Ruslands og Kinas stormagtsintentioner bør få omverdenen til at reagere.
How long will the world watch while Russia and China systematically crack down on any democratic process?
Russia and China’s aspirations for being superpowers ought to make the world react.
These are dark times for democracy in Russia and in China. Every day the systems use their tight grips to ensure that people are forced into a life without the right to think, believe, and express themselves freely.
Yesterday, it was announced that Russia is closing Memorial International, an organization that maps human rights violations. The organization has been seen as a key part of Russia’s development in a democratic process.
Russia takes down and poisons political opponents, but they do not refrain from attacking critics of their system within their own borders. We regularly hear that advocates of freedom of speech are poisoned in European countries, such as Germany and England.
China exposes its people to one monstrosity after another. Forced sterilization, labor camps for groups that believe and think something other than the communist regime wants them to, known and lesser known women and men who disappear from one day to the next, etc.
But China has also given the world a prime example of how to introduce totalitarianism in record time.
Developments in Hong Kong give a clear picture. In 11 months, more than 50 organizations, political parties, media groups, churches, youth organizations, pro-democracy movements, etc. have been dissolved. Even Amnesty International has had to close down.
What got to me was a story about an organization of lawyers who have been working to promote democracy since 2007 are among the groups that have had to close down this year. Why? Because this clearly shows that China’s methods are systematically aimed at groups that can provide support to those who work for democracy.
The formula works, China keeps on pushing their agenda. Russia does the same. If I was Taiwan or Ukraine, I would be very nervous – especially since there is no indication that the rest of the world intends to respond to either China’s or Russia’s aggressions.
The United States, the United Nations and several European countries have condemned the two countries behavior and imposed diplomatic boycotts. But is that enough? Diplomatic boycott is a clear symbolic tool, but it is far from enough when powerful nations use their anti-democratic muscles and hammer peaceful measures into the ground.
So is it not rather naive of the surrounding world to think that two huge nations with dreams of great power will stop and ´only´ force measures through, that is aimed at their own populations?
China and Russia have enormous economic and resource power. Is that why the world does not dare to react? Or do democracy and human rights not really mean much to us, as long as we ourselves enjoy living in free conditions? That is a dangerous attitude, because developments in China and Russia have shown that the rights we take for granted can disappear from one day to the next.
How long has the world been going to look at anything more than a shrug?
Danish-American Eyes on Society 