How Democracies Die

How do we make sense of this new equation between war, death and democracy?

- Ajay Gudavarthy

DEMOCRACY was invented in history to tame power, force and violence. It was a way of questioning the natural superiority of individuals or collectives based on race, faith, gender, or ethnicity. It was said: 'democracy denatures power'. Above all, democracy was imagined as an antonym of violence. This optimism was true even at the end of the 20th century after Fascism stood defeated. But at the turn of the 21st century, not only are democracies seemingly dying but they are also erupting into mass violence and death. Much of the violence is happening not against, but in the name of democracies. Today's mass violence is a way of actualising the 'general will' of the majority. The principle of majority has collapsed into majoritarianism, and democracies that came about to tame power look domesticated and helpless. Death and democracy have a new equivalence that has escaped conventional political explanations. Today, there is a renewed need to explain the political through the lens of death.

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama prematurely declared the 'end of history', only to realise that it is increasingly turning out to be the end of (liberal) democracy. Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari had yet again prematurely declared the end of conventional war, only to perhaps realise he lives and works in a State that is spearheading global warfare. Conventional warfare has made democracies weak and vulnerable. What was invented to empower the weak today looks emaciated. Palestine is the Holocaust of the 21st century, but what makes it chilling is that it is carried out and justified in the name of the Holocaust of the 20th century. Victims have become aggressors. 'Historical injury' of the past is whipping up violent orgies of the future. How do we make sense of this new equation between war, death and democracy?