Politics
Barbados and Global Democracy: Challenges Amid Weather Calmness
Barbados reflects on Hurricane Beryl's passage, urging vigilance for democracy amidst global political challenges. Representative democracy faces scrutiny amid global political shifts and historical lessons. Hubris, humility, and principled leadership are key considerations.
6 min read
Originally published by barbadostoday.bb (opens in new tab)
We are thankful for the divine favour once again shown to Barbados with the relatively uneventful passage of Hurricane Beryl. As part of our collective thanksgiving, let’s rally around our fisherfolk. However, we must remain vigilant not only with regard to hurricanes but, equally important, our democracy.
The world teeters on a cliff edge. The fundamentals of peace, freedom, rule of law, and multilateral cooperation are imperilled due to cumulative failures of political leadership. The failure to learn from COVID-19 or act to secure the world’s climate and biodiversity, coupled with the war in Ukraine and crises in the Middle East and elsewhere present the most perilous period since World War II.
There is a widespread sense that representative democracy is not doing well. As France and Europe lurches to the political right, the UK general election is compared to a ‘choice between dumb and dumber’, while the US presidential election is like a scene from Grumpy Old Men, as the prospective leaders of the ‘Free World’ gripe over golf handicaps.
Representative democracy seems to have lost the capacity for reinvigoration. As the 20th century dawned, democracy grew by extensions to the franchise and burgeoning of welfare states. WWII demonstrated the benefits of democracy compared to Nazism as the Cold War juxtaposed liberal democracy against totalitarian communism, the results clear to all notwithstanding the phenomenon of China.
However, the 2016 US presidential elections followed by Brexit transformed a complacent optimism into a mounting pessimism. History provides the uncomfortable lessons that governance systems are not everlasting.
It is easy to point to hubris as the cause of our political woes; with the corollary that humility, principled leadership, and unwavering faith in the Creator, the constitution, and the people will move us forward. However, the problem is more complex as is the solution.
Notwithstanding the January 6 attempted coup d’etat in Washington DC, democratic institutions are being undermined from within. Corruption, cronyism, and ideological polarisation distort political decision-making processes.
This has been compounded by the fact that social forces that mobilised people in the past, whether the threat of war, post-colonial and other political alignments, or global movements such as women’s and other human rights, are experienced differently now. In an increasing atomised world, linked to technology, the prospect of catastrophe leads to passivity rather than collective action. Today, people seem paralysed in the face of systemic global economic risk, climate change, or the rise of artificial intelligence. Self-interest has displaced the collective good.
