On 30 October 2021, the UNC hosted a Webinar & Round Table Discussion on “Halting The Collapse of Democracy in Trinidad and Tobago.” The Speakers were Nafeesa Mohammed, Timothy Hamel-Smith, Ralph Maraj, and Dr. Winston Mahabir.
The discussion was excellent and can be found here ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_tEJDf48MY
Because of the technical difficulties experienced with Dr. Mahabir, we are reproducing his contribution in full below:
Autocrats and populists are on the march around the world, including in European countries that were seen until recently as firmly in the democratic camp. The phenomenon, coupled with the deepening of authoritarian tendencies in already-repressive Russia and China, has prompted worries that liberalism itself may be waning.
We need to trace and grasp the roots of the problem and take measures to fix it.
As we emerged from the Cold War I think there was A legitimate reason for us to believe that the arc of history was going to deliver us at some point in the future at a time when democracies would be institutionalized around the globe…. very strong democracies that facilitated a global trading network commitment to human rights I think we all hoped we would be there and sensed that that’s where we were headed, that history hadn’t quite ended but there was that Clear sense that democracy and free trade were the way forward… that more and more countries would continue joining this process… but as time has gone on that issue is less clear and in the last decade and in the last few years in particular we have seen a real slip I think, In the context of both the attractiveness of democracy and the endurance of democratic institutions and democratic forms of government.
Developing nations such as ours were flushed with enthusiasm coming out of the Cold War and that of course was a function of American leadership in the post WWII era …and during the time of the Cold War itself. There was this sense and I believe we probably overestimated the likelihood that democracy would take root. Of course the Western alliance had opponents that were authoritarian or totalitarian. This beacon of light had opponents that were illiberal that were just not interested in adopting the Democratic trajectory that the US was espousing.. I am referring here to Russia, China, South Africa in the late 70’s and early 80’s and to other states in the Middle East and North Africa… and other places so that was the first thing.
Perhaps we overestimated the likelihood that we would see democracy take root in the ways that we had hoped. The second is the sense that globalization in many respects that created this global trading enterprise and network wasn’t delivering in many respects for large segments of populations around the world, and as globalization continued on and as many became wealthy as a result of globalization, there were large segments across the globe who benefited little from globalization and in fact were disenfranchised by it …so there was this sense of frustration because as they failed to realize direct personal benefits from the realities of globalization and as they expressed themselves on this matter it seemed that political elites were impervious to their sense of distress, their sense of despair… so I think that’s another area…
The fact that globalization did not deliver to the level of the expectations of many in the world who felt they had been left behind… Left behind at the expense not just by themselves and segments of society …but they had been left behind by the political elites who were willing to see this happen… One was the economic downturn of 2008…
So if you are already feeling as though globalization has not delivered for you this economic shock took any doubt out of your mind… And as we saw economies around the world struggling obviously with the reality of what this shock meant, both what it meant and how hard it would be to recover… This I think in many respects had the effect of breaking the social contract in many of these countries between those who were reeling from the effects of globalization and now reeling if you will from the localized economic reaction to the global economic downturn… So we had a whole variety of these matters…
The last of the shocks came in 2014 and 2015, which was the widespread migration out of the Middle East of conflict migrants and refugees and economic migrants and refugees from Syria from North Africa from Afghanistan actually…We have had our fair share in accommodating our Venezuelan neighbors from a shattered economy, brought about by a failure to compromise. And so you had segments of the population that in many respects had lost trust in their political elites, they were economically disadvantaged, amongst them many Europeans … And the United States as well in some respects . Not so much on the migration issue…
Though we have made migration an issue for political purposes in many respects, the effect of the downturn… and then These elements of the population out of a sense of trust for the political elites out of a sense of cynicism that democracy was not delivering for them began to listen very intensely to those voices of populism those voices that promised an improvement in their lives economically and improvement in democracy frankly as they would be able to deliver it… those voices that promised were received with a lot of enthusiasm in many of these countries…
Some milestone mistakes …..
The US was focused in a very real sense and constantly dealing with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and war of course was in many respects trust upon the Western democracies. I think the decision really about the war in Iraq was a terrible decision and we will be reaping the negativity of that event for another generation if we’re lucky. These two wars sucked up a lot of the US capacity to focus internationally and in doing so I think the US took its eyes off the ball in many respects…
I am here again referring to Russia and China primarily but as we sought to organize and deal with these problems it became more difficult in some respects for many of the Western democracies to come along without overwhelming UNSC resolutions on these issues and as the United States became distracted we all appeared to put less emphasis on the strength that comes from multilateral commitments to organizations but also multilateral solutions to problems … the Islamic state “Daesh” had to be dealth with and There was real American leadership in that regard by Obama’s decision to call for a global coalition to counter the Islamic state and that clearly would not have happened without American leadership…
And yes the US military has the capacity for global reach but in the end it is the global reach and the global leadership of the United States which could be present at any given moment to help the world through it’s most difficult moments whether its Ebola, whether it’s sars whether it’s Al Qaeda whether it’s the Islamic state whether it’s an economic downturn, our powerful neighbor to the north, the United States can be counted on to be there and the exercise of US leadership and the capacity to lead is exceptional in many respects…but the US also has to bear a responsibility for the rise of authoritarianism in the West…
In countries like Poland, Hungary and Brazil which now have semi-authoritarian governments for example, the rise of the national front in France or the authoritarian turn of Netanyahu in Israel… So living by example is one of the most important things we have to do with respect to relations everywhere… These changes are gradual and incremental they appear to occur within the text and processes of democracy and by the time we realize that the slip has occurred it is entrenched in many respects in what is left of the democracy of that country…
The failure of the United States to stand up to authoritarian states and to lead by example is both a failure of will and perhaps a failure of choice… It is a product of a broken system… The terrible gridlock, the partisanship in the United States has made speaking with any kind of a unified voice on foreign policy and the threat to Democracy so much more difficult….
