Still
No Votes In Leipzig
By Jonathan Freedland
22 September, 2004
The Guardian
There
were few pleasures to be had following Bob Dole's doomed presidential
campaign in 1996, but one was the unique brand of anti-charm adopted
by the candidate. I was once on the receiving end of it myself, during
a stop in New Hampshire. Dole had just inspected a factory and a huddle
of reporters gathered to ask some questions. I was only three words
into mine when the would-be president cut me off. He'd heard my accent
and decided there was no point giving me the time of day. "No votes
in Liverpool," he snapped, before calling on the man from the Kansas
City Star.
I later heard a reporter from Finnish TV dismissed with a crisp "No
votes in Leipzig". Dole's familiarity with both British accents
and European geography may have been slightly off, but the point was
clear enough. He was running in an American election: he needed to speak
to Americans and Americans alone. No one else mattered.
At the time, that
logic seemed fair enough. Americans were choosing their own leader to
run their own government. Americans would pay the taxes and live with
the consequences of their decision. It was up to them.
But now I'm not
so sure. For who could honestly describe the 2004 contest of George
Bush and John Kerry as a domestic affair? There's a reason why every
newspaper in the world will have the same story on its front page on
November 3. This election will be decisive not just for the United States
but for the future of the world.
Anyone who doubts
it need only look at the last four years. The war against Iraq, the
introduction of the new doctrine of pre-emption, the direct challenge
to multilateral institutions - chances are, not one of these world-changing
developments would have happened under a President Al Gore. It is no
exaggeration to say that the actions of a few hundred voters in Florida
changed the world.
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So perhaps it's time to make a modest proposal. If everyone in the world
will be affected by this election, shouldn't everyone in the world have
a vote? Despite Bob Dole, shouldn't the men who want to be president
win the support of Liverpool and Leipzig as well as Louisville and Lexington?
It may sound wacky,
but the idea could not be more American. After all, the country was
founded on the notion that human beings must have a say in the decisions
that govern their lives. The rebels' slogan of "No taxation without
representation" endures two centuries later because it speaks about
something larger than the narrow business of raising taxes. It says
that those who pay for a government's actions must have a right to choose
the government that takes them.
Today, people far
from America's shores do indeed pay for the consequences of US actions.
The citizens of Iraq are the obvious example, living in a land where
a vile dictatorship was removed only for a military occupation and unspeakable
violence to be unleashed in its place. The would-be voters of downtown
Baghdad might like a say in whether their country would be better off
with US forces gone. Perhaps John Kerry's Monday promise to start bringing
the troops home, beginning next summer, would appeal to them. But they
have no voice.
It's not just those
who live under US military rule who might wish to choose the commander-in-chief.
Everyone from Madrid to Bali is now drawn into the "war on terror"
declared by President Bush. We might believe that war is being badly
mishandled - that US actions are aggravating the threat rather than
reducing it - and that we or our neighbours will eventually pay the
price for those errors. We might fear that the Bush policy is inflaming
al-Qaida, making it more not less likely to strike in our towns and
cities, but right now we cannot do anything to change that policy. Instead
we have to watch the US campaign on TV, with our fingers crossed - impotent
spectators of a contest that could shake up our lives. (Those who feel
the same way about Tony Blair should remember: at least we will get
a vote.)
So we ought to hold
America to its word. When George Bush spoke to the UN yesterday, he
invoked democracy in almost every paragraph, citing America's declaration
of independence which insists on the equal worth of every human being.
Well, surely equal worth means an equal say in the decisions that affect
the entire human race.
That 1776 declaration
is worth rereading. Its very first sentence demands "a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind": isn't that exactly what the world
would like from America today? The document goes on to excoriate the
distant emperor George for his recklessness, insisting that authority
is only legitimate when it enjoys "the consent of the governed".
As the world's sole superpower, the US now has global authority. But
where is the consent?
By this logic, it
is not a declaration of independence the world would be making. On the
contrary, in seeking a say in US elections, the human race would be
making a declaration of dependence - acknowledging that Washington's
decisions affect us more than those taken in our own capitals. In contrast
with those founding Americans, the new declaration would argue that,
in order to take charge of our destiny, we do not need to break free
from the imperial power - we need to tame it.
Such a request would
also represent a recognition of an uncomfortable fact. It would be an
admission that the old, postwar multilateral arrangements have broken
down. In the past, America's allies could hope to influence the behemoth
via treaties, agreements and the UN. The Bush era - not just Iraq, but
Washington's disdain for Kyoto, the test ban treaty, the international
criminal court and the rest - suggests that the US will no longer listen
to those on the outside. As candidate Dole understood, only those with
votes get a hearing.
Will this modest
proposal fly? Will it hell. Despite Bush's smooth talk in New York yesterday,
his position remains that America does not need a "permission slip"
from anybody to do anything. If Washington won't listen to the security
council, it's hardly likely to submit itself to the voters of Paris
and Pretoria.
Besides, every good
Republican knows the world is solid Kerry territory. A survey by pollsters
HI Europe earlier this month found that, if Europeans had a vote, they
would back Kerry over Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Bush would win just 6%
in Germany, 5% in Spain and a measly 4% in France. No Republican is
going to cede turf like that to the enemy.
You would think
those numbers would hurt Bush, making clear how unpopular he is in the
world. But they don't. If anything they hurt Kerry, suggesting he is
the candidate of limp-wristed foreigners and therefore somehow less
American. We may find that a sorry state of affairs. But there is little
we can do about it. In the democratic contest that matters most to the
world, the world is disenfranchised.