Strength That Does Not Fail.

Sweet Surrender: By 1933, Adolf Hitler was the last political leader left standing, and his Nazis the only party Germany had yet to try. It was ever thus. Dictators and dictatorships succeed by being the only medicine a desperately sick nation hasn’t swallowed; the only strength that hasn’t failed.

NOT ALL DICTATORSHIPS look like Burma. When the troops are out on the streets firing rubber bullets at high-school students and shutting down the Internet for the second day in a row, what are you looking at? Effectively, you’re watching a dictatorship that is failing. No matter how you measure it: economically, socially or politically; the price of ruling by terror is enormous and irrecoverable. Which is why a truly successful dictatorship doesn’t look anything like a dictatorship – until you cross it.

Knowing how the fascist story ended, it is very hard to grasp how many people came away from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany full of admiration. Before the invasions, before the Holocaust, when Germany’s economy was booming and Italy’s trains were running on time, it seemed to many people – Winston Churchill, Henry Ford and King Edward VIII among them – that the fascists had much to teach the world about the best ways to go about restoring economic prosperity and fostering national unity.

Hitler’s regime, in particular, left a great many of the world’s politicians and journalists ideologically mystified. Germany, after all, had boasted the largest and most energetic communist movement in Europe. It’s Social Democratic Party was similarly imposing. How, then, had Hitler and his Nazi Party subdued both parties so quickly and so easily? By 1935, two years into the Nazi regime, it was as if Germany’s fifty years of continuous left-wing progress had been an historical mirage. Could it really be true that, as Hitler had argued all along (and as the name of his party emphatically confirmed) socialism would always come second to nationalism?

The explanation for Hitler’s success begins and ends with the Great Depression. That global economic catastrophe hit Germany harder than any of the other major industrial powers. With millions of men and women out of work, the burden of popular expectations fell upon the parties of the left and their powerful trade union allies. These were the politicians who would rescue the fatherland. Except, they didn’t. Indeed, the Left proved singularly unequal to the task of saving Germany. This historic failure left the socialists’ working-class supporters feeling bitterly disillusioned and betrayed – many beyond recall.

Which left Hitler as the last man standing, and his Nazis as the only party Germany had yet to try. It was ever thus. Dictators and dictatorships succeed by being the only medicine a desperately sick nation hasn’t swallowed; the only strength that hasn’t failed.

Later this year (maybe) the world’s athletes will gather in Tokyo for the XXXII Olympiad. Once again the world will thrill to the potent symbolism of the Olympic torchbearer running up the steps of the grand stadium to ignite the Olympic flame. Thousands of doves will be released in the name of international peace and amity. The world will cheer.

That every one of those “traditions” emerged from the 1936 Olympic Games, held in Hitler’s Berlin, is a deeply troubling historical detail. That the world’s admiration for Nazi Germany peaked that same year owes much to the huge success of the Nazis’ Olympic spectacle. Nor can there be much doubt that if Hitler had been assassinated in the months between the unification of Germany and Austria in March of 1938, and the onset of the Munich Crisis in September, then he would have been remembered as one of Germany’s greatest leaders.

Those observers around the world celebrating the political demise of Donald Trump would do well to contemplate the extraordinary contingencies of history. That so many Americans still believe in his star bears witness to the enduring power of the last-possible-saviour myth.

Nor should Trump’s opponents assume that the events of the past twelve months have discredited Trump. Hard though it may be to accept, the former President’s red-capped followers read these events through a radically different lens. What they believe they saw was their hero ambushed by a global pandemic cooked up by America’s enemies abroad, and then robbed of his presidency by the corrupt machinations of America’s enemies within.

If Americans are not to elect their own dictator to power in 2024, then Joe Biden and his Democrats will have to do what the German Left so tragically failed to do in 1932. They will have to give America a medicine that works – and a strength that does not fail.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 19 February 2021.

Long Live The People's Dictatorship!

Doing What The People Say: If Jacinda Ardern’s Government is to be branded “near dictatorial” for doing everything New Zealanders expect of it, then: “Long live the people’s dictatorship!” is the only democratic response.

DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP have always been curiously intertwined. I say “curiously” because, contrary to the generally accepted view, they are not opposites. If democracy reposes power in the people, then dictatorship provides an answer to the questions: Who should give expression to the people’s power? Who guarantees that what the people say is done? A dictator may also be a protector. Someone to whom the people voluntarily entrust their safety and security in times of dire emergency.

At moments of extreme peril to the state, the Senate and People of the ancient Roman Republic would confer upon a trusted citizen the extraordinary office of ‘dictator’. For a limited period of time that citizen was permitted to exercise all political and military authority single-handedly.

The most famous Roman dictator was Cincinnatus. According to legend, this conservative aristocrat was called away from his plough by a delegation of the Republic’s leading citizens to defend Rome from its enemies the Aequi. Having fulfilled this mission, Cincinnatus dutifully relinquished his power and returned to his estate.

Kings and dictators also have a lot in common. A strong king was able to defend his subjects from the depredations of his nobles. The “King’s Justices” overruled the functionaries of the local aristocrat against whom humble folk ordinarily found themselves powerless. A “good” king was one who protected the bodies and property of his subjects. A “bad” king allowed his barons to run riot with both.

It is not the unimpeded exercise of executive power that is in-and-of-itself evil; but the purposes to which such power may be put.

Those who protest the “undemocratic” and “near dictatorial” emergency regime set in place to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus in New Zealand are guilty of seriously mischaracterising the present Lockdown and the necessarily comprehensive restrictions required to give it force.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, along with her ministers and public officials were vouchsafed emergency powers by the House of Representatives in the name of the New Zealand people. It is in our name that she is waging the campaign to eliminate Covid-19. We have the right to demand that she protect us, and she has the duty to do exactly that. What could be more democratic than a political leader armed with all the power necessary to carry out the people’s will? If she stops doing what we have asked her to do, then we have plenty of ways of letting her know. (Anyone who doubts the power of the people to make their displeasure felt should take a look at Simon Bridges’ Facebook page!)

