Crisis of Our Making

Many countries have created unprecedented political crisis. Power greedy political leaders had been responsible for it. They certainly disregard the democratic principles and values. The community of democratic countries did not do much against such power greedy political leaders. Consequently, these political criminals walk with impunity. For example, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan Philippines, Thailand, and Ukraine have been in the grip of political crisis of their making. Elected prime minister in Iraq and elected president in Egypt had been unsuccessful. They had been the key players in creating political crisis in their respective country.

Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Pakistan have recently done with the general elections. Political leaders have shown the attitude of, “If you won the elections then the elections were rigged if I was elected then the elections were fine.”

The two candidates for the president of Afghanistan had been squabbling over the run-off elections. Both the candidates were not ready to accept the election defeat. So, they had been saying that the rival candidate had rigged the elections. The great thing they did was they ultimately agreed on sharing power at the cost of the democratic system of governance means if two candidates agreed on sharing the power then they did not need voters. They denied the voters to choose the right person to the presidency of the country.

Similarly, the opposition politicians in Pakistan had been charging the ruling party of rigging the elections. They needed to correct irregularities in the elections then and there rather they took the issue to the streets so many months after the elections demanding the resignation of the prime minister installed by the franchise. They were creating an environment conducive to the army taking over the power. Pakistan had been most of the time under the military rule. Probably, the military might be behind the scene to instigate the opposition to launch street protests. Fortunately, the opposition did not go to the extent that the military had an excuse to step in the politics again.

Who would not rigged the elections? Who would be a political saint and do nothing to win the elections? Each candidate does everything possible to win. S/he spent millions to get elected. Elections are for winning not for losing. So, every candidate would try to make the votes in her or his favor. Then, the rivals correct him/her on the spot. So, charging any candidate of rigging elections is meaningless. The election commission is there to oversee the elections.

Indonesia held the general elections recently. A challenger candidate had defeated the incumbent president. Following the democratic principles, the incumbent president needed to accept the defeat graciously and turned over the power to the winning candidate willingly. That had not happened in Indonesia so easily for months. Power is sweet. Everybody wants to stay on in power once s/he has been in power for some time. However, everyone needs to step down once s/he is defeated in the elections. S/he also had once defeated someone in the past. That is the democratic way of governance.

Philippines and Thailand have the history of throwing out the legitimately elected governments by the street mobs. The opposition put a few hundred thousands of people on the streets to force the elected government out of office. A few thousands street protestors removed the elected governments in Thailand disregarding the millions of voters’ wishes. The king graciously approved the military leader as the chief executive. Currently, Thai generals said that they would put back democracy in the Thai style. Nothing like the Thai democracy or any other style of democracy exists. Democratic principles are universal and applicable to every country. The Thai military had killed democracy several times. Thai people had lost the democratic system of governance again and again.

Newly elected president of Egypt instead of being president of all Egyptians became the president of only the Muslim Brotherhood party. He tried to misguide the democratic system of governance. Consequently, the elected president was dislodged. The Muslim Brotherhood became illegal. The president instead of sitting in the office had been in captivity at an unknown place. Again Egypt lost democracy. Political leaders were not prepared to accept the democratic principles and follow them. Even the elected president Morsi deviated from democratic principles and attempted to craft a new constitution introducing the Islamic laws instead of democratic principles.

The prime minister of Iraq failed to make his government inclusive. The minority Sunni people lost their share in the State governance. Consequently, he faced the opposition of the people of other excluded sects. They opted for fighting their rights to be in the State governance. The country plunged into the political chaos. He bowed down to the advice of the western country to quit the office. He gave way to another person to make the government inclusive. Then, the country became the fertile ground for breeding the Islamic terrorists. They even managed to take over certain areas and declare the areas as an Islamist State.

The community of the democratic nations simply regretted the demise of democratically elected governments elsewhere in the world. Whenever street protests or army toppled an elected government the democratic community simply watched the events. They did nothing directly or indirectly to reinstate the legitimately elected government. They simply accepted the illegitimate governments, and did the business with them as usual.

In Ukraine, a few thousands protestors dislodged the legitimately elected president. Then, a group of young leaders took over the office. They tried to rule over the Ukrainians of the Russian origin. They had the grudge against the Russian-origin Ukrainians because of the Soviet rule for 70 years.

First thing, the new rulers of Ukraine did was to stop using the Russian language for the official purpose, and in schools. That single decision alienated the Russian speaking Ukrainians and provoked them into fighting for independence.

