“May you live in interesting times” is an English expression you really don’t want to hear. It generally means trouble. Often referred to as the “Chinese curse”, the saying is apocryphal. The nearest equivalent Chinese expression is translated as “Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos.” Whichever of these phrases you prefer, they are certainly applicable for our very untranquil times.
Most people don’t pay much attention to politics and just want to live their lives peacefully. However, it’s impossible for anyone to ignore politics when “interesting times” hit. The primary role of governments is to keep people safe and secure to live their lives in peace and relative prosperity. When leaders fail in this fundamental duty, political upheaval is the inevitable consequence.
In autocracies, political upheaval generally means violence and revolution, with all its associated chaos. Ultimately, hopes for better times under a new regime may be fulfilled, though frequently they are dashed, with the new leadership proving to be no better or even worse for people’s welfare. This was true of the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the 21st-century regime changes in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
In democracies, political upheaval is generally more peaceful via the ballot box, though, as with autocracies, newly elected governments can often prove to be even worse at running the country. With democracies, there are at least two schools of thought about their effectiveness when people are clamoring for change.
The optimistic view is encapsulated well by the Australian author and historian Paul Ham. Writing in The Guardian, he says: “The most beautiful and obvious thing about democracy is the freedom to unelect rulers. Can you imagine being ruled by someone like Scott Morrison or Donald Trump for 40 years? Electoral democracies self-rejuvenate, injecting new blood and energy into government. … We never know who’s going to rule us but at least we know we can always get rid of them.”
The more pessimistic view on democracies was articulated recently by an old friend of mine who wrote the following: “I find it interesting that a democracy keeps changing its political party in power, when one would not expect a mass of people to change its mind with such regularity. It can only mean that all political parties fail to satisfy those who put them in power, and the disruption of constant change must be quite damaging. In that respect a benevolent dictatorship must be more efficient.”
Whichever school of thought you lean toward, it’s clear that no single system of government is perfect and all systems are challenged when times are troubled. For millennia, the world has lived with different forms of nondemocratic government. Emperors, monarchs, dictators, oligarchs, plutocrats, theocrats and bureaucrats all have a longer pedigree than modern democrats. Indeed, at the start of the 20th century, no Western country qualified as a democracy. One hundred years later, at the start of the 21st century, a dramatic change had occurred, with the concept of democracy taking on an almost-revered, evangelical status in the West. According to Freedom House, 120 countries worldwide were classed as democracies in the year 2000.
However, since this peak, democracy has been going in reverse. According to the Economist Democracy Index, there are currently only 25 “full democracies” in existence, covering just 6.6 percent of the world’s population, and 46 “flawed democracies” (38.4 percent), including the United States. This compares with 60 “authoritarian regimes” (39.2 percent) and 36 “hybrid regimes” (15.7 percent). Little wonder that the media abounds with stories about democracy in crisis.
The reasons for this are complex, but there has long been disillusion with the democratic process. In countries like the United Kingdom, there is dissatisfaction with the “first past the post” voting system that so distorts election results, often giving almost autocratic powers to party leaders who have attracted only minority backing. There is also concern that party machines now dominate most democracies, with long-term planning frequently taking second place to short-term party political objectives. Difficult decisions are often postponed; unachievable or unaffordable promises are made to woo voters; populist sentiments, stoked up by the worst elements of the media, are prioritized. It’s all too easy for democracies to degenerate into cynical vote-chasing, rather than doing the right thing. Lack of continuity also afflicts democracies whenever there is a change in government, leading to disruptive flip-flopping on policies, often along ideological lines.
In recent years, social media has highlighted some of these issues and especially the need to reclaim government from the control of powerful political parties and elites. Trust in democratically elected politicians has never been strong, but public confidence in them has recently plummeted. The phrase “They’re all the same” is a popular refrain, along with cynicism at manipulative political campaigns dominated by money and partisan media. The prevailing sentiment in many democracies is that politicians prioritize party and individual self-interest over the common good, and that elected leaders no longer represent the interests of ordinary people.
Such sentiments have stoked the rise of populism in the West, with far-right parties and leaders making strong gains over the past year. This advance has been characterized by the polarization of politics, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the weakening of liberal democratic values, further accelerating the decline in the number of “true democracies” shown in the Economist Democracy Index.
The dramatic and sudden overthrow of authoritarian regimes, such as happened last year in Syria, will continue to make the headlines, but the slow erosion of liberal values in democratic regimes is equally momentous. This was recently highlighted in the fake front cover of Time Magazine, featuring Donald Trump with a crown and the headline “Long live the king”. This disconcerting image should make us reflect on whether the most momentous change is now happening not in war-torn or authoritarian countries but in a country that once held itself up as a beacon of democracy. It seems that wherever we are in the world, we are all now living in “interesting times”.
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
