Democracy in this day-and-age in the west is facing challenges of survival as a governance model. One of the main reasons I believe that we are in the spot in history is the we continue to focus on the details of politics rather than the big picture that establishes better context in terms of governance model as well as core values/belief system developed through decades of history/experiences which form the base for this model we chose. It would be quite naive to suggest that the mess we face today all started with the Russian meddling of the 2016 U.S presidential elections convenient as it may be – rather what I believe did happen in 2016 is that Russia helped us uncover the flawed evolution of Democracy in a manner we’ve not even dreamed of before. We can now clearly see how corruption and the influence of non-elected power brokers in the form of lobbyists/special interest groups/wealthy individuals have been slowly but surely chipping away at our hard earned value base and damaging our Democracy in the process and if some argue against this theory it’s probably because we’ve been adapted/conditioned to this new reality and/or have become too emotionally driven by the new toxic politics of the day rather than stepping back and seeing the big picture to appreciate that in the situation that we face today there can be no winners/losers but rather just losers leading to the real threat of an internal/social breakdown. Once upon a time we believed that our Democracy was indeed protected by a system of governance Checks and Balances but it turns out that when corruption takes hold and the system is prevented from evolving to face new challenges these checks can be easily reversed inwards by protecting politicians from accountability/oversight; we see it in Trump land as well as in BREXIT land. Politicians that were supposed to serve the country are now focused on serving anything but the country; party, lobbyists/power brokers and narrow ideologies that for the most part serve a few but counting on stirring the emotions of many with bogus claims/narratives. So the follow up question is this; is it plausible for us to depend on current brand of politicians who have largely been responsible for this mess to fix it? I think not – what is needed is a visionary/unity leader that is able to see through all these issues we face today, track their root causes and develops a strategy and a momentum to set the nation back on the right track. We also need to ensure the system of checks/balances are fit for purpose and to ensure they are both viable and systematically reviewed. Politics should also stop being viewed merely as a public service but one that is of critical importance to the future of the nation and thus deserves a more vigorous vetting process; so if the argument on immigration is that we need to vet immigrants to get the brightest in, let me suggest that we’d be much better off today as a nation if we had much better vetting process for politicians many of whom are corrupt by nature, have suspect allegiances – like working with/lobbying with foreign governments even behind back of PM & cabinet colleagues now responsible for Home Office would you believe – and/or are not fully developed individuals – let alone political experience; these are the people making decisions for us today; in other words let’s get real about this whole situation.
So the key take away of the post is this; the choices we have today are 1 of 2; Evolution/Revolution for Change or the Demise/Breakdown of a nation.
Finally I would highly recommend this following article by Rana Dasgupta one that establishes a more detailed/historical context of where we are today in terms of governance model/nation state. Some of the points in his article I’ve made in many previous posts including our culpability in the west in creating/prolonging conflicts in the Middle East and beyond and how these as I proposed in my posts inevitably impact us at home whether through mass migration, security or economic stability. He also talks about the EU project as a governance model one that could provide a viable answer to the evolution of the nation state. The one conclusion one can come out with reading this brilliant article is that the BREXIT/Trump methodology is merely one that attempts to answer the wrong questions due to a narrow ideological driven vision/narrative that can do nothing but undermine our national/regional interest/authority. In other words if we are serious about resolving many of the issues we face today on the national level we must first and foremost establish the correct/unbiased regional and global context otherwise we’ll be wasting more time/resources we can no longer afford on yet another flawed strategy.