THE TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY

DEMOCRACY: ‘An organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights.’ It is extremely sad to witness our world steadily moving away and getting more detached from this conviction nowadays. In its history, humanity has fought against tyrants, overthrown dictators and defeated cruel despots. Only to reach a situation where human rights and civil liberties are irrepressibly violated on a daily basis by those who supposed to ‘safeguard’ them.  I do not throw fireworks just so I can impress others. I am writing this blog to convey my revulsion about the deterioration of democratic principles generated by an industry of terror. In my words, I will also explain that day by day the world is losing egalitarianism, the main value that befits modern societies.   

For many years, I took notice of commentators who hurriedly criticised certain administrations for the exploitation of immigrant workers. For example, in the past, many Middle East authorities were subject of complaints on ill-treatment of foreign workers. According to analysts, for a long time, it was considered to be vicious and tragic to expose migrant workers to poor conditions.

Meantime, in the West we were all shocked to find out that the fierce North Korean leader Kim Jong-un deprived his people from basic rights and freedoms. How appalling we all thought for North Koreans not to be able to enjoy life as ‘we’ do in the West. Seemingly, North Koreans cannot share news, not permitted to express opinions publicly and are forbidden from criticising their government.

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The ‘world’ vowed for inequality to disappear

On another note, having documented evidence from the second world war, we see the horrific atrocities committed by ruthless regimes of that era. Other than murder and torture, the brutalities included public tyranny, mental torment and condemnation of social groups. In a similar way, in early 1990s the world celebrated the end of South Africa’s ‘apartheid’. The country suffered for many years in a harsh institutionalized system which treated specific groups of citizens with prejudice. At the end, Democracy had won and the ‘world’ vowed for inequality to disappear from our modern social order.

My account of instances will close with my own personal tales. I recall the times when as a child, my father told me stories from his own struggling experiences. He lived under a repressive regime in Greece during the second world war. He spoke to me about the social restrictions, the food shortages and the cruel tactics by the German Command to control the Greek people. After these events, Greece entered another dark period in 1967 when after a military coup, a Junta controlled the country for seven years. During this period, generally speaking the Greek people lived in constant fear, distrust and suspicion. Curfews, social restrictions and authoritarian domination became a norm. Returning to democracy in 1974 was a relief for most people. Along with thousands of others, my father also believed that these events will not be repeated as the world moved on to better times.

All democratic principles have been violated

I’ll be damned!! How wrong were they all, including my father? I wonder, are we now any different from all my aforementioned points of our history? The past exploitations of the foreign workers in the Middle East and the decline in employment rights worldwide over the past two years are matching. Millions of people lost their job or were forced to work in dire conditions during this ‘pandemic’ psychosis that engulfed the world. Yet, nobody has blinked and eye!

Incidentally, are the western citizens any different from the North Korean citizens now? Considering how several governments unscrupulously manipulate the constitution and the judicial system, the answer is NO. The right of speech has become a mandatory silence while those who dare to critically judge authorities get obliterated. As Georgios Kasimatis, the eminent Greek professor of Constitutional Law said in a recent interview: “ … we became subjects of experiment … all democratic principles have been violated …”.

Therefore, is the partition of society between ‘vaccinated’ and ‘unvaccinated’ citizens dissimilar to South African apartheid? Is the contemporary globalised indoctrination system (consisting of selected media networks) working differently from Joseph Goebbel’s Nazi propaganda machine? Is the exerted coercion by the Greek, Australian and other administrations less subjugating than Mussolini’s fascism? Our cities retell Berlin in 1940 where people who express their views publicly (peacefully and calmly) were arrested or bullied into silence?  

One would argue that these are rhetorical questions. However, start looking into facts and you will realize the similarities. Start researching into history and you will find the reappearance of wickedness. State viciousness and harshness is widespread now, from East to West. Authorities have produced so much fear and anxiety which in turn incapacitated people and made them mentally numb. Psychologically people are so debilitated that State brutality has become a healthy norm for them. Appropriately, I will conclude here quoting Joseph Stalin:  “This is how easy it is to govern stupid people. They will follow you no matter how much pain you case them, as long as you throw a little worthless treat once in a while.

By Nikolas Koukos