By PLS
Watching, on TV, the looting in Mogadishu after Ethiopian tanks had sent the Islamic Courts bunch scampering southward out of the city, then hearing that warlords had already set up money-raising (to put it nicely) checkpoints segregating sector from sector within the city, I felt despair. Here we go again! Another cycle of anarchy and despotism. That downer led to thoughts of Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries apparently ricocheting between too much or too little governance, which in turn let to the eternal question WHY?
Well, maybe that’s too grandiose. But I did find myself wondering how on earth such countries could get themselves out of such a self-destructive pattern. And, as a veteran public diplomat, I couldn't help wondering whether the US experience might have anything constructive to offer. I think it does.
Let's start with something incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (who actually wasn't thinking of Somalia or any other foreign country) said recently. She remarked that she would be a more inclusive leader of the House. Unlike her Republican predecessors since 2001, she did not intend to preside as if the minority party members did not exist. Not that the Democrats in majority are about to act like the election-annulling, self-abnegating idiots a once imperial President Bush is calling for when he bleats about bipartisanship these days. But it’s also not likely that Pelosi’s Dems will scuttle controversial but worthwhile legislation in need of a little Republican support for passage. That’s intelligent bipartisanship, and it tends to cluster around centrism, a modern word for the old fashioned common good and the bane of the now discredited Rovian Republicans (and, to be fair about it, some on the Democratic left, as well).
SO: centrism and intelligent compromise; not extremism and ricochet. Here is one key to political stability, and it gives rise to another notion: inclusivity. Politics in the US has got angry, bitter and ugly to a large extent because the Republicans have governed from the extreme right, marginalizing and attempting to delegitimate all other opinions and orientations. Winning at any cost and excluding the losers from both goodies and respect became the rigid rule of the Republican power game. No wonder corruption ensued, and fear of exposure leads corruption-tolerating office-holders to cling to power. Hence the need for a “permanent majority,” however secured, which is what any despotism seeks. Arrogant, entrenched, narrowly-based power isn't good. Anywhere.
Let’s get back to Somalia. Whatever form a stable future government takes, it must surely recognize the partly conflicting, partly overlapping claims of tribalism, rival sects of Islam, geographic divergences rooted in history and custom, evolving gender roles, the tension between rural givens and urban miscibility. There’s a similar need in Afghanistan. Iraq, too, is torn among cross-cutting loyalties, one reason why that shattered humpty-dumpty is proving so hard to put back together again. Any system that cannot accommodate its characteristic congeries of non-criminal aspirations will not be long lasting.
Thinking of nation building, my mind willy-nilly returned to the US experience back in the 18th century, when the Founding Fathers were trying to create a unified country out of a bunch of jealous, ambitious, distrustful, squabbling colonies/states. The smaller entities were afraid of being reduced to permanent irrelevancy, so they were given equal (or over) representation in an upper house of the legislature, while representation in the lower house was based purely on population. Whoops! Not quite. The region dependent on a slave-economy had to be placated, too. So slaves got counted as part of the population even though they couldn’t vote—more over (or under) representation to buy the Union. Then there was another compromise to soothe the elitists who feared that too much democracy could turn into mob rule. Result: the president wouldn’t be popularly elected, at least not directly, but only through an intermediate stage called the Electoral College. Finally, to minimize the possibility of a self-righteous majority riding rough shod over minorities, the Bill of Rights was quickly added.
Good grief! I almost left out the famous checks and balances that keep the executive, the legislature and the judiciary in a constant balancing act. No kings. No dictators. No one hogging power, privilege and prestige on a permanent untouchable basis.
And isn’t such power-hogging what the rivalrous segments of currently chaotic polities like Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq are worried about? The other guy or group is going to get control and do us in. Forever.
I’m not suggesting that any other country copy the principles of governance that grew out of the peculiar needs of a bakers’ dozen of English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, but I think a close look at the constitution-writing process would be useful. There was mucho hard-headed horse-trading. Legitimate fears were recognized and allayed. Unpleasant realities were given their due, but generosity and idealism were not absent. No state or region got everything it wanted. None went away empty-handed.
That’s as fair as it gets in politics. The common good is bound to be a bit of a compromise. Not perfect, but workable. Durable, too.