U.S. and the emasculation of democracy

  With the democratic culture it has thus developed, the United States has produced outstanding leaders. Only in keeping faith with that culture can someone like Barack Obama, be President of the United States. America is also the leading developer and promoter of globalisation, which cuts across diplomacy, communication, business and trade, governance, culture and […]

  With the democratic culture it has thus developed, the United States has produced outstanding leaders. Only in keeping faith with that culture can someone like Barack Obama, be President of the United States.

America is also the leading developer and promoter of globalisation, which cuts across diplomacy, communication, business and trade, governance, culture and military activities. Through what America calls its national interests, it has toppled, changed or influenced administrations and regimes of many countries in many continents in the name of promoting democracy. International borders, topo-graphical and political, are never a hindrance in advancing such interests.       
But its conduct of recent makes us conclude that the superpower that the superpower is emasculating the very democracy it has been promoting. This kind disservice to democracy was pioneered by France in Algeria in the 1980s, when the Islamic Salvation Front won an election that was truncated and the Salvation Front members faced exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood members are facing in Egypt today. France also instigated the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the religious cleansing in Central Africa Republic. Those actions by France were seen in the light of the economic or national interest of France, even though they constituted crimes against humanity. America was a quick learner.
Take Egypt.  Egypt had been in dictatorship since the time of Gamel Abdel Nasser, which was challenged only by the Muslim Brotherhood and suffered brutal repression as result. Nasser’s successors Anwar Sadat and of Hosni Mubarak continued the tradition if repression. The Brotherhood withstood the dictators peacefully; the only option was going into exile, which was a worse fate they didn’t contemplate. Despite the difficulties, the Brotherhood members once given the chance participated in the controlled politics of Sadat and Mubarak and were never known to take arms or call on some others to get armed. In fact it is a known fact the Brotherhood members got solace in education and thus most Egyptian engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc., were members of the Brotherhood who had travelled across the world to teach in universities.
The Brotherhood conti-nued to call for genuine democracy not only in Egypt but the Arab world and, like miracle, the Arab Spring came and Mubarak was toppled. The military even though had to give in for elections, created the environment for the Brotherhood to fail sensing they would win the elections and take over power. However, the Brotherhood contested and won the presidential election, the first in the history of Egypt.
The disservice to democ-racy and the global interest was America’s silence to characterise what happened as a coup by the military led by General Abdel Fatah el-Sisi against the elected President Mohamed Morsi, who appointed earlier as army commander. Mursi certainly made mistakes by forming an exclusive government in a country with so much diversity.  However, in the spirit of democracy, America should have led the world to protest and allow Morsi complete his term to begin to establish democracy in Egypt. In addition, the Brotherhood members and other pro-democratic groups protested against the coup only to be met with force, many of them killed in cold blood by the very people paid to protect them. America maintained silence. The government put in place by Sisi using a court system that is against all sense of justice and fairness, sentencing hundreds of people to death in this 21st Century, and America is silent.
The Brotherhood that withstood the oppression of three dictators without a kitchen knife, participated in elections and whose leadership and members were known to be lecturers in universities, doctors in hospitals, engineers at the sites, lawyers in courts, etc., had suddenly been branded a terrorist organisation and banned. That certainly makes no sense other than simply giving dog a bad name in order to hang it. America must not keep silent on this brazen injustice against democrats and human rights activists simply because someone wants to keep them silent by the use of force riding on America’s, nay the world, silent approval.
Again America betrayed our trust and confidence when it kept silent on the so-called election in which less than fifty percent of electorates in system took part, devoid of fairness, justice and freedom.  What is the difference between the election under el-Sisi and the one under Bashar al Assad of Syria that America criticized? The use of double standards by the United States is one of the greatest disservices to democracy, humanity and the global interest. This has further made the US to lose its focus when it was willing to intervene to stop the insurgents in Iraq, but supporting them in Syria.
Today Syria has been destroyed. Innocent people, women, children and the aged have been killed, many more displaced. In whose interest; to what benefit? If there were no double standards, the world would have been united against injustice and oppression because it is morally empowered.
The use of double stan-dards has made the US to befriend monarchies but topple democratic governments. The use of double standards has made the world incapable of solving the oppression against the Palestinian people for over four decades. It has made the world incapable of checking corruption, bad governance, poverty and diseases.
It is true in international relations, nations focus on their national interests. America is spearheading the era of global interest, humanity, international community, etc.; and if we really want it to work, and become really global interests, it must take precedence over the national interests; otherwise we should stop deceiving ourselves.
That failure has today made the world more volatile; walls that Obama wished to have been dismantled by now in his presidency, are only increasing in circumference and height; human rights abuses and violations are rising and widespread; poverty is on the increase; the global refugee is terrible, no thanks to double standards that America and its Western friends apply in intervening in the affairs of other countries, aided by medieval monarchies and corrupt dictators.

Dr Abdulkarim is of Depart-ment of Public Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria<[email protected]>;