Nov 11, 2011

New Strategies for Democracy Promotion

“Use Your Freedom to Promote Ours” (-Aung San Suu Kyi)

Remarks by Carl Gershman, President, the National Endowment for Democracy at the Conference, “The Future of Democracy: How to Promote It, How to Strengthen It, How to Defend It”
Meeting of the Alliance of Democrats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Rome  
November 11, 2011

I want to thank my friend Gianni Vernetti for bringing together a group of “freedom fighters,” as he called us last night, to discuss “The Future of Democracy – How to Promote It, How to Strengthen It, How to Defend It.” This title poses a series of questions that are answered by the theme of our present panel: “Use Your Freedom to Promote Ours.”  That, of course, is the great challenge that Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi has put before all of us, and that we must address every day in our work.

We meet just three days before the anniversary of the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, at a moment when the Burmese military has made some tentative but potentially promising moves toward a political opening. Internet access has been eased, and a dam project that the Chinese wanted very badly has been suspended. Still, as Suu Kyi tests the seriousness of the regime’s intentions and prepares for negotiations on possible further changes, nearly 2,000 dissidents remain in prison and violence against the ethnic minorities continues unabated.  Suu Kyi must not be alone in raising these issues, especially as she prepares to enter into what will inevitably be difficult negotiations with the Burmese military regime.  At this politically complex and uncertain moment, when the regime is trying to adopt a posture of moderation, it has never been more important to keep international attention focused on the continuing egregious human rights abuses in Burma. Now more than ever, Suu Kyi will need us to use our freedom to defend hers – and of course the freedom of the people of Burma as well.

This is just one of many struggles today where our solidarity is needed. Last night I also spoke with Ales Mihalevic, a brave young man who ran for President of Belarus last December 19. When he and thousands of others protested against the falsification of the election results, Ales was jailed for two months and tortured. But he didn’t break, and now he is in exile fighting for democracy in Europe’s last dictatorship. He, too, deserves our solidarity.

So many people who are with us today are in the middle of difficult struggles. We’ll hear later from Saad Eddin Ibrahim who fought against the Mubarak dictatorship and is now fighting for a real democratic transition in Egypt. We’ll also hear from Sam Rainsy who is in exile from in Cambodia where the regime maintains the facade of democracy even as it maintains authoritarian control over the country.

I want to call special attention to the struggles for democracy in two countries where the outcome will have broad international consequences. One is in China, where Liu Xiaobo remains in prison almost a year after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. In one of the essays cited in the trial verdict against Liu, he described China as providing “a blood transfusion machine” for Burma and other smaller dictatorships. For this reason, he wrote, the struggle for democracy in China is “a key link” in the global fight for freedom, which is why “rescue[ing] the world’s largest hostage population from enslavement is not only a matter of vital importance for the Chinese people themselves, but also a matter of vital importance for all free nations.” We will be hearing later today from Chai Ling, Wuer Kai’xi and Penpa Tsering -- all of whom, I know, join me in urging that we show solidarity with Liu Xiaobo and the people fighting for democracy in China.

And then there is Syria, where more than 3,500 people have been killed by the Assad regime in what until now has been an overwhelmingly peaceful struggle for democracy and dignity. This is now the key battleground of the Arab Spring, and I am confident that it will be won by the Syrian people. Just yesterday, the American Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman said that “Almost all Arab leaders say the same thing – Assad’s rule is coming to an end; change in Syria is now inevitable.” Such a change is incredibly important, because a transition in Syria will affect Iran, it will even affect Yemen and Bahrain. 

The Arab Spring itself has been an historic event of monumental importance. Before the Arab Spring people frequently said that democracy was not possible in the Arab world. The Middle East was the only region of the world completely by-passed by the Third Wave of democratization. There were many theories to explain this democracy deficit -- what the political scientists called “Arab exceptionalism.” Indeed, just two weeks before Mohammed Bouazizi immolated himself in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, which was the spark that set off the Arab uprising, The Economist magazine ran an article explaining all the reasons given for the failure of democracy in the Middle East, from culture and religion, to the manipulation by the regimes of the conflict with Israel and of the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, to the massive flow of oil which meant that governments did not need to be responsive to tax-paying citizens. Yet now, or at least since the uprising in Tunisia, the people of the Middle East are demanding rights and democracy. These protests have come entirely from within, and they affirm, more than any single development within my memory, the idea of democratic universalism. And they have inspired people around the world. I’ll never forget when Sam Rainsy visited NED last February, soon after the fall of Mubarak. There was a distinct gleam in his eyes when he said, “They showed that it can be done.” Indeed, they did, and the Arab Spring will inspire others in regions far from the Middle East never to give up hope.

