The writing on the wall

Submitted by Anon on 18 June, 2003 - 1:00

Uzbek “Republic”

A fair election result was finally secured in the Ukraine over the Christmas period — although only after mass protests had secured a re-run.

There will be no such happy outcome in Uzbekistan where all five parties taking part in the 25 December parliamentary election supported the incumbent President, Islam Karimov. Additionally, two-thirds of potential candidates were not allowed to stand.

The European Union having little interest in this Central Asian “republic” were somewhat quieter about the result than they had been about Ukraine, although their election monitors condemned it.

But then the fact that Karimov runs a tight ship is well known. The media and opposition is repressed. Torture is used where legal restrictions are considered not adequate. It is not only the growing Islamist terrorists that have felt the crackdown.

The US will not be too critical, either, because Uzbekistan has proved a willing partner in its “war on terror”.

Uzbekistan was once, of course, also part of the former Soviet Union. Putin too will not be preaching to the Uzbekistan government about democracy.

Islamic "Republic”

Meanwhile, in another “republic”, the Islamic Republic of Iran… A teenage girl with a mental age of eight is facing the death penalty for prostitution. Leyla M is 19.

She was forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of 8. She was repeatedly raped, bore her first child when she was aged nine, and was passed from pimp to pimp before having another three children.

A victim? No, a sinful criminal, according to the Iranian authorities.

A child, yes, but no matter — under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed.

This surely can’t be the same Islamic Republic where Elane Heffernan of the SWP recently said “women could play an active role in all areas of public life”.

US “Republic”

Surely, though, things in the greatest democratic Republic on earth are getting better? Well, yes, Alberto R Gonzales has been nominated Attorney General of the United States.

A surprising choice, perhaps, because this is the judge that seems to have spent a lot of time circumventing the law, rather than enforcing it.

This is the judge who advised Bush that the Geneva Convention should not apply to the war in Afghanistan. The Geneva Convention was, he said, “quaint”.

And so, illegal and abusive methods of interrogation have been used in Afghanistan and at the Guantánamo detention camps.

Judge Gonzales believes that Congress cannot stop the President from ordering torture, if he does so in furtherance of his role as Commander in Chief. What Bush says goes.

But, then, Gonzales is, of course, a good ol’ boy: he advised Bush when he was Governor of Texas, helping Bush to ensure that people on death row paid their dues to society.

Tory “standards” of democracy

Perhaps it is better to live in a constitutional monarchy, if democratic standards are what you are after?

Oh dear, not if Michael Howard gets his way.

Howard’s special contribution to the tsunami appeal was to advise everyone in the UK to give more (then he claimed the credit when they did).

Howard is fond, you see, of talking about “power to the people”.

This would be the same Tory party that undermined the democracy of local authorities, abolished the Greater London Council, emasculated Local Education Authorities…

Need we go on?

Now they plan to cut back on MPs. A blessing, some might say. But hardly likely to improve representative democracy.

Arise sir moneybags

What better example of the idiocy of constitutional monarchies than the honour’s system. It is also profoundly undemocractic. Who heads the list of new Knights Bachelors (that’s sirs, to you and me)? Robert Gerard Finch, former Lord Mayor of London, for services to the City of London, Alan Jeffrey Jones, chair of Toyota, Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, Robert Walker Kerslake, Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council... and on and on. Most have been knighted for their services to business.

We’d like to organise an alternative honour’s list except we’re not quite sold on the concept of “honouring”.

Still, if we did, ours would go to single parents everywhere, people fighting miscarriages of justice and deportation, anyone who’s been on strike this year, the children of New Labour politicians... oh and anyone who’s ever turned down an honour. That would be just Benjamin Zephaniah then.

Any other recommendations?

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