Marcos, Baby Doc--Why Not the Rest?

By Henry Grunwald

The falls of Ferdinand Marcos and "Baby Doc" Duvalier have inspired a flurry of agitation with the simple theme, Let's do the same elsewhere, everywhere. The hit-wish list is breathtakingly long, including South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan and many others. Just pull the plug of U.S. support for all these nasty dictators, so goes the argument, and democracy will flourish.

This represents a naive view of democracy, of the extent of U.S. power and of the nature of different regimes too easily swept up under the label "right-wing dictatorships" (or, with special enthusiasm, "tyrannies").

Some critics blame the U.S. for the existence of just about all the world's non-Communist dictatorships. While it is true that many of these receive U.S. support, the forces that lead to dictatorship are usually beyond American control. Take Haiti. It may be possible to bring about a lessening of corruption and brutality. But no amount of American intervention will soon turn that country into a democracy, since politically it is starting from scratch, with a literacy rate of 30% and an annual per capita income of $280.

Take the Philippines. It is widely suggested that Marcos was an archvillain from the start and that only U.S. support kept him in power. The fact is that despite deep and beneficial American influence, Philippine society has always had difficulty in sustaining democracy. When Marcos declared martial law, the country was in violent turmoil. For years his regime was quite tolerable because it provided stability, and supporting Marcos was a sound U.S. policy --up to a point. Exactly when that point was reached is hard to determine. It can be argued that the U.S. should have pulled back from Marcos well before the assassination of Benigno Aquino. Maybe. But such decisions are not simple, at least for people with responsibilities in the real world.

When Corazon Aquino emerged from practically nowhere as a political Joan of Arc and replaced Marcos, most Americans rightly cheered this as a success for democracy. Yet she soon found it necessary to dissolve the National Assembly and the existing constitution amid promises that new and improved models of both would be supplied within a year. If some right-wing general or politician had done this, there would have been screams of protest everywhere. As it is, Aquino's pledge of her democratic good intentions is taken at face value, and it should be. But her intentions are not the issue; her skill and strength are. The Philippines is such a faction-ridden, contentious country that the return to, or advance toward, democracy is likely to be slow and halting at best. At worst, the end could be another dictatorship.

All this underlines the fact that democracy is a complex, subtle system that requires a certain history and certain cultural conditions to function.

The mere mention of history and cultural conditions is regarded by many critics as arrogant, elitist and racist. "What makes you think," say those critics, "that only advanced and educated people are capable of democracy? The poor and the ignorant also yearn for freedom, and why should we assume that they are not capable of free government?"

This emotional argument ignores the evidence and misses the point. Unfortunately, democracy is a minority taste. The Founding Fathers in their Enlightenment glow certainly considered liberty a universal principle. They also considered the emerging U.S. as a model of liberty for the rest of the world. But they had no illusions about how easy it might be to establish democratic governments elsewhere. Jefferson questioned whether democracy could flourish in all circumstances, suggesting that it might be effective only at certain times and places where conditions allowed. Today in most parts of the world it does not exist or is not understood. It is difficult to achieve in tribal, rigidly hierarchical or other traditional societies. It requires a sophisticated calculus of tolerance: the notion that if I take away my neighbor's freedom for some immediate gain today, he may take away mine tomorrow. It requires an ability to compromise, to restrain religious and racial passions. It requires a highly unusual view of authority, which in many places is seen as necessary for order and national survival, for national morale and even pride. In a democracy, authority is something to be suspected and checked unless it serves people rather than only those in power. Finally, democracy requires elites willing to give up power once they have gained it. In fact, elites often use these cultural difficulties as an excuse not to give up power.

Despite all these obstacles, democracy has maintained itself, however fitfully, in all sorts of cultures: in countries as poor and chaotic as India (though oddly enough not in Pakistan, which received the same political stamp from British rule); in a macho nation with deep economic disparities like Venezuela (while in the past eluding many countries in the same area); in a small, underdeveloped country like Botswana (while much of the region lives under one-party rule). But to assume that we can bring democracy to other lands by throwing a switch or withdrawing support from a dictator evokes the image of the divine-right monarch ready to "give" a constitution to his people. Democracy can be helped and nurtured, but it cannot be given. It was imposed on Japan and to a lesser extent on West Germany by American occupation ! forces, but that happened in the exceptional and transforming circumstance of crushing defeat. Democracy must grow organically, in its own soil. Rebellion against arbitrary rule is relatively easy, but it is extremely difficult to organize a free society. Freedom, as logicians might say, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for democracy.

Ever since the end of World War II, a classic problem has been debated and redebated: the alleged conflict between American security interests and American idealism. In one view, America's strategic position in its global conflict with Communism, which is the greatest threat to democracy, must be the first consideration. In the other view, the moral values that America stands for are more important, and ultimately more powerful politically. Much of the argument, however, is artificial. The Carter Administration tried for a while to put idealism first, by cutting aid to repressive regimes, but soon had to make exceptions for countries strategically necessary to the U.S. Conversely, the Reagan Administration came in with a policy of more or less indiscriminate support for anti-Communist regimes but soon learned that anti- Communist militancy and rhetoric were not enough by themselves to make a country a reliable U.S. ally.

