Apathitis C

Democratic decay

Democracy, what’s the point?

In a shameless display of subjectivity, last week’s Diary gushed over President Bush’s plans to spread the democratic word to the four corners of the globe.

This week, we start in Serbia, where for the third time in a year, voters failed to elect themselves a president. Once again, not enough of them bothered to show up at the polls.

The independent Center for Free Elections and Democracy clocked turnout at a woeful 38.5%. The result is not valid if turnout is below 50%. The country, as you might have guessed, is facing a crisis – even if prime minister Zoran Zivkovic says otherwise.

A general election (parliamentary) is set for 28 December. Politicians are hoping the voters do their bit. Voters are hoping the politicians offer them something worth voting for.

It is not so long ago that the democratically-elected president of Serbia was a man called Slobodan Milosevic. You might have heard of him. On 28 June 2001 - the date of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and of Milosevic's own notorious 600th anniversary speech at the battlefield in 1989 which was an augury of the wars to come - he was transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. That decision was taken behind the back of Milosevic's successor as president, Vojislav Kostunica. In other words, effective leadership has been missing in Serbia for quite some time.

Food for thought.

All three recent ballots in Serbia have been hit by boycotts. This time, Vojislav Kostunica, who twice came first in the vote for president but was denied the Presidency because the governing DOS coalition urged voters to boycott the poll, demanded a boycott by his own party's supporters. “The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) thinks these presidential elections don’t make sense,” Kostunica said. “They are just prolonging the agony and decay of Serbia. That’s the reason why the DSS is not inviting people to go to the polls.” Kostunica didn’t run this time, despite being the country’s most popular politician.

There is something mournful about apathy like this. Serbia seems to be searching its soul and finding nothing.

The fall of Milosevic, the restoration of links with the west, the tragic assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindjic in March 2003, all hang like a shadow over a nation seeking to redefine itself in the aftermath of war.

Of course, it never helps when coalitions splinter into several rival factions, as has happened in Serbia. The country needs a pizza with all the toppings, but voters are being asked to pick and choose from the salad bar.

Sorry.

The main rivalry remains between the reformers and the nationalists. Milosevic still exercises significant indirect power in his nation. “For a long time there’s been no patriotic leader of the republic,” said ultra-nationalist candidate and Milosevic buddy Tomislav Nikolic (who received most of the votes, 46%, which were cast in the election). “That’s why Serbia is in decay.”

At least the rivals agree on one thing: their nation is in “decay”.

Being realistic?

And so to the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK), favourite haunt of the Diary.

Otherwise known as North Korea, this week, the “people’s democracy” announced that it intended to consider George Bush’s offer of a written security guarantee from the US, Japan, Russia, China and South Korea.

This, as the Diary keeps saying, is the world’s most inconsistent nation (to put it politely). A few weeks ago, the same offer by Bush was dismissed as “laughable”. North Korea was demanding a non-aggression treaty, Washington wasn’t playing ball.

So, with that in mind, here is this week’s news (obsolete as of next week): out of the blue, North Korea claims it is “willing to realistically abandon nuclear development at the phase when the US hostile policy is removed.”

Note that “realistically” – a big change for the PDRK. Up until now, all other promises to abandon nuclear development have been notably unrealistic.

Any chance the Stalinist state is for real this time? Don’t count on it, though the US offer of a written security guarantee was a concession on their part. Accepting it may be North Korea’s concession.

There is talk in Japan of a possible second round of six-nation talks on the crisis, to be held in Beijing between 10 and 20 December.

US defense secretary Don Rumsfeld was in South Korea this week, upping the tempo, squinting over the border in a visit to Camp Casey (motto: “Fight Tonight”), and saying, “the people in the North, repressed people to be sure, watch their children waste away, eat bark, as that evil regime spends huge sums on weapons.”

Typical Rummy diplomacy.

Meanwhile, US assistant secretary of state James Kelly hauled ass to Tokyo. Rumsfeld confirmed a phased withdrawal of US troops from the Korean peninsula, out of range of Kim’s artillery. South Korea has just committed itself to sending 3,000 troops to Iraq (Japan is also deploying troops for the first time since 1945). The US wants more, but some South Koreans want the US troops out of South Korea.

You know how it is.

In the words of James Kelly and Japanese defence minister Shigeru Ishiba: “dialogue and pressure”.

It could be the subtitle of the Diary.

Candid in camera

In an obvious, and disgustingly predictable move, we head to Iran.

