Violent Democracy by Daniel Ross

Reviewed by Bill Church

(Published by Cambridge University Press, $34.95)

This book by a Melbourne academic is an insightful look at some of the ugly, shameful aspects of Australian and US history since about the end of the Cold War ," which Ross suggests, interestingly, was a "50 year aberration" (p 18) and the emergence of USA as the "exceptional power". This is a brave thing to do as the world is in a state of flux.... "The past is never over... (it) may be yet to come."(p17).

Although not every reader will agree, notwithstanding the author’s persuasively argued case, that "democracy has a violent heart" (p 7) and may even feel he draws a long bow when he asserts that "democracy is essentially violent" (p 3) this book does show that democracy often has an undemocratic genesis, and so-called democracies like the US have recently been acting in high handed, undemocratic ways. And anyone who smells a rat when he hears G.W. Bush (and others) use words like "freedom", "liberty", "democracy" etc thousands of times, should take time to read Violent Democracy.

Ross, himself, gives a summary on p 151, which is worth

repeating. He writes:

"Violent democracy is concerned with the thought that the very idea of democracy is violent. It argues that the concepts of a people, a border and of foundation, are violent in themselves, in that they are all ideas that must be imposed in spite of their impossibility, in order to get democracy going. Democracy, if democracy happens, always happens as the assertion of its own existence. And this assertion... a self assertion, is always threatened....Against this there is no recourse but re-assertion. How better to do this than through the struggle against an enemy? Hence some feel that Saddam Hussein was designated the enemy...to produce a new enemy through which America can re-assert to itself its existence."

The book is 183 pp long including notes , references and an index, which could perhaps be a little more detailed.

The Introduction concludes:

"If democracy has a future other than as the vehicle of a new and unprecedented fascism it must be re-invented such that it gains the possibility of rupture, of disrupting the reality of what is currently violently unfolding itself.

A look at the photo on the cover is almost enough to convince the reader to heed this warning. And the text that follows is very sobering indeed.

Chapter 1, among other matters, exposes the transparent hypocrisy of the US attitude to international law; and is particularly scathing of Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary and his "Defense Planning Guidance" which has been so influential on recent US aggressive foreign policy. (As this review is being written, the proposed appointment of Wolfowitz as the next President of the World Bank is described by Joseph Stiglitz, ex Chief Economist of the World Bank, as an act "so insensitive as to look like provocation." SMH 21/03/05)

It is notable, perhaps, that in discussing the motivations for the invasion of Iraq, Ross mentions almost casually, that "...events would not quite have transpired as they have if Iraq was not sitting on an ocean of oil".

In chapter 2 the author looks at the shaky foundations of democracy and examines the question whether democracy can be exported and imposed.

Australia is the focus of Chapters 3, 4 and 5. The crimes committed and being committed against our Koori cousins and the difficulties that Howard and his conservative friends, and others, have with an apology and reconciliation, are considered, and declared to be hopeless. "The original violence can never be undone or even really be compensated" (p78).

In what Ross calls "The Great Debate" he looks at the matter of establishing a republic, at the undemocratic nature of the Senate, at the autocratic power of the Governor- General, and, interestingly, at Howard’s calling upon a poet, rather than a scholar or a lawyer, to write a preamble to the Constitution. Ross suggests that Murray’s draft fails because he wasn’t "bureaucratic enough".

The chapter on border protection contains high praise for Marr and Wilkinson’s Dark Victory, and comments on Australia’s largely bipartisan policy on migration. The author here has some interesting observations on populism which he says has come to mean "the political strategy of appealing to rednecks". He continues: "Whether the issue is immigration or capital punishment, the bipartisan attitude means a disdain for what is popular, and the sense that the political professional is more civilised, more rational, less ignorant and more sensible than the community he or she intends to represent" (p.110). Ross then goes on to examine the phenomenon of Pauline Hanson.

The final chapters deal with the erosion of American democracy..." torn by war" (p.135). Which the U.S. Congress has failed to declare since 1945 in spite of American involvement in numerous belligerent acts in the last half century or so. Ross argues convincingly that war is "...a psychological necessity (p. 131), that "democracy" demanded some spectacular response to the "terrorist" attack on US "narcissism" (p.137) and that with the suspension of ordinary law which happens in war "nothing is impermissible" (p.142). So the " horror of Guantanamo", the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib, and even "the notion of perpetual war" would seem to be part of a logical sequence.

The Afterword is basically an update on matters like the strange handover of Saddam Hussein , the fluid situation in the Middle East, some decisions of the US Supreme Court, and the ritual killing of hostages and its impact via TV.

In a note on p.178 the author acknowledges his debt to Bernard Stieglar and his "remarkable book"(only available in French) on religious extremism and goes on to opine that "....the West is despised for its ability to disseminate its ungodly values.....on a mass scale...."(p172) because this is antipathetic to the individual’s responsibility before God. Is this at the very core of the resistance to US imperialism?

In summary, Violent Democracy is a critical, even jaundiced, look at what is known as democracy. It is a timely antidote to the propaganda that is served up to us hour by hour by those who control the global communications systems.