Democracy, Freedom, Populism, and Authoritarianism
Democracy, Freedom, Populism, and Authoritarianism
escrito por Dini Harmita[1]
Abstract
Indonesia has been acknowledging the
principle of one of their indigenous people saying that rice should not be sold
but sharing instead. Thus, they built BULOG. Nonetheless, like other countries
with the challenges of vague definition of authoritarianism, populism, and
democracy, they failed in implementing it. The rice has low qualities yet still
get stolen by mafias and the poor needs to pay the rice. This phenomenon does not
happen only in Asia but also at least in Europe and Latin America though with
different contexts, regardless democracy, populism, and or authoritarianism the
entity is. This brief paper is aimed at summarising the phenomenon and
delivering different perspectives that may encourage those who are in confusion
to see and find the clearer pathways.
Keywords: Democracy, populism, authoritarianism, Asia, Europe, Latin America
Defining
Defining everything may have been easy for
some and the other way around for others. Nonetheless, for those who have been
involved in political participation be it as voters, politicians, political scientists,
and or other roles-actors to define democracy, populism, and authoritarianism
has been tendentiously vague.
The recent ‘Sanchez of Spanish’ decision
to organise another election after his party was defeated and to resign after
his wife was allegedly accused with corruption is one of the grand cases. To
compare him with ‘Soeharto of Indonesian’ perhaps a bit lagging but once we see
the similarities it is worth to analyse.
Casal Bértoa and Rama (2021) mentioned
that to revitalise democracy we need to embrace populism. For almost 40 years
that was what exactly Indonesian had been doing. Having led by Soeharto made
most of them forgot how a populist and an authoritarian he could become. Only
until recently when his corruption scandals were risen then he is stamped as an
authoritarian; but by who? Those who are in favour of him or his family’s wealth
may see him as the father of development still.
So does Pedro Sanchez.
Leading Spanish democracy for 18 years might have made him a populist and soon
he will be stamped an authoritarian too, but by who? Will the country itself
will be still called humbly as a democracy regardless?
It sounds it does not
matter anymore indeed. What matter now is to revitalise almost everything.
Otherwise, even the rice of Asia, grain of Europe, and gold of Latin America
will eventually be belonged to the mafias for the rest of time we have left in
this universe. When they do not have any rights to even touch it because they will
not be called as if they do.
Spain and Europe
European Union has an
important role in defining every of its member’s future including politically
though it acts like a cooperative economically. This differs the continent with
others because they ensure at least their inhabitants are fed with high quality
produces. People of Bonito in Italy even produce olive oil in their yard.
Henceforth when Ukraine
was first invaded by Russia in February 2022 their first worry was the grain
crisis. Russia is still attacking from far thus it could not be called as
invasion indeed. Nonetheless, Russia’s strategy makes the invasion invisible. Like
radio wave, its frequency has been giving signals to Russia when and where to
attack.
Europe could not stand
doing nothing when Russia’s ally Iran attacked Israel with Hamas by using
Palestine. It rages everyone’s anger because from the very radical till the
very moderate Muslim defend Islam and from the very moderate Jewish till the
very radical ones defend Israel. They forgot the definition of human right
itself.
Spanish government has
been among the governments who try to mediate both. While Russia is still
attacking Ukraine, every tiny political movement counts. It shows the true face
of the actors. Represented by far-rights, they infiltrated every government
including Spanish democracy. It makes everyone seems to forget that the
far-rights in their entities are doing all of this in favour of the larger authoritarian
ones such as Trump for America, Orban for Hungary, Lukashenko for Belarus, and ‘Putin
of Russia’ himself.
Freedom and Democracy in Asia
As a home of democracy, participatory shouldn’t be used in authoritarianism and populism in Asia. It happened in Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and even in an advanced country as Singapore. Why? It results in the legitimation of what Russia and China have been doing: Unifying everything.
Since participatory is something to be evaluated as detailed as possible it’s actually supposed to be as involving entities as tiny as possible. Denmark and Finland are the example indeed. Nonetheless, they also have holes to be fixed; such as discrimination.
China with their Qin Dynasty should actually be proud of their freedom in studying as complicated and fascinating as terracotta tombs from 2,200 years ago. Japan also, with their comparative methods between human and nature as represented in their research on politics and democracy. They call it a new species and celluloid.
Nevertheless, if oligarchs, politicians, and related institutions keep forcing their interests in any entities, it can’t be called participatory at all. Thus it can’t be called democracy at all.
tbc -
love, profcbs ઇଓ
[1] Graduated MA from GSID Nagoya University in 2021 with an ADB-JSP
scholarship after working with local and international agencies starting from
bachelor school decades prior. In favour of democracy, she published a co-management
book (2009) and a working paper titled Political Parties and Democracy in Asia:
Rise and Fall (2022).
