Western
Powers Redefine 'Democracy'
By Linda S. Heard
Gulf News
27 November, 2003
Those
halcyon days when "democracy" really meant "for the people,
by the people" are tragically over in countries which purport to
expound this ancient method of governance. In its place comes a system
which spies on, categorises, labels and restricts "the people"
for the benefit of governments. It's clever though.
The metamorphosis
didn't happen overnight - far from it. Indeed, the change is surreptitious;
an erosion of civil liberties here; an attack on human rights there
with the individual being reduced to the contents of a know-all, tell-all
chip just about everywhere.
So insidious are
the changes that most of us don't realise they are even taking place.
It began with video cameras on street corners - some five million in
the U.K. alone. Then there is the secretive global surveillance body
Echelon, the most powerful intelligence-gathering organisation in the
world used by the United States Security Agency, NSA, to secretly monitor
satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic traffic.
There's little doubt
"we the people" have long been under scrutiny in both audio
and visual terms by governments elected by us to serve us. Yes. serve
us. However, as we saw prior to the invasion of Iraq in Britain, this
is no longer the case. Although more than 80 per cent of Britons were
anti-war with over a million protestors clogging London's streets last
February 15, the government went ahead anyway on the basis that Saddam
Hussain posed an imminent threat, a charge later found to be false.
In this case, "the people" have been proved right. No proscribed
weapons have been found; Iraqi scientists who now have little to fear
insist they were destroyed in 1991, and pre-war Iraq had no links to
Al Quida or international terrorism.
Donkeys towing missiles,
recently responsible for devastating Baghdad hotels, perhaps sum up
the irony of this. Iraq's illicit armoury now incorporates "weapons
of ass destruction".
Undeterred by the
almost daily killings of their nations' finest, the leaders of nations
in occupation insist that Iraq will be a "democracy" whether
it likes it or not and just to make sure of this fledgling "democracy's"
longevity, the occupiers will indefinitely station their troops in and
around Iraq.
Insurgents
After all, those
who hate "freedom" must be sought and destroyed. Isn't it
worth considering that Iraq's insurgents, far from hating 'freedom',
want metal-clad foreign armies off their country's soil?
While the self-described
leaders of the 'free world' are bent on enforcing their much-vaunted
shared values and democratic principles throughout the Middle East,
we "the people" can be forgiven for wishing they would first
start at home.
The War on Terror,
which many now believe is a recipe for terrorists of massproduction
- since there are far more murderers of innocents around nowadays than
ever before - triggered the so-called Patriot Act in the US This rushed
through piece of legislation is responsible for the detention of hundreds
of non-citizens and the denial of legal representation or access to
loved ones. At the same time the FBI received new powers of search and
surveillance, and according to an article in the New York Times dated
November 23 is now collecting "extensive information on the tactics,
training and organisation of antiwar demonstrators."
Further, the report
states local law enforcement officials have been advised by the FBI
to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counter-terrorism
squads. So much for free speech and the right to peaceful protest enshrined
in any democratic constitution. No wonder civil rights advocates and
legal scholars are concerned that the "monitoring programme could
signal a return to the abuses of the 1960s and 1970s when J. Edgar Hoover
was the FBI director and agents routinely spied on political protestors
like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior".
Determined not to
be left behind in the control stakes, Britain is poised to introduce
new anti-terrorist measures, which, according to Andy McSmith, the Independent's
political editor, will give the government "power to over-ride
civil liberties in times of crisis, and evacuate threatened areas, restrict
people's movement and confiscate property".
Under these draconian
measures, once a state of emergency - due to war, flood, breakdown of
power supplies, outbreaks of disease or any situation that "causes
or may cause disruption of the activities of Her Majesty's Government"-
has been declared "we the people" can be banned from travelling
and prohibited from assembling.
The way things are
going the Bush-Blair "enemies of freedom" are having a field
day. The concept of freedom for the individual, in both the US and Britain,
is being relegated to the trash heap. Sure we still have the illusion
of being free. We can still watch our soaps, take out a mortgage, shop
'til we drop and leap semi-clothed into fountains if such is our wont,
but isn't real freedom being able to take part in the decision process,
one which shapes not only our own futures but those of our descendants?
It seems to me that
the War on Terror has not, and is not likely to, reduce terrorism but
it will reduce the quality of life for the citizens of those countries
it was constructed to protect. While "we the people" see our
own powers eroded, the powers of individuals in government, driven by
ideology, ego or material gain, are being dangerously ramped up.
Under the spotlight
It's time that Western
"democracies" and "shared values" were put under
the spotlight. At a time when Iraq's occupiers are demolishing homes
à la Sharon, detainees languish in Guantanamo Bay in contravention
of international law and Britain contemplates separating children of
asylum seekers from their families in the hopes they will voluntarily
ship out, then not only democracy is under threat, but so are traditional
humanitarian values.
Terrorism didn't
just appear in a vacuum. It is a phenomenon born from inequality and
injustice. Unless its root causes are understood and seriously tackled,
then our one beautiful world is likely to be irreparably scarred with
"we the people" reduced to fearful, impotent, indoctrinated
and gagged nonentities.
We might do well
to return to the root of all Western laws: Iraq's Babylonian Code of
Hammurabi protecting "we the people" from those who seek to
divest us of our God-given rights, whether they be criminals, terrorists
or those elected to serve . yes."we the oftengullible, pliable,
propaganda-besiegedpeople".
Linda S. Heard is
a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. The writer can be contacted
at [email protected]
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