It’s probably fair to say that one of the most competent Governments in Europe, if not the world today, is Italy’s. Never minds its chronic economic woes, Italy’s actual Government is skilled, professional, sensible and focused…and it’s unelected. Following the circus that passed for Berlusconi’s rule, Italy is now governed by a Brussels imposed state of technocrats with (thus far) seemingly no political ambitions, but charged only with trying to stop the country from disappearing down the southern European plug hole. This situation follows the embarrassing reality that, by following a normal democratic process, Italians could not have elected even a demi-semi sensible set of politicians. Their democracy has become and remains broken.
It’s nearing that point in Greece too. They have a chaotically riven and weak coalition of the corrupt and discredited to see them through an economic crisis that seems destined only to end it absolute failure. Whether modern democracy in the world’s “oldest democracy” will survive in the short term is no longer certain. Their crisis is, in significant part, a failure of a corrupted and abused electoral system.
Elsewhere democracy stumbles and trips to a different tune. In the USA, the quadquennial mudslinging begins, where electoral success, and the triumph of democracy has a near direct link with the most successful fund raiser and telegenic candidate. It’s a case of who has the most money to stoop the lowest to conquer. Arguably its democracy in action, yet the current contenders plumb new depths. Obama perhaps ranks first amongst those who promises-to-delivery deficit is the greatest in American history – a case perhaps of “Yes, I can’t”. It is by no means certain either that, should Romney win, he would fare any better.
In the UK democracy faces a different challenge. Our media hungry politicians are being devoured by the beast they have sought out and invited into their lives. Britain’s highly politicised media apply relentless, microscopic, high volume scrutiny to their every breath and twitch. All of it is amplified through the dark prism of their bias and manufactured to feed the morning headline diets of their readers, sowing despair and confusion in equal measure. But therein lies part of the problem – for politicians now, every day is an election campaign and a contest to secure good ratings.
A case in point is Prime minister’s weekly question time. Embarrassing broadcasts originally meant to demonstrate accountable democracy in action, instead reveal what could pass for an oversized cage of shrieking monkeys. Shouting obscenities, pulling faces and displaying, in a sense, their private parts for an increasingly disenchanted electorate to behold, it’s no surprise that politicians are held in such low esteem.
Elsewhere the ghosts of democracy haunt the political landscapes of less fortunate countries. Russian democracy seems only to exist to elect President Putin or one he has anointed to look after him and his business cronies. The same applies in Zimbabwe which is a democracy that has only ever had one or two free elections in over 40 years. In democratic terms, Mugabe is the absolute “President with no clothes” threatening his impoverished people with “another 5 years” of grinding despair and famine. Elsewhere, Iran’s rulers unsuccessfully seek to apply a green tinged veneer of respectability to a theocratic dictatorship.
In South Africa, the ANC says it is a staunch supporter of democracy. However, just how staunch it would feel about this noble principle if its election prospects were ever called in doubt by another party is questionable. A predictable change of heart and re-ordering of priorities could well be on the cards, after all it has said it will stay in power till the second coming of Christ. Whilst this might please its (optimistically expectant) Christian supporters, what is left unspoken is what it might do if any other parties threaten its holy reign before the much awaited event comes to pass, currently outstanding 2000 years and counting….
It seems we are all part of the scam, where with electoral nods and winks, we listen to the lies we are told by the campaigners. They know that we know that they cannot fulfil their promises, but we all "know"it’s the best option around. As Churchill said in 1947, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.
Yet the world has become incredibly more complicated. The challenges that face a nation and its leaders are much more complex that they were in Churchill’s time. We look back at great leaders like him, and wonder why they are none of that calibre today. However, perhaps faced with the world’s incredible complexity today, Churchill would not have fared much better that his current contemporaries.
Our politicians seem to be raised as a special breed, without enough of them having graduated from the school of hard knocks, or being absolute stars in their field. Italy’s unelected prime minister appointed himself as unelected minister of finance and the economy. Nobody minded, because he is also a Professor of economics; perhaps there was relief that the post was finally filled by an expert on the subject, a rare event in politics.
National and international events move at great speed. The financial and economic structures that underpin a country’s prosperity are now so complicated, interwoven and out of control, it’s questionable if anyone truly understands the forces at work, least of all the politicians. It’s an increasingly interconnected world too, of shifting nations, peoples and wealth that have long bypassed the rhetoric of lazy politicians trying to sell the illusion of keeping promises made in past years but now rendered void by a changed world.
Added to this is a phenomenal new feature of the 21 century – the digital revolution, which given its exponential rate of change, will ironically always seem to be in its infancy. One of the most potent manifestations of this revolution is the internet, where reality and truth have been so spun and twisted in the centrifuges of mass, instant and near-infinite on-line identities, that it’s impossible to know what is believable or real any more. Politicians are being rendered obsolete, slow and reactive to events beyond the control of governments or nations.
This is just a snapshot of the challenge. Our world is one of rapidly accelerating technological sophistication, perhaps now already beyond the comprehension of us as individuals. So, whilst there is no alternative acceptable to democracy, our current concept of democracy increasingly resembles a tiger-moth biplane in a race of supersonic jet fighters. And, unless we find some way to upgrade how democracy and governments function in the new age, then, like the tiger moth, they will more probably than not be doomed to “museumhood”……
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