When we speak of dictatorship, we usually mean the rule of
one person, but the truth is that no man or woman has ever governed a society
single-handedly. Such rulers would have had a small entourage of loyal toadies
helping them govern, or they would have had a majority of the society agreeing
with them if not urging them to impose even harsher measures on the nation.
For this reason, expressions such as (1) dictatorship of the
majority, (2) that of the proletariat and (3) that of the Bolsheviks have been
coined. Their use means that a nation does not necessarily need a single despot
to be run like a dictatorship; the same effect can be had if a majority of the
population adopts an extreme point of view, and demands that it becomes the
accepted doctrine of the nation.
Thus, if we consider democracy to be the opposite of
dictatorship, and if we reduce democracy to the act of staging periodic
elections and the taking of a vote, we can construct a situation in which a
society will live in a state of dictatorship and a state of democracy
simultaneously. In fact, apartheid South Africa
was such a society as does Israel
at this time given that oppression and the staging of elections existed at the
same time in the same place in South Africa
as they do now in Israel .
There remain the pertinent questions: What about the former
colonial powers of Europe that exploited other
peoples? And America
that enslaved its own people? Were they democracies at the time because they staged
elections? If the answer is no, must we not, therefore, consider the current
regimes which are offshoots of that past to be the expression of a false
democracy? Or is there something else we have not thought about?
The above is what comes to mind when you read the latest of
the Bret Stephens columns. It has the title: “What Samuel Huntington Knew” and
the subtitle: “The dictators are back. The political scientist saw it coming.”
The column was published in the Wall Street Journal on April 22, 2014.
Stephens starts his discussion by mentioning the political
scientist, Samuel Huntington, who wondered what would happen if the American
model of governance began to look like a loser. Apparently, he wondered at a
time when “all over the world, people seemed to want democracy, capitalism,
free trade, free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom for women,” says
Stephens. But then look what happened, says he: “the dictators are back in
places where we thought they had been banished. And they are back by popular
demand.”
He mentions the Egyptian Abdel Fatah Sisi that is expected
to win in next month's election overwhelmingly, the Hungarian Viktor Orban that
just won a third term, the Turk Recep Erdogan whose party won resounding
victories in key elections, and Vladimir Putin of Russia that has a public
approval of 80 percent. All these people are established dictators, says
Stephens, or expected to become one in the case of Sisi. And they all have
something else in common: they are doing so badly, they should not be held in
such high esteem by their people, yet they are – what is going on?
The author gives a quick rundown of the explanations offered
by the West to account for that mystery, and says that not one account explains
everything. And so he comes up with his own explanation; one that should not
surprise those who know his thinking. He says that the West is not doing well
because it is not delivering higher growth, lower unemployment and better
living. A few paragraphs later, he elaborates: “ A West that prefers
debt-subsidized welfarism over economic growth … A West that sacrifices
efficiency on the altars of regulation...” This is Right Wing thinking. But to
get from the assertion to the elaboration, Stephens finds it necessary to quote
Huntington
again who wrote: “Sustained inability to provide welfare, equity, justice,
domestic order … could over time undermine the legitimacy of even democratic
governments.” And this is Left Wing thinking. Stephens has just contradicted
himself which is also typical of his style.
And there is worse. It is that he says this: “A West that
consistently sacrifices efficiency on the altars ... of political consensus
will lose the dynamism that makes the risks inherent in free societies seem
worthwhile. A West that shrinks from maintaining global order … will invite
challenges from nimble adversaries willing to take geopolitical gambles.”
In other words, Bret Stephens is calling for the dynamism of
dictatorships to replace the inefficient political consensus of the democracies.
For this to work, he attributes the taking of risks not to dictators but to
free societies. And he explains what those risks are: the taking of
geopolitical gambles, he says. These are code words to mean that he wants America and the
West to keep fighting till they vanquish someone or be vanquished themselves.
Do we see something else at play here? Yes, and we do not
have to go too far to see what that is. It is vintage Bret Stephens which means
vintage World Jewry. Authoritarianism has been and remains the core of Jewish
life, and while that core does not change, the outer skin does, taking on the
color and shape most preferred by the beholder. Right now the beholder is a
liberal democrat, and so the outer skin of the Jew appears liberal and democratic.
But the decision of the collective is what stands at the end
of the day, which is why Jewish dictatorship rarely looks like that of one man
or one woman. Rather it looks like the mysterious unfolding of events you know
are Jewish inspired but have difficulty tracing to a single Jew. In the end,
everyone in his country – be that America
or Europe – is made to feel like a Palestinian
in his own country.