Terrorizing Democracy
Dr. George Voskopoulos
July 21, 2005
The onset of terrorism and religious fundamentalism as major threats to security have dramatically affected everyday life across the western world. The recent terrorist attacks in London have once again illustrated that it takes a lot more than military measures to deal with the microcosms of irrationality found in societies.
On the other hand, terrorism has raised the burning issue of securitizing democracies and protecting orderly social life. After all security and insecurity perceptions and misperceptions stem from a strong psychological mental model of thinking and affect positively or negatively evaluations towards others.
The greatest danger terrorism is setting to the western world is the gradual corrosion of democratic institutions and the premiums against abuse of power on behalf of the state and its security mechanisms.
Ever since the terrorist attacks on the US there has been a debate on how democracies should protect themselves and cement social and economic life against the irrational responses of those who appear unable to engage in a critical but constructive debate on how to deal with policies that lead to geopolitical and inter-civilisational incompatibilities.
The issue nowadays is twofold and may be epitomized in how to protect democracies from terror but also how to enhance security without overlaying the democratic principles that constitute the operational mode of liberal democracies.
Measures taken across the western world limit civil liberties, as shown by the Patriot Act in the US. To the same direction point the suggestions of British Premier, Tony Blair, after the terrorist attacks in London.
The critical issue is how to balance between enhancing security and protecting individual and civil rights. Western societies have come a long way to achieve this level of individual freedoms and civil liberties. A policy that suppresses these rights may be considered a victory of terrorism over institutionalized democracy and, to many, is totally unacceptable.
Western European societies along with American society have invested a lot in producing this very set of regulating rules that differentiate them from anachronistic, backward social settings. Already liberal democracies have taken a course that questions the very same values of what is conventionally termed as Western world.
This dangerous path may lead to two undesired side-effects. First, the re-introduction, on a world scale, of a new “McCarthy doctrine” that seeks enemies amongst those who express a different opinion and second, the suppression of civil liberties that epitomize the very essence of western values and the social and political edifice western societies have constructed all these years.
This does not imply that western values are the only ones acceptable in the world. On the contrary, it is this very concept, along with geopolitical expedience that perplexes even further the conflictual setting we are in. The West is indeed unique to those of us who identify themselves as westerners, but it should not be forcibly universal.
Any further compromise of individual rights on the part of those who act as the legitimate agents of the nations may result in annulling the gains of the past. Democracy is the apple of the eye of the western social world and should be defended by both political elites and peoples. It constitutes the most distinct qualitative feature of the Western world, one that makes the West socially, economically and politically attractive.
Terrorism is an amorphous threat that undervalues human life, sidelines political discourse and critical debate and threatens the foundation of democracy. It should be dealt with in a way that does not jeopardize the fruits of hundreds of years of struggle against social oppression.
On the other hand, terrorism has raised the burning issue of securitizing democracies and protecting orderly social life. After all security and insecurity perceptions and misperceptions stem from a strong psychological mental model of thinking and affect positively or negatively evaluations towards others.
The greatest danger terrorism is setting to the western world is the gradual corrosion of democratic institutions and the premiums against abuse of power on behalf of the state and its security mechanisms.
Ever since the terrorist attacks on the US there has been a debate on how democracies should protect themselves and cement social and economic life against the irrational responses of those who appear unable to engage in a critical but constructive debate on how to deal with policies that lead to geopolitical and inter-civilisational incompatibilities.
The issue nowadays is twofold and may be epitomized in how to protect democracies from terror but also how to enhance security without overlaying the democratic principles that constitute the operational mode of liberal democracies.
Measures taken across the western world limit civil liberties, as shown by the Patriot Act in the US. To the same direction point the suggestions of British Premier, Tony Blair, after the terrorist attacks in London.
The critical issue is how to balance between enhancing security and protecting individual and civil rights. Western societies have come a long way to achieve this level of individual freedoms and civil liberties. A policy that suppresses these rights may be considered a victory of terrorism over institutionalized democracy and, to many, is totally unacceptable.
Western European societies along with American society have invested a lot in producing this very set of regulating rules that differentiate them from anachronistic, backward social settings. Already liberal democracies have taken a course that questions the very same values of what is conventionally termed as Western world.
This dangerous path may lead to two undesired side-effects. First, the re-introduction, on a world scale, of a new “McCarthy doctrine” that seeks enemies amongst those who express a different opinion and second, the suppression of civil liberties that epitomize the very essence of western values and the social and political edifice western societies have constructed all these years.
This does not imply that western values are the only ones acceptable in the world. On the contrary, it is this very concept, along with geopolitical expedience that perplexes even further the conflictual setting we are in. The West is indeed unique to those of us who identify themselves as westerners, but it should not be forcibly universal.
Any further compromise of individual rights on the part of those who act as the legitimate agents of the nations may result in annulling the gains of the past. Democracy is the apple of the eye of the western social world and should be defended by both political elites and peoples. It constitutes the most distinct qualitative feature of the Western world, one that makes the West socially, economically and politically attractive.
Terrorism is an amorphous threat that undervalues human life, sidelines political discourse and critical debate and threatens the foundation of democracy. It should be dealt with in a way that does not jeopardize the fruits of hundreds of years of struggle against social oppression.
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