Right now we are witnessing a once in a generation event of multiple peoples challenging the authority that governs their lives and finding it wanting. I speak of the Arab peoples who over the past few weeks have toppled 2 governments with protests and demonstrations are springing up across the Middle East and North Africa with the aim of removing the despots and tyrants who rule those countries from power. The people want what they see others having, namely those of the western democracies. The people of countries like Tunisia and Egypt see people from the UK, France, Germany and more besides when we go there on holiday and what do they see? They see people not so different from themselves, only with far more freedoms and wealth and they naturally want that for themselves. This in turn leads them to look again at those in power whose only aim for decades has been to stay in power at any cost, with little thought spared for the suffering and hardships of their people.
I can remember watching the television in awe as the peoples of Eastern Europe did the very same thing 20 years ago and together their "people power" shattered the Warsaw Pact and brought down the Soviet Union, ending the Cold War and freeing half a continent from tyranny. I sat and watched the tv as crowds with sledgehammers smashed their way through the Berlin Wall, to make whole a city and then later a country that had been cut in half.
One of my favourite quotes is from the tv series Babylon 5, where G'Kar of the Narn Regime after his homeworld has been conquered says calmly
"No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population through force of arms forever. There is no greater power in this universe than the desire for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand". It was a lesson that Communist governments of the Warsaw Pact learned to their cost a generation ago and now tyrants like Mubarak and Gaddafi are learning it today.
Which brings me to the title of this piece. The United States of America is a nation that prides itself on its democracy, and works to foster democracy across the world to one extent or another. And yet now when armed government forces turn their guns on civilians protesting and trying to reclaim their right to be able to choose their government and hold it to account, the mighty USA stands idle, wringing its hands while innocents die. That they are not American citizens should not matter. Another of my favourite quotes is this, from the novel Forsaken House by Richard Baker
"But if you think as I do that it is an act of cowardice and complicity to name something evil and refuse to oppose it with all your might and will and power, then I call on you to join me in this crusade"
The United States has for many years claimed to oppose the dictators and tyrants of this world, declaring the existence of an "Axis of Evil" amongst other things. You wanted to be the world only superpower and that carries with it a responsibility. Britain held that role once and you made damn sure that World War 2 would cripple our ability to return to that place before you entered it. Like it or not, you are the worlds policeman and you are being very lax in your duties. Time to put up or shut up. People like Gaddafi and Mugabe should fear to turn their weapons on their populations because of what you will do to them if they do. They should not ever feel secure in their palaces while their people live in poverty and squalor.