We need to build greater democratic solidarity and cooperation. Last night Ales Michalevic described to me how dictators are learning to cooperate with one another, to share tactics and to support each other. He said that Belarus is actually becoming a base for such cooperation, for example with the Chavez regime in Venezuela and with Iran. There is also the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which strengthens economic and intelligence cooperation between China, Russia, and the Central Asian autocracies. Such authoritarian cooperation must be countered by greater democratic solidarity to promote, strengthen and defend democracy.

Such solidarity must be based on the understanding that building democracy is a long and difficult process. Even long-sought breakthroughs of the kind that have recently occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya only open the way to a difficult transition process – one that Ali Zeidan Mohamed of Libya’s Transitional National Council this morning called “the battle of democracy through development.” Therefore, in addition to supporting people fighting for democratic breakthroughs, we face three critical challenges.  

The first is helping countries where dictatorships have been removed to achieve a successful transition. This will require helping transitional governments restore order and provide basic services to the population; promoting a new constitutional order through processes that are inclusive and as consensual as possible; strengthening political parties and civil-society organizations; developing vigorous independent media; and promoting economic and institutional reforms that will provide the basis for economic growth and development.

We know that many transitions can become stalled when governments seek to reverse democratic gains and establish autocratic if not dictatorial controls. We have only to look at what has happened in Russia and Ukraine, and in Venezuela and some other Latin American countries, to see how vulnerable new democracies are to backsliding and democratic reversal. It is therefore especially important to defend civil society and to prevent autocratically inclined governments from closing off political space. This is the second challenge.

And then there are new democracies where elections are essentially free and fair but where corruption is endemic, the rule of law is very weak, poverty is widespread, and crime is often rampant. Here the great challenge is helping government deliver real benefits to the people, and helping society become sufficiently well organized to be able to hold government accountable for its performance. Some governments in Latin America are experimenting with new social agendas that get services and assistance directly to the most impoverished citizens. But such programs should not be simply redistributionist. They need to be part of a larger agenda that includes policies to improve economic growth and increase the transparency of all institutions that exercise great power and control or manage significant economic resources.

To meet these challenges, we need institutions like many that are represented here, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Democratic Institute, the UN Democracy Fund and Freedom House. We need more of such institutions, and I’m pleased that Poland has created a new Foundational for International Solidarity, and that the European Union is in the process of establishing its own version of the NED called the European Endowment for Democracy.   

Of course, such institutions must not only have sufficient resources to provide the kind of help that’s needed. They also need to build upon the lessons that have been learned over more than 25 years of supporting democracy. Many of these lessons are contained in a report entitled “Supporting Democracy Assistance” that was issued this past summer by the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy, which is a global association of activists, practitioners and scholars. Based on fourteen country studies and an on-line opinion survey of more than 1,500 democracy activists from all regions of the world, the report emphasizes the importance of bottom-up democracy assistance that is responsive to needs on the ground; building a free, strong and independent civil-political society that can nurture democratic culture and check state power; and complementing democracy assistance with political and diplomatic support that can protect democracy activists from government harassment and control. Democracy assistance can hardly be effective if governments, even those that are elected, succeed in closing off the political space that civic and political groups need to function.

Finally, democracy will not expand in the world if established democracies like Italy and the United States do not solve their own problems of budget deficits, low growth, and political paralysis. We must revive our own democracies, fight the cynicism and loss of hope that has seeped into our political cultures, and remember that democratic rights involve the responsibility of citizens to defend freedom and promote inclusion and equality of opportunity.

If we cannot solve our own crises, democracy will suffer around the world because we will have neither the will nor the resources to support the global struggle for freedom. Indeed, we need to recognize that democracy faces the challenge of alternative models of political organization. The Chinese model of autocratic capitalism is one such model, and it has a certain appeal at a time of Western economic crisis and Chinese growth. 

In this regard, I hope that the example of brave people fighting for freedom in China and other authoritarian countries will give energy to our own efforts to invigorate our societies. I remember in the 1970s, following the war in Vietnam, that many Americans had become demoralized and no longer believed that we should support freedom and democracy in the world. It was the example of people like Dr. Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Union, and Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel in Central Europe, that reminded Americans of the need to cherish and support freedom.

And so may the people giving their lives for freedom in Syria today remind us that freedom can’t be taken for granted. May the struggle of the people in Yemen, in Bahrain, in China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Cambodia and so many other places help us recall the statement of Wendell Phillips, an anti-slavery American abolitionist, that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Let us understand that solidarity flows two ways. We must use our freedom to support theirs, as Aung San Suu Kyi urges. And may their struggles for freedom inspire us to renew and reform our own democracies, for only by so doing will we be able to fulfill our obligation to help the brave people who are giving their lives for freedom, and who are bringing light to the dark places and remote corners of our global community.