Freedom and the quest for democracy pervaded and penetrated almost every news story published in 2011. How could it not? Uprisings, civil wars and genocide have all occurred as a direct result of attempts, whether successful or not, to overthrow dictators. But people in 2011 have not been entirely liberated.
The Arab Spring is one of the most enduring images burned into the collective consciousness of 2011. Mubarak, Gaddafi and Ben Ali have all been ousted from government. A collective dictatorship, they have, between the three of them, ruled by force and without democracy or freedom of press for 96 years . But are the people of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya truly emancipated?
This depends on the terms, and whether we consider a people ruled by elected leaders more emancipated. With Egypt’s military seemingly continuously postponing elections and Tunisia’s government comprising of a majority of the Islamist Nahdah Party – described as both moderate and conservative – can we expect western style democracy and way of life in such countries to grow overnight? I would argue no. He who controls the past controls the future, he who controls the present, controls the past may not hold so much nowadays, with free flow of information via the internet.
However, overthrowing totalitarian governments is difficult and requires momentum to capture the Zeitgeist and people’s imagination. In Egypt, there is already a growing sense of malaise and revolutionary fatigue as the protests continue, despite assurances from the ruling Junta. It is too early to tell what will happen in Libya, with arms laid down just a few months ago, but the tribal and local identities of the various peoples will likely play a much more dominant political role than ideological one compared to Egypt and Tunisia.
Syria continues to riot and seethe. The government has allowed international observers into the country at the demand of the Arab Union. The people, however, will not be held to the same demands as the government who must plan in the long term, while martyrs will only spur further protests. A cult of personality, ruthless extermination of protestors and cities claiming to be liberated. The formation of a Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army shows similarities between it and Libya are more than cursory.
With countries embracing democracy, it is the westernised democracies that should have been holding the torch and displaying the freedom available, and the opportunities it affords citizens. Alas, it seems nobody in the White House got the memo, and the United States has recently passed a bill – the National Defense Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA for short) – allowing detention of any person on the globe indefinitely without trial. This from a government for whom the figurehead won the Nobel Peace Prize the moment he was elected in 2009. It should be noted that in 2010 and 2011 all laureates were given the prize for their work in the promotion of human rights and women’s rights.
Another bill, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is to be debated. This act allows for the blocking and transferral of ownership of any website which links to copyrighted material without permission. Think about that for a moment – ANY WEBSITE THAT LINKS TO ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. This means Google, Facebook, Youtube, anything with copyrighted material WITH A LINK TO IT! This extends to individuals with a $150,000 fine for any person infringing. Not only this – if a site is outside US jurisdiction, it is simply blocked. Great firewall of the United States anyone?!
The United States is not the only country to erode the rights of citizens in a nonchalant and blatant manner. The Protection of State Information Bill is currently between houses in the South African parliament, awaiting debate in the National Council of the Provinces. This bill allows the labelling of any government document to be ‘secret’, and anybody in possession of these documents to be treated as a foreign spy and treated as such legally. Consider this – the government has done something immoral, perhaps illegal. They label any reference to this and all documents relating to it ‘secret’. This means that any investigative reporter wishing to expose it is risking his or her very freedom and life to expose it. To see that it could be used to cover vested interests – both individual and corporate – is not a great stretch of the imagination.
The UK is, however, making strides in demonstrating how to legislate freedom with its aptly titled “Protection of Freedoms Bill”. This bill basically involves the legislation of activity not previously covered by any law whatsoever. These include, but are by no means restricted to:
- Restrictions on the length of time and reason a person’s DNA may be kept in the police database.
- Reducing the length a terrorist suspect may be detained without trial from 28 days to 14 days.
- The Publishing of a code of conduct for CCTV by the Home Office and the creation of a post for a CCTV commisioner.
- Reducing a council’s ability to take individuals to Court over minor offences.
- Restricting stop and search powers.
- Increasing freedom of information and access to it.
The bill is not perfect – freeing up the number of jobs sex offenders may take up may certainly raise a few eyebrows – but it makes me proud to live in a country which takes freedom seriously.
Russia has partial and China has full control of their respective state media. Elections in Russia were marred by controversy, with some vote counts totalling up to 140%. United Russia took a total vote of 59%, up from some projections of 27% by exit poll strategists; any guesses where that extra 40% might have gone? Psychiatric clinics and prisons were among those voting overwhelmingly in favour of United Russia.
How would I summarise freedom in 2011? A near-failure. A time when corporate and private interests converged to disenfranchise an entire generation of any freedom of expression, speech and press.
Andy Smith
This Affected Youth 
Excellent article. However one thing you do not make reference to is the cross-party suspicion that the Protection of Freedoms Bill, if successful, will actually roll back individual liberties safeguards and lead to carte blanche police powers – government draftsmen have the canny ability to make a bill appear as if it doing something while at the same time, using inpenetrably complex language, ensuring that substantively it will achieve the opposite.
Two words sum up the entire issue: self-interest. Governments will bang on forever about democracy and the rule of law, but they will only put their money where their mouth is when it is in their self-interest to do so. Consequently they are all too happy to go into overload in calling for the empowerment of citizens in suppressed states as it in our economic interest to gain stakes in different, especially oil-rich, parts of the world (witness Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s message that British corporations should “pack their suitcases” for Libya as “I expect there will be opportunities for British and other companies to get involved in the reconstruction of Libya”). This, of course, is the true agenda. Conversely, governments will conveniently forget the rule of law when it comes to policing their own people, as especially in the post-9/11 era of mass hysteria and paranoia it is necessary for governments to be able to show decent crime figures for their continuing popularity. Hence the draconian law-and-order policies of the Blair administration, which were (thank god) partly watered down by the Human Rights Act – a precious piece of legislation. No coincedence that the Tories are trying to get rid of it, as it diminishes their ability to project themselves as being ‘tough’ on crime and immigration.
It is all political self-interest – they are hypocrites. Coming from the perspective of a social liberal I agree with the content of your writing; I myself have written on similar issues and would be interested to hear your thoughts: http://thisaffectedyouth.com/2011/10/09/beware-a-british-bill-of-rights/#more-2499