DEMOCRACY'S BOOM
By RALPH PETERS
December 26, 2004 -- CHALLENGING growing seasons can produce magnificent wines. Tumult in Iraq, acts of brute ter ror and prophecies of doom tor mented 2004. Yet it turned out to be a vintage year for democracy.
The "experts" assured us that elections couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't work in Afghanistan. Afghans had no tradition of democracy. They were illiterate, tribal fundamentalists resistant to foreign ideas. Grass-roots support for the Taliban, widespread violence and fear were going to frustrate the American folly of believing that Afghans cared about elections.
What happened? In cities and remote villages the people of Afghanistan ignored grave dangers and turned out to vote by the millions. Desperate to find fault, international critics could cite only minor flaws. And the Afghans elected a rule-of-law president, not a tribal warlord.
Afghanistan still faces daunting problems, but little more than three years ago it suffered under one of the world's most oppressive regimes, harbored thousands of terrorists and, according to the same experts, could never be subdued by American troops. Now it has a freely elected government — and hope.
Democracy is about the little guy having a voice. Afghanistan's little guys — and gals — took a stand to have their voices heard.
TODAY, the people of Ukraine are turning out to vote in massive num bers. After a dozen years of post-Soviet corruption and stasis, average citizens decided they'd had enough. They took to the streets in masses last month, protesting a stolen election. Defying homegrown thugs and Russia's president, they demanded freedom and real democracy.
Romania's reform-minded voters got little attention from a press that craves bad news, while Australia's common-sense support for Prime Minister John Howard repulsed the international literati. Spaniards didn't vote the way we would have liked, but they voted fervently as they continued to master the power of representative government after a single generation of democracy.
Half a world away, the people of bitterly poor Mozambique flocked to the polls in December. The results favored sweat-of-the-brow progress over demagoguery. One of the world's poorest nations, Mozambique stood up proudly to prove that democracy isn't only for the Upper West Side. The media ignored this triumph of the human spirit.
In Venezuela, a referendum supported President Hugo Chavez, a man viewed by Washington as Castro-lite (with oil). Despite balloting mischief , the people spoke. We must respect their choice. Building global democracy isn't about short-term gratification for American presidential administrations, Republican or Democrat. It's about freedom, with all of its risks, errors and ultimate glory.
EVEN when we believe a foreign pop ulation has made the wrong choice, we should be grateful that they were able to make a choice at all. In the long run, democracy always benefits the United States of America. Patience is the one strategic virtue we need to cultivate.
Around the world, electoral trends over the past few years upset the doomster predictions of the pundits. Despite solemn warnings that Indonesia or even Malaysia might "go fundamentalist" at the polls, elections in both of these crucial Muslim states resulted in resounding defeats for parties seeking to wield Islam as a weapon.
Again and again, "uneducated" and "unsophisticated" voters chose decency, progress and opportunity over the pleasures of hatred and blame.
In the end, the greatest electoral triumph wasn't in Afghanistan, but here at home. Our "opinion leaders" backed yesterday's man, a candidate who catered to the prejudices of over-educated baby-boomers. John Kerry's supporters believed that America is always wrong. They took no interest in Saddam's mass graves, only in a fair trial for Saddam. They cared nothing for democracy in Afghanistan, but agonized over the treatment of Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo. And they mocked believing Christians as hopeless dunces.
The Democratic Party's message in 2004 was that average Americans need to obey the electoral dictates of blue-state aristocracies.
ON-LINE commissars, network anchors, faculty-lounge commandos and the infernally self-righteous George Soros rallied behind Michael Moore to denounce George W. Bush for liberating tens of millions of human beings, for taking the War on Terror to the terrorists and for speaking like an average guy, not in the smarmy tones of Harvard Yard.
The result? The American people turned out in record numbers to re-elect a man who respects their labor and faith, who believes that freedom is worth fighting for and who knows that our country is a force for good.
No wonder campus lefties hate democracy. It gives the high-school graduate the same power as the guy with the Ph.D. It offers an identical vote to those who work with their hands and those who never broke a sweat in their trust-funded lives. And it grants the same Election Day authority to the clerk behind the counter as it does to the customer waving the platinum credit card.
Democracy is the ultimate weapon of social justice.
NEXT year begins with elections in Iraq. Terrorists will do all they can to disrupt the balloting. Iraqis will die for the crime of casting a vote. There'll be local corruption, religious influence, ethnic division, tribal bullying and polling boycotts. After all of our sacrifices, those Iraqis who manage to vote may favor parties whose agendas frustrate us.
But the Iraqis will vote. Not all of them. But millions. Despite the ferocious efforts of the terrorists and insurgents, the Arab world is about to see the first truly free election between the Nile and the Euphrates.
Global pundits will find endless flaws, and many a Washington apparatchik may be troubled by the election's outcome. But the Iraqi elections will be a milestone that no demagogues, America-haters or instant revisionists will be able to wish away.
Democracy works. It doesn't work all of the time, and it doesn't work everywhere instantly. Sometimes the largest tribe wins and believes it has a mandate to oppress minorities. Sometimes the people choose the hater, not the man of hope. Sometimes the thugs get away with stealing the election.
But consider where this world of ours stood 50 years ago. Or 15 years ago. Or even in 2003. Democracy's march is long, hard and painful. But humankind stepped forward in 2004.
Ralph Peters is a regular New York Post contributor. |
