Recent events in Australian politics had put me off writing
social opinion pieces. Not that I have become less opinionated, but I just feel
like I couldn’t be bothered anymore. The disappointment on both sides of the
so-called Australian politics was just too overwhelming. However one of the
discussions at tonight’s ABC’s “Q and A” got me thinking about something – is
there really a perfect political system? Is politics ever meant to be for the
benefit of the society?
These questions came about when they discussed about how
China refuses to change politically but embraced western economic systems with
open arms. They questioned how this is possible and whether this is, to an
extent responsible. Now there is no doubt that China has become the core of the
global economy. A lot of things, if not everything, are hinged on the Chinese
market. When Deng Xiaoping opened up China economically, there was never an
intention to change its core political ideology. This is why we have what we now
called the June 4 Incident. The greatest concession China ever made was to
establish the “One Country Two Systems” first with Hong Kong then with Macau. Even
that, the autonomy is not complete and there were tensions from time to time
over ideological controls.
People might condemn the political practice in China, but
one thing I think a lot of people were never aware of was that China never
really had a prolonged history of democracy. The Kuomingtang (KMT) Government
was short-lived and corruption ridden, which I personally do not think left a
good impression on the people of China at that time. Otherwise the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) would not have a chance to undermine them during the war
against Japan, which eventually led to the civil war and the KMT fled to
Taiwan. So strictly speaking, China has been mostly under dynastic rules of
successive kings and then a one party rule of the modern government. The good
part of this is that things get done. I personally do not think the Great Wall of
China would come into being if it were under democratic rules. No matter how
much people criticised the Communist Party, they did get things done and
brought China back up from the “Slicing of the Chinese melon” status to now a
major player in international politics. This is the strength of single power
rule. Similarly, Hong Kong never had real democracy under the British colonial
rule. And at that time lots of things got done and Hong Kong evolved from a
small fishing village to now a economically important metropolitan. Looking at
now, with people throwing bananas in the semi-democratic Legislative Council,
councillors seemed to have lost sight of what they were supposed to do.
These kinds of issue do happen in the western democratic
establishments. The recent Australian election was just a farce of who is going
to be voted out rather than which capable person is going to be voted in. There
is no doubt that Labor lost because people wanted to vote them out and the
Coalition won because people wanted to vote the Labor out. Tony Abott is not a
popular choice to represent Australia with his “suppository of knowledge” and
his decision to shy away from “Q and A” to debate with Kevin Rudd but appeared
on “Big Brother” to talk up the hotness of his daughters. Democracy as great as
it sounds, at the end of the day is just another tool of the privileged few.
This was further proved last week when the American Government was shut down
because the Republicans were playing their political games. These politicians,
under the banner of democracy were supposed to seek benefit for the general
public they claim to be representing. However, the government shut down saga
exposed that all they cared about were their own power at the expense of
average families getting paid so they could pay their bills.
Another common thread in all political systems is the act of
corruption. We always hear about how corrupted in China is because of the one
party rule. There is no doubt about that. The system has become so nepotic that
it is virtually a family and good friends business. However one thing people
tend to forget is that corruption exists in western democracy too. Australian political
scene is constantly marred by corruption from council to state levels. Australia
might have better systems to detect and litigate corruptive acts but if they
think they are better than developing countries and non-democratic entities,
they are just see the spike in other people’s eyes without seeing the logs in
their own.
Of course there is the issue of oppression and persecution
that were commonly exposed under single power systems. The Cultural Revolution would always be
remembered and not to mention stories from Iran, Iraq, Syria and North Korea. However,
does that mean under democratic rules there would be no persecution and
oppression? I personally do not believe so. These practices still happen but
unlike the red terror that involves blood, under democracy it became things
that played out in courts or during parliamentary sessions where people expose
each other’s dark secrets to shut other people up. Maybe the pen is mightier
than the sword, but in politics both are equally deadly.
To be honest I do not have an answer to what political
system is better. For me if Adam and Eve were not left to their own device, we
could still be enjoying free lunches in the Garden of Eden instead of working
hard to pay our bills. So it seems right from the beginning mankind is not
capable of self-governing. God might have given us a brain to figure things out
and thus all those political ideologies and system, but maybe at the end we
still need a divine intervention to set us straight. Could this be global
warming? I don’t know. But the question is if this divine intervention arrives,
where could we go? As we are no longer living in any paradise anymore.