In fact, the idealistic approach and the security approach often converge. When a regime becomes so unpopular that it no longer has the support of its own people, it has obviously lost its usefulness as an anti-Communist force, however solid its anti-Communist convictions. The Reagan Administration first learned that lesson in El Salvador when it realized that a regime dominated by the loudest and fiercest anti-Communists--but hated for its death squads and reactionary economic policies--was not America's best bet. The U.S. rightly decided to back instead a left-of-center politician, Jose Napoleon Duarte, who may seem like a dangerous socialist to conservatives but who is in fact a committed democrat with a popular following.

The lesson was even plainer in the Philippines, where Marcos had become so unpopular that his continuance in office would have helped the Communist insurgents and endangered U.S. bases--another situation where idealism and realism successfully coincided.

But obviously the reverse is not necessarily true: while repression can strengthen Communism, removing repression does not automatically weaken Communism or other totalitarian forces. The Kennedy Administration decided that the Diem regime in Viet Nam no longer deserved U.S. support, among other reasons because its oppressiveness made it unpopular and therefore ineffectual. But the governments we put in place after we eliminated Diem were not necessarily any better in the long run. The Carter Administration made a similar decision about Somoza in Nicaragua, and yet again the Sandinistas are hardly an improvement, as most Nicaraguans know only too well today. The withdrawal of U.S. support from the Shah of Iran clearly came much too late, but it is far from certain that an earlier move would have enabled the U.S. to control or influence the fanatical anti-Western passions of Islamic fundamentalism.

The decision about just when and how to withdraw support from a dictatorship is excruciatingly difficult. There are no rules, no laws; choices must be made case by case with subtlety, sophistication and patience. Differences of degree as well as kind must be recognized. It is not enough to put governments into two files, democratic and undemocratic. There are regimes that are improving and regimes that are deteriorating. There are sound and unsound democracies, tolerable and intolerable dictatorships, more or less repression. Even "corruption," so offensive to most Americans, comes in different degrees and must be judged--and fought--in a local context and in the light of local mores. It is the precarious business of statesmanship to recognize these differences and not be deceived by labels. The government of Mexico, readily classified as a democracy, is in certain respects just as harsh and repressive as many regimes classified as dictatorships. The simple litmus test for freedom and civil rights applicable in advanced societies (although they are often violated there as well) cannot be used, for instance, in a country like Turkey, which for decades was ravaged by civil strife and terror. The executive editor of the New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal, asked unhappily in a recent magazine article: "Do we really only have (a) choice between the lesser of evils?" In many cases and in much of the world, that is indeed the only choice we have. To recognize this is not to abandon or betray American ideals but only to see that these ideals require the support of practical and feasible policy.

Americans sometimes think that it is enough to express disapproval of a regime and to withdraw economic support. Both gestures make us feel better, but they do not necessarily work. What Americans are much less inclined to do ! is provide the difficult and costly positive actions needed to promote democracy: careful involvement with local opposition groups, behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuvers and, occasionally, military pressure. The U.S. has sometimes tried to encourage and work with prodemocratic political organizations, open or covert, in other countries, but it has not been particularly successful or skillful in this effort. We must understand that the most important task usually does not end but only begins with the overthrow of a dictator. In the wake of the Falklands defeat, Argentina got rid of its ruling generals, and as far as many Americans were concerned, that was it. But helping Argentina's fragile democracy survive is infinitely more difficult and demands far more skill--and more money. It is easy enough to cheer the new regime because it upholds civil liberties and human rights, but it is far harder to help its struggling economy--and part of that help should include recognition that the debt burden borne by Latin America must somehow be eased if it is not to lead to political explosions.

It is very healthy for dictatorial regimes today to know that U.S. support is not automatic and cannot be taken for granted. Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., made a famous and sound distinction between totalitarian (generally Communist) regimes, which are almost impossible to overthrow or alter, and merely authoritarian regimes, which are subject to change. That really supports the argument that the U.S. should do its best to bring about change in such regimes, which are usually in the American camp, but it must be done carefully and discriminately. Washington, for instance, should press hard for reform of a needlessly repressive government in Chile, a country with strong democratic traditions. The U.S. must proceed more cautiously in South Korea. There a more open government is also needed, including freer political activity and direct presidential elections, but the menacing proximity of the fanatically Stalinist regime in North Korea makes liberalization a much more difficult and dangerous proposition. In Pakistan, too, President Zia ul-Haq should be prodded to continue his gingerly return to democracy, although the move is precarious given the country's strong political passions and the Soviet occupation of neighboring Afghanistan.

Indonesia, which created a stir last week during President Reagan's visit by foolishly cracking down on foreign journalists who had criticized the regime, certainly should improve its record on human rights and corruption. But given the serious threat of Islamic fundamentalism, the Suharto government most of the time has been relatively restrained and successful, especially in raising the country's living standards.

America cannot ostracize or destabilize all "right-wing" dictatorships no matter what. In a recent, much remarked statement to Congress, Ronald Reagan said that the U.S. opposes "tyranny in whatever form, whether of the left or of the right." But democratic change, he went on, must be encouraged in "careful ways that respect other countries' traditions and political realities." Ignoring those realities trivializes democracy and represents an intellectual insult to people around the world who seriously strive for it.