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Letter:

Democracy and jungle law

During his visit to Taiwan, German theologian Jurgen Moltmann said something that, until March 20, I actually believed: there has not been any true democratic government in history that has begun a war. Before the US invasion of Iraq, it seemed to be a true statement.

When a people govern themselves democratically, war becomes difficult. Usually the majority will not lean towards aggression against another country. Diplomacy and compromise are chosen instead. There is too much to lose in a war.

When the US launched its attack, a big hole in this Moltmann's statement opened. What was supposed to be the leader of the free world initiated a war against another country for quite ambiguous reasons: owning, developing and trading weapons of mass destruction. Today there is no evidence of these weapons, but propaganda works, Nowa war to" liberate" the Iraqi nation from its "evil" leadership is coming to a close.

Quite a lot of people saw a hidden agenda: to gain control of Iraq's oil and get a foot hold in the Middle East influence and everything got even more confusing.

The new world order is not that different from the age of European empires. There is just one difference: the empire is now headed by the US. Just as with the Spainish, British, French, Dutch and German empires, the US empire has to exert fluence all over the globe. Even though some European nations have shown resistance to the coalition of three nations that invaded Iraq, they still want to have a part of Iraq's scraps.

Every empire has its dawn, zenith and dusk. This one will, too. I had a friend who told me that the Achilles' heel of her country, the US, is its own social disparities. It is the richest country in the world but also the one with greater inequality. There are expensive mega-prisons which are disproportionately composed of African-Americans and inner-city ghettos.

The promotion of democracy in the world and the UN system was aimed at building a league of equal nations, but it begun with a flaw. Some have more power in decision-making, vetoing and resource allocation and in the end, although it has been weakened, the real world continues using the only law that we all seem to respect: the law of the jungle. This is the law that the US seems to be following when dealing with other nations.

Francisco Carin Garcia
Taishan, Taipei County
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