Some of these changes towards Illiberalism or authoritarianism are so incremental and so gradual THAT the point where an intervention might have been, that moment that could have reversed that change that slippage … thats difficult to foresee in retrospect so I don’t think it was an absence of will… it was probably the fact that the US as it watched this occur did not act decisively at any particular moment to try to reverse those changes and it could have been effected by a change in diplomacy effected in a change in economic relationships trading relationships willingness to dispense aid all of those potential levers shy of intervention that are available ….but when we are reluctant to intervene or when there are powerful forces to prevent a willingness to intervene we see this as an incremental moment to moment change…
We could easily find ourselves one morning waking up and we have an illiberal state…an wondering how it got there because in fact it was the democratic processes that were seized and corrupted unto themselves… And usurped by this populist regime to where you can point to a democracy but it’s not really a democracy as we understand it.
Our leaders at the time of independence created an enormously powerful document to restrain tendencies towards illiberalism and authoritarianism… The articles enshrined in the Constitution the succession of amendments the difficulty in changing the Constitution all of those are important tensions that we create in a system that precludes the rise of a particular individual… Our Constitution is extraordinarily hard to change and amend. Our leaders at that time saw that.. So while there could be instincts and reflexes that we hear or that we read in the tweets etc. that would lead one to believe that there would be a willingness to become more authoritarian… Or illiberal actions such as the vilification of some of the media…references as being “The enemy of the people”…
These are all indicators that we should be attentive to and rather than wringing our hands in despair of the moment I think we need to return to the strengths of the promise of the Constitution… And we should all become experts about the Constitution and that’s why debates like this are so important …. the freedom of the opposition under authoritarian regimes politically, where they are vilified… where they are ostracized …where they would be victimized in our country,….we cannot permit that to happen…
Understanding our rights and understanding where we fit into our capacity to govern and how we have an obligation… Real patriotism is recognizing the flaws in our government, having the courage to point them out and having the guts to stand up and make a difference… That’s real patriotism.
If Trinidadians and Tobagonians are despairing at the moment, we can take heart in the fact that no matter who is in the Prime Minister’s office no matter what the legislature looks like it’s not going to be able to make fundamental or profound changes in those governing documents to change our democracy… We might be a bit rusty now at this but now is the time for us all to become experts on the issue of the Constitution…
When in January 2016 during his inaugural speech the US president largely declared that Human Rights would not be his top priority … that was another manifestation of a waning commitment…And then there were other occasions where we could see very clearly that the United States this beacon of light… In its dealings with international partners was seen as being harder on its allies in a bilateral sense as opposed to pursuing multilateral transformational relationships than we had ever been before…
It was now harder to be an ally a friend and easier to be an authoritarian or an illiberal leader and so when I see from where I sit some of those leaders welcomed into the White House and celebrated, when we see some of our closest traditional alliance partners being criticized in an ad hominem manner at times personally criticized… When we see some of the closest US allies on the planet who also spent blood and treasure in wars led by the United States and who have paid for their dedication only to be excoriated….Then If you are a very strongman overseas those are very powerful signals… That there would be few international restraining influences… few real efforts by the United States to lead a global community of nations that can adjust behavior… Then this is perhaps your moment.
This is what concerns me and this is what concerns many of us who have seen this in action…
How can we reverse this slide towards authoritarianism… Many of these issues can be solved by leadership …my hope is that our leadership should vigorously and unambiguously make the case for Commitment to Rule of law and not Rule by law, that we should stand fast with the Community of like minded democracies….That they would stand for Human Rights in each aspect… That they would stand with all of those nations for whom human rights the rights of others the rights of women… We will stand with those states and we will not stand with those who are inherently violators of human rights and the rule of law and the many things that we hold so dear and precious as Trinidadians and Tobagonians.
I would also advise that our neighbors across the region are looking to see who we appoint as our Attorneys General, our National Security leadership … The depth of our foreign minister and our foreign policies… These early indications are particularly important to our neighbors and our global partners… We don’t live in a bubble… These tactical pointers help to create a sense of calm… a sense of reinforcement… a sense of consistency for our neighbors and our partners .
For those who believe that they have been strengthened or will have been abetted by recent administrations it will cause them to have to think about what a new government would look like as they would have to deal with a prime minister and government who stands for the things I’ve just talked about…
Finally, returning to the issue of leadership there are still very strong voices in our community who will work in every way that we possibly can with the global community of like-minded democracies as still remains, and will still work within the country to accomplish these objectives. It will be less obvious it will be more difficult… But we simply can’t give up on our freedoms as enshrined in the Constitution…
Even if our great neighbor to the North has abdicated an important leadership role in the world there are still very powerful, strong and influential voices in our country who can have a positive effect in our neighborhood and our region beyond, today.
Thank you very much.
– Dr. Winston Mahabir