Commentary
Carthago delenda est
By Iftekhar Sayeed
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jun 30, 2008, 00:14

Marcus Porcius Cato repeated the above formula ("Carthage must be destroyed") so often in the forum that Carthage was eventually leveled and the spot anathematized. This occurred during the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), that is, the third war between two democracies, or, if you will, two republics.

I bring up the episode because of recent noises made by John McCain, to the effect that a League of Democracies would ensure world peace -- apparently, democracies never go to war. The former -- bellicose -- prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair had also argued that since democracies don’t fight each other, if the whole world were democratic, wars would stop. [1] Notice the premises in the argument:

1)     Democracies don't fight each other;

2)     If all countries were democracies, wars would stop.

We have already noted that the first premise is historically and, therefore consummately, false. "But before we move onto Athens, we should ask whether European and specifically Greek democracy really was the first democracy of all." (italics original) [2] The author suggests the distinct possibility that democracy was a Phoenician innovation, emulated, like the alphabet, by the Greeks.

"Some historians of Rome have recently argued that it too was really a democracy . . ." observes John Dunn in the final essay of the book. [3] However, he concludes emphatically that Rome was "far from being a democracy", but "for most of its history, from the death of its last king up to the triumph of Octavian, it was indisputably a republic". Since direct democracy is no longer an option in the modern world, we can dispense with such scholarly minutiae and rephrase the first premise to read, "Republics and democracies never go to war against each other". Now, that's cutting the Gordian knot.

If anyone were dim enough to think that America's war against Iraq proves that democracies do go to war, I'm sure Messrs McCain and Blair would have a pat reply: "America is the democracy here, Iraq the non-democracy, and we maintain that democracies never fight each other."

In case anybody missed the point still, let me spell it out for Messrs McCain and Blair. If X is a democracy, and Y is a democracy, then and only then, X and Y will never go to war against each other. Aggression by one democracy against a non-democracy doesn't count, you see -- it seems there's something so uncongenial about an autocracy that it brings out the worst in a democracy, and compels it, against its finest sentiments, to attack the barbaric autocracy. Therefore, logic compels us to conclude that we must get rid of the nondemocracies to achieve universal piece, for they provoke the democracies into attacking them.

At this point, the reader may be stroking his chin; perhaps, there's something in a democracy's DNA that causes it to – dare we say it? – overreact. The reader will then recall the warnings against democracy advanced by the Federalist Papers, such as this one: “Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they . . . often engaged in wars . . ." [4]

There are other observations of a similar nature, but I leave them out.

"Is it true that democracies never fight each other?" inquires Lord Skidelsky, in his article on John McCain and the Democratic League. "The affirmative answer seems to depend on two separate claims," he maintains. "The first is that democracies have, as a matter of historical record, never fought each other. This is true of a rather small group of rich countries -- India is a partial exception -- mainly in Western Europe and its overseas offshoots, since World War II."

Apparently, there was no history before World War II -- no democracies, no republics; in which case, the world must have been perpetually at war, for nondemocracies are always pugnacious. Thus ancient Egypt, ancient China, and so on and so forth, were mere war machines. Never mind that Egypt did not even have an army before the Hyksos invasion -- that was a mere aberration. Never mind that the Roman Empire, after the civil wars of the Republic, was welcomed by poets like Virgil and Horace for the great Octavian peace. These are mere accidents. As a matter of historical record, democracies have never fought each other.

Let us assume that the past does not count -- that history is bunk. That would make the 20th century bunk as well, but would possibly make it less bunkish, since closer to our time.

The reason Lord Skidelsky gives for non-combatant democracies is (with the telling exception of the world's largest) that prosperity produces peace. "But is it democracy that has brought them peace and prosperity, or is it peace and prosperity that have brought democracy? Is it democracy that has kept Europe peaceful since 1945, or is it the long period of peace since 1945 that has allowed democracy to become the European norm?"

Europe since 1945: now, there's another inversion of the telescope by Lord Skidelsky. What about Europe before 1945? Was it a poverty-ridden place? Was it not the richest, most advanced part of the world?