No, those raising all these “democratic” objections to the Covid-19 Emergency Regime do not strike me as having the people’s interests at heart. Quite the reverse in fact. Like the robber barons of old, they resent the power of the Prime Minister to protect our bodies at the expense of their property.

For thirty-five years, those same robber barons have steadily stripped the state of the power to intervene on behalf of its people. They are terrified that the Covid-19 Pandemic is exposing the enormous risks imposed on ordinary people by this deliberate policy of disempowering the state. They are even more frightened of the example our Prime Minister is providing of how beneficial the power of the state can be when applied conscientiously. The world looks at the egregious failures of Donald Trump and shudders; it observes the astonishing successes of Jacinda Ardern and cheers.

But surely, as a defender of Free Speech, I must uphold the rights of “non conformists and dissenters” to question authority? Questioning authority in good faith and without the dishonourable intentions of “Gotcha! Journalism” is one thing; shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is another.

But if the theatre really is on fire? What then?

Well, then you do your best to assist the theatre staff evacuate the building swiftly and safely. You certainly don’t stand up and start telling the terrified patrons that they’re being led in the wrong direction; that the exit is actually over here; and, anyway, the staff of the burning theatre across the street are doing a much better job!

If Jacinda Ardern’s Government is to be branded “near dictatorial” for doing everything New Zealanders expect of it, then: “Long live the people’s dictatorship!” is the only democratic response.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 24 April 2020.

Dictatorship Or Chaos? The Only Choice Left In The Middle East.

A Room Full Of Spiders: Shia militiamen training in Iraq. Living with dictators is never easy, but if events in the Middle East since 2003 have taught us anything, it’s that living without them is impossible. The curtailment of civil liberties that characterises dictatorial regimes has often been considered an acceptable trade-off for the peace and stability they bring with them. People living in these circumstances know that the alternative to dictatorship isn’t democracy – it’s chaos.

 

“SADDAM WAS A FAT BLACK SPIDER high up in the corner of the room. You knew where he was, and kept as far away from him as possible.” As a description of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, the metaphor was memorable enough, but what the young Iraqi woman said next was unforgettable. “Now that Saddam has gone the room is full of spiders. You can’t watch them all, and you can’t keep out of their way.”

 

Living with dictators is never easy, but if events in the Middle East since 2003 have taught us anything, it’s that living without them is impossible. There’s a simple reason for this. The conditions that give rise to dictatorship are generally so appalling that the curtailment of civil liberties that inevitably follows their establishment is considered an acceptable trade-off for the peace and stability they bring with them. People living in these circumstances know that the alternative to dictatorship isn’t democracy – it’s chaos.

 

Let us give the West the benefit of the doubt and say that its leaders failed to grasp this obvious truth. Let us assume that when Tony Blair declared Saddam a monster, and insisted the world would be a better place without him, he was being sincere. Let us accord the same honour to President George W. Bush, and assume that he, too, was speaking sincerely when he told the US Congress, in his 2007 State of the Union address: “The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity.” Where does it leave us?

 

It leaves us contemplating a number of brutal truths. The first, and the most brutal, being that, even allowing for Blair and Bush harbouring only the best of intentions, the answer to “the great question of our day” is that America and her allies cannot build free societies in the Middle East. And that the men and women living there will not be sharing the political rights of Westerners any time soon.

 

That being the case, the West’s choice is no longer between dictatorship and democracy; it is between dictatorship and chaos. And, given that chaos is the only thing the West’s intervention in the Middle East has created, there is really only one positive choice to be made, and that is to back those military/political leaders with the best chance of maintaining, and/or restoring, peace and stability.

 

In terms of the present security crises precipitated by the Islamic State, and the deadly chaos of Syria’s civil war (out of which the Islamic State emerged) this can only mean recognising what the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has understood from the very beginning; that the best hope of peace and stability in Syria, and eradicating Islamic State, resides with the Baathist government of President Bashar al-Assad.

 

It is what Emile Simpson, former British Army officer and author of War From the Ground-Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics, is calling the “cold realism” of the  West’s diplomatic and military future. Writing for the conservative American magazine, Foreign Policy, Simpson predicts:

 

“The post-Paris war on terror will affirm the West’s commitment to fighting radical Islamic terrorism, but, in the process, it will reject the idiom of revolutionary, moralizing democratic change inherited from President Bush. Syria was the end of the line for that approach. This new phase will assume that terrorists are nonstate actors, and will take the view that if you have an international system built around strong sovereign states — no matter how brutal or unconcerned with human rights — life becomes much harder for nonstate armed groups, including terrorists. This is simply a reflection of the new realities we face, not a celebration of that shift.”

 

Democrats will stand aghast at this unapologetic re-emergence of Nineteenth Century realpolitik. They would, however, be wise to curb their outrage. The Baathist regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Assad family were, indisputably, ruthlessly oppressive in the context of political rights. When viewed from the perspective of the economic and social rights these secular Baathist regimes delivered, however, the picture changes. Modern systems of public education and health opened up the prospect of a more prosperous life for both men and women. Large-scale state interventions generated both jobs and, by Middle Eastern standards, prosperity. Most important, in both Iraq and Syria, the Baathists kept Islamic fanaticism under tight control.

 

All of which raises the worrying question: Was it really dictatorship that the West was determined to eradicate from the Middle East – including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States? Or was it Baathism? Were the men behind Blair and Bush actually betting that their long-term interests would be better served by “a room full of spiders?”

 

If so, then they lost the bet.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 24 November 2015.