Conversation with Francesca Badia Dalmases, award-winning journalist and political analyst.

In Episode 15 of The Fading Causes Podcast, we consider democracy and its discontents.

The democracy concept is much touted and flaunted, but even more abused. Is it still worth believing in, let along fighting and dying for, as they are doing in thousands on the streets of Iran? I hope their aspirations are realised.  As also the hopes of millions in oppressed places such as Venezuela. Hope the people of Greenland get what they freely choose. While the people of Uganda dispute what just happened there.

Still, despite all its disappointments and contradictions, democracy remains, paraphrasing Winston Churchill: “the worst form of governance except all the other forms”.

My interlocutor Francesc Badia i Dalmases is an old-school and somewhat romantic believer in democracy. But then he has a right to be, growing up under the shadow of Fascist Franco.

I try my best to convince him of his naivety: are humans not genetically or culturally hardwired to be ruled by strong men? Haven’t all tyrants and despots arisen out of democracies (not just Hitler)? Thinking more, have not many genocides emerged from the bowels of democracies – raising the question of how democracies get so easily subverted? And now, is there much to choose between so-called democratic and authoritarian states when it comes to delivering for the welfare of their citizens?

Going further, has not majoritarian democracy (usual form) proved toxic for the human rights of minorities and “others”? Continuing, if populists come into power through democracy, is it ok then to effect their policies such as throwing migrants back into the Mediterranean or deporting them violently across American borders?

So, isn’t too much democracy a bad thing? And isn’t an excess of liberal democracy making society ungovernable?  Has the emphasis on individual v. collective rights in democracy got too skewed to one or other side?

Is the accelerating trend towards authoritarian democracy the answer? And can it be that some countries, especially in Africa with previous traditional forms of democracy, unsuited for the Western-imposed form? How do you compare the democracies of different continents?

It was Abraham Lincoln who defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” He was the first Republican President of the United States and so, today’s Republican President Trump is his direct political descendant. How much of “the people” is left in US governance as the country celebrates its 250th anniversary? Actually, quite a lot, despite the current dramas there. Can that be said for other democracies?

Francesc is a stubborn interlocutor and does not take my provocations lying down. He argues back…