There was no rational reason for the First World War. In 1898, Ivan Bloch, a Russian banker, wrote a book that was published in English, Is War Now Impossible? Yes, he answered, because war was too destructive to be sustainable. In 1909, Norman Angell argued that it was a “great illusion” to think that any industrialized nation could benefit from war. A Lloyd’s underwriter told the Committee of Imperial Defence that were a German ship sunk by the Royal Navy, he would have to pay compensation. “Britain, France and Germany were all industrialised countries with highly educated populations and more or less universal male suffrage,” observes Richard Vinen. ”Why should states that were so well placed to calculate their interests rationally embark on a war that was to bring such destruction?” [5] Answer: precisely because they had educated populations with the vote. As Vinen said of the Great War: “The fact that the war proved so long and so destructive was the result of the ‘sophistication’ of western European societies, not the ‘primitive’ nature of east European ones."[6] Does that sound terribly familiar?

According to J. M. Roberts: “Europe had, after all, been prepared for war by the first age of mass education and literacy, by the first mass newspapers, and by decades of the propagation of ideals of patriotism. When it started, the Great War, which was to reveal itself as the most democratic in history in its nature, may well also have been the most popular ever." [7] (emphases added)

By 1940, the Second World War came around, and the democracies were fighting each other with the frenzy of crazed animals. The historian Norman Davies observes: “Hitler’s democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or as bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government: in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals. In Germany in 1933-4, it produced a Nazi government because the prevailing culture of Germany’s voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters.” [8] Whoops! That's politically incorrect, Mr. Davies. Don't you know that cannibals are the exclusive preserve of autocracies? And it sounds a lot like the military strongman of Bangladesh, General Moeen U. Ahmed, telling TIME magazine, "No systems of government are bad in their own right. It's the human beings who make it so." [9]

And to compound insult to insult, another Norman, this time, Norman Finkelstein, has even suggested that Hitler's quest for Lebensraum was modeled on America's "manifest destiny" [10] -- the long march to the Pacific that dragged, like a juggernaut, the lesser nations of the Native Americans. But then, the latter were not democracies, so it was all right to decimate them. Only democracies don't fight each other, remember?

Now, we are in the thick of things at last: Lord Skidelsky's magic year, 1945! From here on the European nations are at peace because they are prosperous. "Is it democracy that has kept Europe peaceful since 1945, or is it the long period of peace since 1945 that has allowed democracy to become the European norm?" That democracy since 1945 has kept Europe peaceful is not quite right; peace has kept Europe democratic. But Europe was democratic even before 1945 -- as far as the major nations were concerned. And yet there was no peace; so what caused the peace after 1945? Prosperity, of course. Now, peace caused prosperity, and prosperity caused democracy, so peace ultimately caused democracy. Here, I'm totally lost -- what was cause and what was effect? There seems to be a chicken-and-egg problem. And then there's India: poor, but apparently peaceful (this is false because India, right after 1947, was stitched together by violent encroachments and annexations of sovereign princely territories, but let's not nitpick.)

Lord Skidelsky, no doubt as a patriotic Englishman, forgets that after the war, Europe came to be run by bureaucrats. He never mentions the European Union, and the famous "democratic deficit" of the EU. One of the chief aims of the EU was to prevent future wars in Europe, and the elite knew that democracy would not deliver that. They wanted "ever closer union." If all that was necessary for peace was democracy, then why the European Union? And why the single currency? Helmut Kohl pushed through the single currency claming that it was a matter of "war and peace." That the pathologies of democracy are fresh in the minds of the European elite was glaringly obvious after the Austrian election that produced a government consisting of the Freedom Party. Louis Michel, the foreign minister of Belgium, said that voters can be “naive” and “simple.” Of Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party, he said that to be a democratic party “you must work by democratic rules, you must accept not to play on the worst feelings each human being has inside himself. " [11] The contempt of the EU elite for the masses can be read in such lines as this one quoting a German diplomat: "If we had had a referendum on the Treaty of Rome, people might have rejected it on the grounds that it raised the price of bananas." [12] Quite.

Another Englishman observed, "The worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences." He must have been referring to arguments of this kind. "Democracies are peaceful, therefore, nondemocracies are not peaceful." It's like arguing: "Crows are black, therefore, non-crows are not black." I'm sure we can think of one black thing that is not a crow.

