Democracy, preliminaries for the 'fitna'

3 min read EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

The crisis of liberal democracy is rampant everywhere. In essence, it does not respond solely to a lack of leadership, but also to convictions that are increasingly deeply rooted in individuals from different layers of Western society. To this must be added the clearly reactionary values on the rise, including identity values that are at war with the rationalism that originated with the Enlightenment. The result is a more fragile society, barely able to cope with the challenges of the times, with many people who see liberal values as unbearable oppression and seek direct confrontation with the enemy without realizing that this attitude carries risks. .

In Arabic there is the concept of 'fitna', which means dissension, division or civil war, and which in its original meaning is usually applied to the civil and religious wars that ravaged Islam shortly after the death of Muhammad in the seventh century. The word, however, is very topical in the Islamic world. And if we look at what is happening in the United States without going any further, we will see a deeply fractured country where half the population decisively questions the principles of the other half, and vice versa, a situation that is clearly seen in other places. of the West, especially in Europe.

It is as if suddenly individuals could not bear the enormous complexity that the society around them has acquired and have concluded that things must be simplified in a quick and definitive way. It is happening in all spheres and the simplification advocated by the leaders is endorsed and even promoted by a great mass of individuals fed up with so much plurality and complexity. Certainly the ongoing simplification will eliminate problems, but it is already creating others that will surely be bigger.

It must be admitted that progressive and liberal policies have led to an unexpected crisis of authority. In the Nordic countries, whose social-democratic model was envied in the rest of the world, right-wing parties and extreme-right identity parties prevail today, coinciding with what is happening in other latitudes that have not lived through the social-democratic experience. In a more global context, the illiberal models that proliferate like mushrooms and offer the authority demanded by society, and above all by individuals, are gaining interest.

The question arises of what to do in this situation, that is, how are the changes and mutations under way to be managed? Do we need to adapt to them or fight them? These are pressing questions that not everyone will answer in the same way. It is not necessary to blame leaders like Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin for what is happening in their countries, since they are backed by more or less democratic processes with results similar to those experienced by the Nordic countries. People are simply exhausted by liberal values that seem exhausted to them and have led to disaffection and general bewilderment.

It is interesting to see that the return of authority, with the inherent waning of liberal values, is being implemented by means that its supporters consider democratic. Each year they are endorsed by more countries that ratify these methods at the polls. The path that began with the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century is no longer valid even in the most advanced countries from the political and social point of view. We are in an age in which liberal hinges quickly rust. The ideals that until recently were shared by progressive citizens give way to ideals where authority plays a central role, even in the working-class neighborhoods of the big Western cities that until yesterday were impeccably progressive. And this phenomenon is accompanied by identity values that the Enlightenment had relegated, which until yesterday were believed to be hindrances from the past, but which are now gaining momentum to radically change the referents.

The degradation of the institutions that emerged from the Enlightenment is transforming liberal societies into other ones, and it is doing it urgently and by democratic means. At least that is what his supporters assert, for whom the important thing is the ballot box and not the liberal principles that until recently endorsed the results of the ballot box and vice versa. It is happening everywhere, including in an increasingly Eurosceptic and dangerously tribal leaning Europe. In the United States or Israel, these processes are quite advanced, with society divided in such a way that some historians already place it on the brink of 'fitna' or civil war.