Reflection #4

Although we discussed this topic at length in Thursday’s class, I would like to revisit the question of America’s freedom to impose democracy on nations that seemingly lack our commitment to representation, free speech, frequent elections, and other democratic principles. When we consider the United States’ efforts to support democratization in other parts of the world, we must also understand our own motivation. The American perspective is a unique one, especially when it comes to acts of rebellion, revolution, and free expression. American citizens have an insatiable need to express their beliefs and opinions, especially when those opinions are at odds with those of the government’s. Political rebellion is a deep-running thread of the American social fabric, and we asserted our right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” even before those words were penned and we declared our independence from Britain. Perhaps it is our own personal success story, our own revolution which lead to the greatest modern democracy in the world, that blinds us from the realization that some people do not think as we do. Some nations have not been successful when fighting a war against an established superpower. Some nations do not allow thousands or millions of citizens to gather in one place at one time and fight for a cause or criticize the government, without being met with teargas, tanks, guns, even death. Americans cannot understand these acts of suppression, which are completely at odds with our own definition of stability, and our methods for attaining it. When the government performs in a way we as a society cannot respect or condone, we seek to change it, because that is our right. Other countries cannot imagine how stability could ever result from such freedom, and so they govern in the way they deem proper (suppressing dangerous shifts in opinion, controversial movements, etc). Political rebellion in the United States has frequently resulted in victory; our obtainment and cultivation of democracy has been an indubitable success. Our history provides us with a tangible example of how things are “supposed” to happen, yet by focusing solely on our history, we forget those of other nations and peoples whose efforts for democracy or freedom were not so perfectly met. American democratization is not as simple for the rest of the world, simply because its ideals contradict forms of rule that have been established for centuries, and because some current foreign governments cannot dream of granting citizens that kind of freedom.