Cultural aggression as the salvation of Democracy

1. The UN organization should be viewed as impotent and incapable. This was proven again and again by practice and few can doubt it anymore. The reason for the failure of the UN idea: the pre-cold war syndrome. The UN is supposed to be a world-wide forum representing humanity as a whole and therefore includes all countries, whether democratic or not. This concept is, however, plagued by self-contradiction, as the leaders of the totalitarian countries rule through tyranny, mass-brainwash or (as it is in most of the cases) both and thus cannot represent their countries’ people. This concept made some sense during the cold war when the UN was necessary to uphold the fragile peace between the democratic and the communist blocs, but, however, no longer applies. Neither does the NATO concept apply, as the later is a solely military organization designed as the military facet of the democratic block during the cold war.

2. An organization with world-wide power and authority is nevertheless necessary to influence the course of global politics and promote peace and freedom. This organization has to include solely the truly democratic countries of the world and shall henceforth be called the Alliance of Free Nations (AFN) in this document. No pathos or radical views underline the notion “democratic” as it appears here, and to date the list would definitely include the USA, Russia, European Union, Canada, Australia, India, Japan and more. The intent is countries with a more-or-less normal democratic election procedure and real protection of the human rights including freedom of speech.

3. History teaches civilizations and cultures exist in an ever-lasting battle for survival. Stronger cultures swallow and absorb weaker ones, nations perish and new are formed from those cultures that prevail. This process is an intrinsic characteristic of human society and remains key to global politics. The modern age signifies the remarkable rise of humanism and liberalism, possibly for the first time in the history of mankind. However, every action has a counter-action, and the counter-action of today’s primitive societies is (primarily Islamic) terrorism and development of methods to take advantages of the weakness of liberalism in its present form. This includes the applications of the criminal terrorist organizations to human rights in self-defense and the presentation of their bloody war as a freedom struggle.

4. Until now, the free, sane nations, haven’t acted against the terrorism plague in a competent manner, the same true for most other global political issues. The reason is the lack of cooperation and the incompetent cold war approach. The solution might lie in the formation of AFN and the direction of its action against the spread of extremism and for the promotion of liberalism and humanism. This means that the free nations shouldn’t disarm themselves by the false principle of equality of all sovereigns, whether democratic or not, but conform with the principles governing human society and attack the tyrannical regimes breeding extremism of all kinds including meaningless war and bloodshed and terrorism. Here “attack” doesn’t stand for military action only, though military action with minimal risk to civilian population also has to be a part of the concept. The attack is a cultural attack, full scale propaganda warfare meant to convert the primitive society into such that is modern and liberal. This would mean military takeover first in some of the cases and psychological warfare through all available media second (a step necessary in most of them).

5. The unison of all free nations is crucial to the success of the goal. The free nations have today (in contrast to the cold war period) reached a critical mass sufficient to move the global situation in the right direction. Mutual interference would destroy most chances of completing this mission. The decisions as to what action is the most appropriate should be taken in a democratic fashion by AFN and considered mandatory for all member nations. The guidelines should be the principles of humanism and liberalism together with the realizations that cultural / political aggression is necessary and that harm done to innocents has to be minimal (even if minimal harm is sometimes unavoidable, unfortunately).

6. It should be clear some totalitarian nations, such as China, posses great military might including nuclear weapons and cannot be taken over by force. Hopefully these nations will succumb to their own people’s will of freedom in the future, as – in many cases – it is precisely in those nations that free-market economics and uncontrollable media such as the internet are available.

7. A necessary condition of the implementation of those principles is the commitment of every member of the AFN to them. An Alliance whose actions would be incoherent, purposeless and inappropriate (as are those of the UN) would be to no advantage, even if the Alliance had, in principle, more real power than the UN has today.

8. Some, after reading this document, might decide the cultural aggression notion presented here stands in direct contradiction with the principles of liberalism. This, however, is not true, as democratic nations have the right (and indeed the duty) to impose their perception on the non-democratic nations. This is so because the people of the non-democratic nations have no real chance to form a perception which is really of their own. This is so because they deserve freedom and human rights as well as those that already have it. The ideology presented here aims to promote the best interests of the whole human-kind in the true spirit of liberalism and humanism. We who realize liberalism and humanism stand for the only moral and sane way of life have the right and duty to protect and promote it across the globe.

A Citizen of the World 03/08/2003

"Every state has an inalienable right to choose its political,
economic, social and cultural systems,
without interference in any form by another state"
-UN resolution, 1965

A write-up does not mean reply and E2 is not a BBS, I know. But the above manifesto has too many flaws to be allowed to stand uncorrected...

The UN has flaws, just like every other organisation. However, to view it as "impotent and incapable" is both currently and historically incorrect. The UN has a long track record of high success in the fields of international law, human rights, humanitarian affairs, social development, economical development, and, with its peacekeeping forces, in the areas of peace and national / international security.

