This particular essay may not be up to my normal quality, but I’ve been feeling like [bleep] all weekend and had to get this out.
Democracy is not dying in darkness – it is being brutally murdered in broad daylight. And members of the general public are too busy playing Candy Crush on their phones to notice, or care.
Everywhere you look, democracy is in dire peril. This is not paranoia, but an inconvenient truth. Here in the USA, millions are conspiring to destroy the very foundations of this country. Book bans, restrictions on what children learn, squelching voting rights, chipping away at reproductive freedom – these are just a few of the ways people are demolishing liberty. India, the planet’s largest democracy by population, is suffering attacks on its system. Pro-fascism organizations are on the March, sometimes literally, across Europe.
In Atlanta, the local and state government are doing all they can to squelch protests against the proposed law enforcement training complex known as Cop City. People raising money to bail out those arrested for taking part in peaceful protests were themselves arrested. A petition calling for the general public to vote on whether or not to build the complex is being called into question, and city leaders are scratching for ways to invalidate it. This may sound like an isolated, local incident, but it is symptomatic of the many things wrong with our country.
Recently, the Knesset, the parliament of Israel, removed the power of review from Israeli courts on grounds of “reasonability” in light of the country’s basic laws. The measure passed 64-0 in the 120-seat body, with the far right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unanimously in favor and the opposition having left the chamber in protest.
The result? Utter chaos. Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of every major Israeli city, sometimes blocking major routes. Police reacted with brutality, attacking demonstrators, pounding them with water cannons and even throwing burning wooden planks at them. Large numbers of military reservists have threatened to resign or refuse to show up for periodic training. About a week ago 10,000 reservists threatened to go AWOL, and before that 1,400 officers in the reserves, including 400 fighter jet pilots, claimed they would do the same. Israeli business are fleeing the country, taking with them expertise and money, and the Israeli stock market went into a tailspin.
Everywhere, it seems, right-wingers are advancing, destroying human rights, crushing opposition, turning back the clock. How is this happening? Is there a cabal of the ultra-rich backing them? Or has one right-wing movement in one country encouraged and emboldened others?
However, those who believe in freedom and justice are far from helpless. We have the power of the ballot box, the peaceful protest, the petition, the e-mail, the letter to the editor. And we don’t have to get the direct support of huge mobs – only a small percentage of the population has to get active. As Margaret Mead said, never doubt that a small number of thoughtful, committed people can change the world – indeed, it is the oniy thing that has. It took only a small number of thoughtful, committed people to gain women the right to vote, or to rid the US of the vile Jim Crow system, or to set India free.
Let us hope that is all we need to save democracy, not just in the U.S., but elsewhere.
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