An Indian economist, Amartya Sen, has been quoted ad nauseam for maintaining that democracies never suffer from famine. [13] Again, the logic has been interesting: "Democracies do not suffer from famine, therefore, nondemocracies suffer from famine." One would, therefore, expect every autocracy to suffer from famine, but, apparently, that doesn't happen. When Bangladesh was under military rule, no famines occurred; yet under democratic rule in 1974, a famine killed 50,000 people, while food was being exported to India! [14]

Latin America has been non-democratic for most of the 20th century and yet the South Americans nations have known neither famine nor war. Munch on that, Messrs Skidelsky, McCain and Blair!

One suspects that behind these illogical and demented sound bites, some nefarious purpose is at work. And Lord Skidelsky fleshes out precisely this point. He observes that the touted League of Democracies is only a fig leaf to keep Russia and China out, and to eviscerate the United Nations because it tends to get in America's way. All this is to be expected from a democracy.

Curiously enough, his lor'ship wishes to proselytize for democracy. "I am all for spreading Western-style democracy, but not at the cost of making the world more warlike." Fine, but why does he want to see " Western-style democracy" spread at all, unless he believes, in his heart of hearts, that "Western-style democracy" is superior to the alternative polities under which most people live. He must feel infinitely sorry for somebody like me having to live under a military dictatorship. Poor sod! Imagine what Sayeed has to suffer under General Moeen -- the indignity of not being able to vote. Well, I've got news for his lor'ship: Sayeed is happy to be living under General Moeen; now, Sayeed can earn his daily bread without having to worry about the political parties starting a hartal in the middle of the day and keeping him off the streets for four or five days at a stretch, rendering him too scared to venture out with their Molotov cocktails and imported guns. . . . and he doesn't have to wake up every morning to read ghoulish newspaper reports of rape and murder perpetrated by boys patronized by the politicians.

So it appears absolutely clear that Lord Skidelsky and many others want democracy to spread in a peaceful manner, thereby implying that what would be replaced is inferior; only, the best would be the enemy of the not-so-good if it required war.

Now, why is it that democracies want to spread democracy, but autocracies don't want to spread autocracy?

It's something in the DNA, of course. I have argued that the flipside of "freedom" has been "slavery," which was widely practiced in the west, but not elsewhere. [15] Western civilisation has been a civilisation of domination. Another Englishman made statements similar to Messrs Skidelsky, Blair and McCain. He said: "Surrounded by congregated multitudes, I now imagine that . . . I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that the people of this island are . . . disseminating the blessings of civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms and nations." [16] Now, who could have uttered such an unholy wish, so redolent of George Bush, Tony Blair, the neo-cons, and other assorted ruffians? And especially when England was pursuing the slave trade with alacrity and profit. Surely not the great, blind poet, John Milton -- he who had stood firm against Charles II when it was death so to do? Aye, the very same. And, with apologies to another English poet, I conclude

beneath all the cant
desire for dominion runs

Notes

[1] John McCain's : ‘League of Democracies’ Is a Frightening Thought

[2] Simon Hornblower, "Democratic Institutions in Ancient Greece", ed. John Dunn, Democracy The Unfinished Journey, New York: OUP 1992, p. 2

[3] John Dunn, "Conclusion," ed. John Dunn, Democracy The Unfinished Journey, New York: OUP 1992, p. 244

[4] The Federalist Papers, No. 6, Project Gutenberg Etext, June 6, 1992

[5] Richard Vinen, A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, (Cambridge, Ma: Da Capo Press, 2001), p. 44

[6] Richard Vinen, A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, p. 46

[7] J. M. Roberts, Twentieth Century: The History of the World: 1901 To The Present (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1999), pp. 244-5

[8] Norman Davies, Europe: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 969

[9] General Command

[10] Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, (London: Verso, 2001), p. 145

[11] The Economist, February 26, 2000, p. 66

[12] The Economist, October 5, 2002, p. 52

[13] "Sen. Amartya." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 20082008. " Sen believed that famines do not occur in functioning democracies because their leaders must be more responsive to the demands of the citizens."

[14]“Famine,” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition

[15] See my article, Freedom and "Freedom"

[16] "nationalism." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 20082008.