As a Canadian, I am upset at the situation in Afghanistan. Regardless of whether we should have been there in the first place, what does our word as a country mean if we cannot protect even those who supported us when we were there.
The people now falling from planes trying to escape were people who believed in us when we said we came to help their country. People who were willing to believe in this now apparent siren song of democracy and modernity that we claimed to represent.
What is the value of a promise by a western liberal democracy worth now? Who will trust us to honour what we claim to believe in and stand for?
You can’t force democracy on people, that’s a contradiction in terms, because democracy is by definition built by popular support rather than imposed from outside.
But even so, we led a generation of people to believe in something that is now, for all appearances, abandoning them to their fate. And that is a tragedy all in itself.
The history of Afghanistan is already tragic. It is a graveyard of empires, but also a place of poverty. It is not always well known that the Taliban originated from the CIA-backed Mujahideen that were equipped and trained by the Americans to fight the Soviet-backed Communist regime that ruled before them. In that light, the idea that the Afghan civil war has nothing to do with America, is at best naive, and at worst duplicitous.
Afghanistan is what it is because of American foreign policy. The same policies that helped overthrow democratic governments in Iran and Chile historically when they didn’t favour American interests. That America now wants to leave the country alone after all of that has been done?
Perhaps in time Afghanistan will heal. But the damage to western credibility is done. People will remember. What lesson will they learn from all of this? That our flowery words ring hollow? That “democracy” is a trojan horse for the interests of an unstable, unreliable American empire?
It’s just very disappointing. And of course, tragic for the people who must suffer for the hubris of others. Tragic for people who still believe in democracy and hope and aspire to its ideals. What hope is there for the world if the great city on a hill appears to be nothing but a mirage?
It’s just very disillusioning to see these events play out. After 9/11, America had all the goodwill in the world. Somehow in 20 years they’ve managed to squander it. Even in the Obama years people still had faith. But now I find it hard to defend the ideals of democracy when the practice and execution are so poor.
On paper democracy is great. Everyone gets a vote and their voice heard. The foolish ideas cancel out and the truth prevails because differing experiences agree on them. The wisdom of crowds leads us forward. Or so it should be.
In practice, large media conglomerates owned by wealthy power brokers essentially decide what people think is true. That or isolated conspiracy theory infested online bubbles, foreign state-influenced fake news outlets and the like.
Democracy is further corrupted by such malfeasances as gerrymandered districts, or electoral college shenanigans in the U.S. If democracy is the will of the majority, then the winner of the popular vote should always lead, but frequently this is not the case in many countries whether Presidential or Parliamentary.
So, the truth is that many of our so called democracies aren’t really democratic. At best, they are elected dictatorships, built to legitimize the establishment and create a false sense of popular will for the powers that be. It’s hard to say what a true democracy would look like, or whether it will necessarily be the best government either, but we should stop pretending like our system is 100% absolutely the best thing full stop.
There is much room for improvement. I’m naturally inclined towards reform from within the system, because I think it’s salvagable. But we need to stop assuming that liberal representative democracy is the end of history, the solution to all problems.
Else we sell a false dream that can be dashed by the realities of a world that is far from perfect. As I watch people fall from the sky, their dreams lost to the cold, uncaring march of history. We must do better.