Fictional elections
Why is it that absolute dictators like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe need the fiction of fake elections to justify their continued control over their country? The beating and killing of opponents reached a pitch in Zimbabwe so that the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tzvangurai, was forced to withdraw from the run-off election to avoid futher murder and maiming of his supporters. Yet, Mugabe has continued with the farcical, predetermined election by forcing people to vote for him! Evidently, even for absolute dictators, a vote has some sacred manifestation.
Many dictators have likewise manipulated elections to rise to and continue in power, such as Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Nicolae Ceaucescu, Kim Il Sung and Fidel Castro. They require the fictional support and adulation of the people in order to feel justified in doing what they would do anyway, murder and maim in the name of their own selves, sometimes under the fiction of an ideological party such as Communism, Fascism or Nazism.
Of course, none of this would happen without the guaranteed support of the army or equivalent armed forces. Both Castro and Khomeini of Iran swept away previous dictatorships, that after their own depradations appeared benign by comparison. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that while the Czar filled prison cells built for one, with 5 prisoners, Stalin filled the same cell with 100. In the prisons of the Shah hundreds were incarcerated and dozens were killed, but the same prisons in Iran now contain thousands and the numbers killed are uncountable. So it goes, the forces that called for change, offering a vision of hope and utopia for the people, lead only to greater repression and reaction.
How to protect ourselves from such monsters? Perhaps only for legal protection, the constitution of every country, guaranteed by the UN, should contain a clause that no one man can control all the power without a strong and viable opposition, and the guarantee of free speech and fair elections. Of course, this would make no actual difference, but it does emphasize that democracy is not only a Western tradition, but a universal right that all peoples aspire to.
In this respect, it is unacceptable that the Organization of African States and the South African Government itself, have done nothing to prevent Mugabe from consolidating his dictatorship and control over Zimbabwe. Those of us who supported the anti-apartheid movement see that the commitment of the ANC was only to their own struggle and not for that of a black citizenry against a black dictator.
Many dictators have likewise manipulated elections to rise to and continue in power, such as Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Nicolae Ceaucescu, Kim Il Sung and Fidel Castro. They require the fictional support and adulation of the people in order to feel justified in doing what they would do anyway, murder and maim in the name of their own selves, sometimes under the fiction of an ideological party such as Communism, Fascism or Nazism.
Of course, none of this would happen without the guaranteed support of the army or equivalent armed forces. Both Castro and Khomeini of Iran swept away previous dictatorships, that after their own depradations appeared benign by comparison. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that while the Czar filled prison cells built for one, with 5 prisoners, Stalin filled the same cell with 100. In the prisons of the Shah hundreds were incarcerated and dozens were killed, but the same prisons in Iran now contain thousands and the numbers killed are uncountable. So it goes, the forces that called for change, offering a vision of hope and utopia for the people, lead only to greater repression and reaction.
How to protect ourselves from such monsters? Perhaps only for legal protection, the constitution of every country, guaranteed by the UN, should contain a clause that no one man can control all the power without a strong and viable opposition, and the guarantee of free speech and fair elections. Of course, this would make no actual difference, but it does emphasize that democracy is not only a Western tradition, but a universal right that all peoples aspire to.
In this respect, it is unacceptable that the Organization of African States and the South African Government itself, have done nothing to prevent Mugabe from consolidating his dictatorship and control over Zimbabwe. Those of us who supported the anti-apartheid movement see that the commitment of the ANC was only to their own struggle and not for that of a black citizenry against a black dictator.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:03 AM
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