Provoked Russians in Ukraine looked for the help of the Russian Government. Russia got the right excuse to rescue the Russians in Ukraine. Consequently, Ukraine easily lost a grip on Crimea. Currently, Russian rebels have been fighting for self-rule in the Eastern Ukraine.

Instead of correcting their faulty decision, and convincing the Russian-origin Ukrainians of their rights to live as equals, the Ukrainian rulers went to the west seeking the military assistance to repress the uprisings. They thought that the military assistance would come at the snap of fingers. Ukraine was not the member of the NATO. So, the western countries did not find it necessary to help the Ukrainian leaders put on the power by the street mob. Actually, such mob-powered leaders have no legitimacy to represent the whole nation that comprises so many different people including the major minority Russian-origin Ukrainians. So, NATO members pretended to help those illegitimate leaders but let them go on their own.

The western countries pretended to punish the Russian government for involvement in Ukraine. They blocked the bank accounts of Russian billionaires that supported the Russian government. They hyped that the Russian economy had been swirling down because of the western sanctions and so on. In future, Russian billionaires and millionaires would be a little bit more careful to deposit their easy money in the western banks.

When nations fight none of the fighting nation gains. The Russian government attempted to counter the sanctions imposed on Russia by the western nations stopping the import of certain agricultural products from them. It was the sanction Russia imposed on the western countries. It hurt the western countries exporting such goods to Russia. Both the parties suffered from the economic problems brought by sanctions and counter sanctions.

China became the sole beneficiary of the Ukrainian crisis. China filled out the vacuum the western nations created imposing sanctions on Russia and the Russian ban on the import of certain goods from the west. The western countries pushed Russia to China. Russia made a trade agreement including the huge sale of the Russian gas to China. For Russia selling gas to China meant the diversification of the gas trade. Russia previously supplied gas to the western European countries only then with the Ukrainian crisis Russia turned to China for the sale of gas. Both Russia and China benefited from this trade diversification.

Ukraine had already lost Crimea to Russia. Fighting has been going on in the eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian rulers had already done a great damage to their nation. They needed to take a damage-control measure. One of the damage controls might be to ensure the rights of the Russian-origin Ukrainians to live as equals in Ukraine. Another damage control might be peace with Russia. And the third damage control might be to accept the current reality rather than fighting against the past history.

Friendly neighbors are better than the far away friends. If your house is on fire only the neighbor could immediately help you. So, Ukrainians would be better off settling the disputed issues amicably with the neighbor rather than going to a war, and calling each other fascists or bandits. They have already seen that the so-called far-away friends did not come to help them. Ukrainian leaders needed to understand that the democratic countries believing in the democratic principles did not help the street-born Ukrainian leaders. They were not democratically elected rather they tore down the democratically elected presidency and exposed the country to the illegitimate rule. That might be one of the reasons for the western nations not to be serious about the crisis in Ukraine.

Ukraine has a little choice of not being friendly with Russians. First, Ukrainians have to keep the Russian-origin Ukrainians happy. If Ukrainian rulers take the Russian Ukrainians as foes or foreigners or formers rulers then it would be disaster to Ukraine. Perpetual head-on collision with the Russian population of Ukraine would be the order of the day. It would risk the further breakup of Ukraine.

Historically and even now Ukraine depends on Russia for many things. The most important thing is the gas Ukraine depends on Russia. So, for Ukraine trying to find out other sources of gas would be unrealistic for some time to come. The western countries might resale the gas they obtained from Russian but at what cost Ukraine would need to buy. No matter how much the price of gas Russia had increased the Russian gas would be cheaper for Ukraine.

We shout at the Chinese, “You violated the fundamental human rights.” We simply regretted when the military took over the power from the elected government in Thailand. We remained mute spectators when a few thousands Ukrainians on the streets drove off the elected president from the office. Our democratic mindset has often been off balance. We took the democratic principles as the tools for saving the undemocratically elected government in Ukraine. Why we could not say that they should follow the democratic norms not the street mob. We could advise the Iraqi prime minister to make his cabinet inclusive or quit the government for making the way to the person that would make the State mechanism inclusive. Why the Ukrainian government should not include the Russian-origin Ukrainians in the government, and make the cabinet inclusive, and avoid any Russian fighting for a separate homeland or integrating a part of Ukraine with Russia. We have been very much concerned with the Burmese junta but not with the Thai king that had repeatedly supported the military taking over from the elected government. Why the Thai king did not say to the military chief taking over from the elected government went against the democratic principles. We kept silence if everything went in our favor even when something went wrong to democracy. We made big issues of countries not following democratic principles when we found out that they were not in our interest.

ENDS

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