The main flaw the UN has is that it is a bureaucracy unlike anything we have seen in a long time. The UN's indecision, especially on global peace and international security issues, is reflected in the agendas (sometimes hidden, sometimes not) of its member states. Getting every single member state to agree is futile, which is why a majority decision system is set up. In addition to this, several states have received a right to veto, which in itself can be seen as a sabotage of the true democratic process, giving certain member states significantly higher powers that others. There are numerous examples of these member states abusing their veto-right to cancel a decision that was otherwise unanimous.

The flipside of the veto-system, is that the non-democratic states have no real say in UN policies: If anything vitally against the wishes of a member state was to be suggested by one of the non-democratic states, it would be generally ignored or - if in conflict with the interests of the states with the power to veto - vetoed.

There is a certain need for a new global power / authority-type idea or a reformed UN. However, the writeup above still presupposes that all democratic nations per definition agree on all matters. As we have seen recently, with both France and Germany opposing the UK and US view on the recent second Gulf War, this sort of unity in thought is a logical and diplomatic impossibility.

Furthermore, the definition of "democracy" is a little sketchy. I, for one, and many with me, believe that the USA is not a democracy - not only in the sense of the voting and election systems, but also in the sense that freedom of speech and the other human rights. The old discussion about the death penalty being against the human rights, for example.

While "Freedom of Speech" both theoretically and legally is accepted as being a virtue granted the population, it does not, in fact, exist in its original form in any country that I am aware of. Oh, sure it is legal to say almost anything, but the freedom to be heard is something different altogether: The mainstream media are extremely heavily censored by political and financial agendas, and only a very small minority use alternative media / the internet to get beyond the corporate pulp.

The major flaw, however, is the polarity of the overall idea. Cultural imperialism is strongly disliked, not only by what you describe as totalitarian regimes, but also by a large portion of the rest of the world. The manifesto is all but based on this governing force. In a manifesto that is designed to embrace the whole world in a common good, it is extremely arrogant to assume a standpoint that seems significantly anti-Islamic based.

Of course, nobody likes terrorism, but the revenge strategies that the US and UK have employed so far are diplomatically unviable. This is one of the reasons why the UN was unwilling to help with the invasion of Iraq, and it seems that this is the main argument you use in your claim that the UN is ineffective. To me, it would appear that the UN has rather decided to hold its options open - the #1 rule in holding a successful global diplomacy.

You further mention "A necessary condition of the implementation of those principles is the commitment of every member of the AFN to them". Which is never going to happen, for the reasons above, but also because there is already a strong sense of resentment that one nation (currently the US, but that could change) seemingly has an agenda to control the world. No state in the world would accept - or be allowed to accept, by its citizens - to let an external force have full control over a countrys' foreign policy. As an example: The US would never accept that, say France, was to take full control of its military powers.

Furthermore, The attack on Iraq could (unlikely, I know, but stay with me) have failed, for example if Iraq would have gotten unexpected help from one or more of its neighbouring countries. What would that have done to the relations between the US/UK coalition and Iraq? The situation would have been completely inconsolable, and if Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction (the official reason for going into Iraq, remember? And they still haven't found any weapons), it would have created a permanently damaged relation between the countries, causing a tense situation that could only have been resolved through UN intervention or another war.

The author of the above manifesto seems to forget that the people living in "tyrannical regimes breeding extremism of all kinds" are human beings that can be reasoned with. However, it will have to be on their premises, using a universally open form of discussion, without the automatic assumption that the conversion to democracy is the right solution to all countries.

Attacking a set of countries because they do not have the same set of governments or values - especially if religion (Islam, in this case) is part of the argument for attacking such a nation-state, is a gross miscalculation of good taste. It is also very dangerous:

China, for example, might be a "totalitarian nation", but they are not stupid. When the west (presumably with the US spearheading the situation, which will not only cause a lot of distress, but also reinforce the already present contempt of the US as a nation) starts their campaign against all states with a non-democratic way of life, you would instantly create a gap between everybody who is, and everybody who is not democratic. The gap would be even stronger for the nations who have no wish to be democratic - an option that seems nonexistent in the manifesto.

China, feeling threatened, will make military alliances with other countries in the same situation. Against a strong force such as The West, it is not unlikely that China would allow itself to enter into some unlikely alliances - for example with countries like Iraq and Libya, under the ethos that "anyone who is the enemy of the US is our friend". The next step is as logical as it is dangerous: China, having an abundance of nuclear weapons, would start handing them out to countries that now are regarded terrorist states. The next steps are simple: The US cannot safely harass, say, Libya, because they have nuclear weapons. The whole campaign has to be blown off, and we are back to square 1, except that every rogue nation in the world will now have nuclear weapons, being more dangerous than before.

All in all, I am happy that the UN is significantly wiser than the author of the above manifesto: As I have demonstrated above, the execution of the acts mentioned in the manifesto will with an extremely high probability cause a significant amount of unrest - likely followed by a world war. This time with nuclear weapons.

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