“Axis of Evil” member #2 is doing a good job of widening the current Atlantic divide. This week, US secretary of state Colin Powell waxed wrathful with his European ‘allies’, criticising an EU draft resolution on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme for being weak and typically europathetic.

Colin confessed to having “a very candid discussion” with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Yikes!

In public, Powell was ever the diplomat, of course: “We have some reservations ... about whether the resolution is strong enough to convey to the world the difficulties that we have had with Iran over the years.”

What, you mean all that “Death to America” stuff?

Europe, still giddy from its successful trip to Tehran in which Iran agreed to suspend its uranium programme and welcome IAEA inspectors, wants to go easy on the Islamic Republic. The US wants Iran reported to the UN Security Council, a body so understanding to American interests in the past.

No, hold on...

Anyway, Europe is now officially the continent of “constructive engagement”, unless America is involved. The IAEA says it can find no evidence of Iran developing nuclear weapons (which US undersecretary of state John Bolton called “simply impossible to believe”). Europe doesn’t want the Security Council involved. And the rest of us just watch from afar just trying to remember who’s on whose side.

In the words of the New York Times, Europe is “trying to lure Tehran into compliance with negotiations and incentives.” Siren diplomacy.

In what the Diary assumes was a Freudian printing error, the NYT said that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and his European colleagues “said Iraq had shown a new willingness to cooperate with them.”

Iraq? Now that is news!

“The objective we have in common is to prevent Iran from going nuclear,” Solana said about Europe and the US.

Glad that’s clear.

Flagging a bit on a flight to London, Powell let his diplomatic guard down and said the European draft resolution lacked “trigger mechanisms” to punish Iran for non-compliance.

Radical trots

Tired of arriving late to work in the morning, bedraggled, angry, and ready to revolt over the traffic and transport problems?

Well good news, urbanites! A solution may finally have been found to your congestion nightmares. The answer comes not from London, Berlin, Los Angeles or Rome. It comes from Dakar, capital of Senegal.

That’s right, the BBC reports that “Commuters in Senegal’s capital are resorting to horses to help evade heavy traffic and cut transport costs.”

Flying in the face of so-called technological advance, the Dakarese are ditching the internal combustion engine for old-fashioned horse-power. And who can blame them?

Entrepreneurial locals have started a horse and cart taxi service “which is adept at beating the jams”.

It’s so obvious – yet so brilliant!

The horse-taxis gallop over paths long closed to vehicles. As frustrated passengers swelter in the back of motionless minibus taxis, horse-taxis, loaded with up to three lucky passengers, dart to freedom, or the office.

Even better, they cost only half the fare of taxi cabs! Can it get any better than that?

Yes! The horse taxis are helping lessen Dakar’s unemployment burden.

Finally, all you urban cowboys out there can show what you’re made of and earn your spurs. Saddle-up people, and you’ll be emailing your friends, feet up on desk, latté in hand, a whole hour before your beleaguered colleagues stagger through the door, pulling their hair out and pleading with the boss not to fire them.

What more could you want?

Don’t miss!

The big picture.

Quotes of the week

“The evil is in plain sight. The danger only increases with denial. Great responsibilities have fallen once again to the great democracies. We will face these threats with open eyes and we will defeat them.”

“Like eleven presidents before me I believe in international institutions ... [but] it’s not enough to meet the dangers of the world with resolutions.”

“Those in authority are not judged only by good motivation. The people have given us the duty to defend them. That duty sometimes requires the violent restraint of violent men. In some cases, the measured use of force is all that protects us from a chaotic world ruled by force.”

“We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.”

“We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East – your nation and mine in the past have been too willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. This bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely brought time while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.”
Extracts from the keynote speech by President George W. Bush at London’s Banqueting House.

“We share the confidence – and the courage – to try and make this a more prosperous, a safer and, above all, a freer world.”
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on President Bush’s state visit to Britain – the first since Woodrow Wilson in 1918.

“I hope the prorogation will not be an unpleasant precedent.”
Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker Joseph Michael Perera. Two weeks ago, President Chandrika Kumaratunga suspended Sri Lanka’s parliament. It reopened this week.

“When a Jew is attacked in France, it is an attack on the whole of France.”
President Jacques Chirac. A Jewish school in Gagny was firebombed this week.

“One of the things that did not work out between us was a properly agreed strategy.” Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington, on the Iraq war. Read more.

“Patience has been given a whole new meaning by the way we have tried to deal with this issue.”
EU commissioner Chris Patten on EU efforts to stop Israeli trading goods from the West Bank.

Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net