I had just graduated from college when I saw my government invade the Dominican Republic to support a military dictator who had just overturned the democratically elected President, Juan Bosch. As my awareness grew, I realized that we were supporting brutal dictators in Vietnam, much of Latin America, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and in many other countries. We had overthrown democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran, as well as the Dominican Republic, and a few years later were to collaborate in the overthrow and murder of the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, and his replacement by the brutal military dictator Pinochet.
At the same time, we supported the continuation of colonial rule, often very brutally, in Angola, Mozambique, what was then Rhodesia, and many smaller countries; and, most shamefully at all, we supported the atrocious system of apartheid in South Africa.
All of this was “justified” in the name of stopping Communism, which supposedly would take over all those countries if we let them become democratic.
Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the outbreak of the “third wave” of democratization – in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and to some extent in Africa. With no more fear of Communism, there seemed to be no more need for the US to support dictatorships in other countries.
But what is happening today? The US government is turning a blind eye to brutal depression by the absolute monarch of Bahrain. It supported the coup against President Zelaya in Honduras, even while claiming to oppose it. It is maneuvering to keep the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt from becoming “too” democratic. More broadly, it seems like the Cold War all over again!
This trend is appalling. Many people had hoped that President Obama would turn us in a different direction, but instead he seems to be opting for more of the same. The explanation given, when any is given at all, tends to be that terrorism is just like Communism – if we allow too much democracy, it is said, the terrorists will take over. This isn’t very credible, though – it’s just hard to envision massive electoral support for terrorists! (I mean, if they had that kind of support they wouldn’t need to resort to terrorism!)
Far more likely, in my opinion, is that support for dictatorship abroad is linked to the attack on democracy at home. The increase in economic inequality basically means that a relatively small number of people control more and more of the world’s resources. They benefit immensely from doing so, but they can only keep it up if they keep people from voting on it. Here in the US, they do so by a variety of disenfranchising devices (massive imprisonment, intimidation campaigns, cumbersome registration processes, gerrymandering, etc.) In countries like Bahrain, they don’t have to be so subtle. They just work through the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the like to arrest, torture, and shoot those who demand democracy.
It’s time we got more democracy at home, and used it to support democracy in other countries.