hate groups in the country was quoted as saying that the number of these extremist groups had increased from 784 to 892 between 2014 and 2015, a 14 percent rise. This figure has doubled across the country since 1999 when the number of such outfits in the US was 457, the SPLC said.
So, extremist racial sentiment, in particularly the US South, is seeing a gradual increase in recent times, in tandem with a deterioration of white-black relations, and the observer is left to wonder whether parts of the US would be witnessing dramatic social disintegration in the teeth of race hate bred violence.
However, the current racial tensions in the US should not come as a surprise to those who have been witness to the steady rise of the extreme political Right in parts of Europe over the past decade or two.
The Brexit crisis is one of the most recent pointers to the substantial influence the extreme Right is beginning to exert on the politics of the West. But prior to Britain being caught up in this worrying wave, parts of France was engulfed by it and illegal immigration was one of the triggers to the Right’s rising political fortunes there. In Germany too, the Right is proving assertive in the face of refugee and immigration-linked tensions. The refugee influx from Syria, the Middle East and connected issues have tended to aggravate these divisions. In Britain, a rising social welfare bill, stemming from increasing migration, was a factor in the Brexit break-up.
The Brexit crisis is one of the most recent pointers to the substantial influence the extreme Right is beginning to exert on the politics of the West. But prior to Britain being caught up in this worrying wave, parts of France was engulfed by it and illegal immigration was one of the triggers to the Right’s rising political fortunes there. In Germany too, the Right is proving assertive in the face of refugee and immigration-linked tensions. The refugee influx from Syria, the Middle East and connected issues have tended to aggravate these divisions. In Britain, a rising social welfare bill, stemming from increasing migration, was a factor in the Brexit break-up.
But the general backdrop to the assertive rise of the Right in Western politics is the increasing threat posed to the West by religious fundamentalist violence of the kind perpetrated by the IS, the Al-qaeda and its affiliates. The rise of the Right in this situation is a negative fallout of the worst kind for the democracies of the West but is an exceptional boon for the Jihadists.
This is primarily because the resultant hostility towards Muslim minority groups by Western states and on the part of the majority communities in them, is utilized by Jihadist groups to foment disaffection among these minority communities against the states concerned. Thus, is the Jihadists’ recruitment pool steadily enlarged.
A siege mentality seems to have gripped sections of the West, including the US, and this climate of fear is being ruthlessly exploited by the Right to make out that white populations in the hemisphere are endangered by the presence of minority communities among them. This is the essential backdrop to the rise of political actors of the likes of Donald Trump in the US and Marie Le Pen in France, to take just two examples. It set the stage for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in Britain at the height of the recent Brexit-linked referendum campaign. Among other things, racial integration and unity are seen as a bogey by the Right. She was killed by a man who said from the dock that his name was, ‘I’ll not be a traitor to my motherland’, or something to that effect. More than shades of Natzism.
Therefore, if racial tolerance and unity together with social equality, for example, are seen as central to the project of building and consolidating democracy in a country, such values should be seen as being seriously endangered by the rise of the extreme political Right, which is, of course, averse to democratic norms and values.
It is against this general backdrop that current race related developments in the US should be assessed. Politicians such as Donald Trump are creatures of the spreading anti-minority sentiment in sections of the West and the recent killing of Afro-Americans could not have come at a worse time for the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’. There is no doubt that the anti-minority rhetoric of the US Right, spewed by the likes of Trump, has played a major role in intensifying anti-Black sentiments in the country. Their rhetoric, if not devalued and debunked quickly, sets the tone for future race relations in the US and this thought ought to be most discomforting for liberal-democratic opinion everywhere.
These observations ought to help focus world opinion on the role sections of a country’s political and social elite play in rousing communal passions and in perpetuating ethnic prejudice and discrimination. That the far Right in the US, Britain and France, for instance, is doing just this is beyond dispute. But it is the considered opinion of this columnist that these observations are also generally true of the developing world, including Sri Lanka, in so far as the Right in these countries is also part of the ruling elite.
However, these tendencies that are harmful to democratic development cannot be glossed over or ignored by democratic opinion the world over. What ought to cause concern is that some of those wielding or hoping to wield political power within democratic countries, are openly critical and condemnatory of values and norms that are central to democracy.
Besides Trump, there is the case of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who advocates the killing of criminals and underground elements. Duterte did not campaign for his position on a racist plank but his open advocacy of the use of force by anyone against the criminal underworld has the same effect of undermining the core values of democracy. For, only the state and some of its agencies enjoy the right of exercising law and order powers.
This cannot be done by ordinary citizens. If they do so, the current anarchic tendencies of the world would be further aggravated.
